Paulson v. State, 71--787

• Decision Date: 01 February 1972
• Docket Number: No. 71--787,71--787
• Citation: 257 So.2d 303
• Parties: James William PAULSON, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 303

257 So.2d 303

James William PAULSON, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 71--787.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.

Feb. 1, 1972.

Barrett, Diliberto & Estrumsa, Miami, for appellant.

Robert L. Shevin, Atty. Gen., and Joel D. Rosenblatt, Asst. Atty. Gen., and David I. Gilbert, Legal Intern, for appellee.

Before PEARSON, HENDRY and BARKDULL, JJ.

PEARSON, Judge.

The appellant was found guilty of breaking and entering with intent to commit grand larceny and grand larceny after a trial before the court without a jury. He was sentenced to three years in the state prison and this appeal followed. There are two issues involved: (1) Was the proof of the value of property taken sufficient to meet the requirements for proof of grand larceny? (2) Were appellant's constitutional rights violated by the admission at trial of his previously obtained fingerprints? We affirm.

Appellant's position upon the first issue is not sustained by the record. The record contains sufficient testimony from the owner as to the value of the property taken. Roundtree v. State, Fla.App.1970, 236 So.2d 140.

The question of the admissibility of the fingerprints of the appellant was first raised upon a motion to suppress the fingerprints. The basis of the motion to suppress was that the fingerprints were obtained upon appellant's arrest for a previously charged crime and that the arrest was illegal as being in violation of F.S § 901.15(1) ¹, F.S.A. It was thereupon argued that because the arrest upon the prior charge was illegal that therefore the fingerprints taken at the time of the arrest were 'fruit of a poison tree' and therefore inadmissible in evidence upon the prosecution for the later crime.

Appellant's initial arrest was upon a charge of public drunkenness. His fingerprints were routinely taken and proved to match fingerprints discovered at the scene of the larceny. Appellant's guilt of the breaking and entering and the larceny charges was fully proved by the testimony of an accomplice and was corroborated by the fingerprint evidence. The claimed illegality of the arrest upon the public drunkenness charge resulted from the fact that police observed appellant's condition while they were upon an emergency call to aid a young lady who was seriously ill. Appellant was observed in the hallway of the apartment house where the girl was found. The police did not arrest appellant at this time for the stated reason that the emergency call took precedence. He was arrested several hours later.

Appellant relies upon the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U.S. 721, 89 S.Ct. 1394, 22 L.Ed.2d 676 (1969), for a holding that because the initial arrest upon the misdemeanor charge was illegal the fingerprints taken at that time may not be used in a subsequent prosecution for another crime. In the Davis case, supra, the court set forth facts of an investigatory search for the perpetrator of a rape. Within a period of ten days the police, without warrants, took at least 24 Negro youths to police headquarters where they were questioned briefly, fingerprinted and then released without charge. The petitioner was one of those questioned, fingerprinted and released. He was subsequently again arrested without charge and confined to jail, fingerprinted a second time, took a lie detector test, and subsequently made a statement. The petitioner was thereafter indicted and tried for the rape and the fingerprint evidence was admitted into evidence at the trial over petitioner's timely objection that the fingerprints should be excluded as the product of an unlawful detention. The court held:

'Detentions for the sole purpose of obtaining fingerprints are no less subject to the constraints of the Fourth Amendment.'

'We have no occasion in this case, however, to determine whether the requirements of the Fourth Amendment could be met by narrowly circumscribed procedures for obtaining, during the course of a criminal investigation, the fingerprints of individuals for whom there is no probable cause to arrest. For it is clear that no attempt was made here to employ procedures which might comply with the...