Revels v. State

• Decision Date: 27 December 1995
• Docket Number: No. 94-02845,94-02845
• Citation: 666 So.2d 213
• Parties: 21 Fla. L. Weekly D70 James REVELS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 213

666 So.2d 213

21 Fla. L. Weekly D70

James REVELS, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 94-02845.

District Court of Appeal of Florida Second District.

Dec. 27, 1995.

James Marion Moorman, Public Defender, Bartow, and Allyn Giambalvo, Assistant Public Defender, Clearwater, for Appellant.

Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Brenda S. Taylor, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.

ALTENBERND, Judge.

James Revels appeals his conviction for possession of crack cocaine, arguing that the trial court should have suppressed the cocaine as the fruit of an illegal arrest. Although this case is similar to Burnette v. State, 658 So.2d 1170 (Fla. 2d DCA 1995), in which the police lacked probable cause to arrest the defendant, we conclude that probable cause existed to arrest Mr. Revels in this case.

On the evening of January 3, 1994, the St. Petersburg Police Department assigned two experienced narcotics officers to observe a house at 1001 15th Street South. This specific house was known to be in a location where crack cocaine was sold. This knowledge was not based on rumor or hearsay, but on the fact that the police had made numerous narcotics arrests for transactions occurring at the house.

The officers concealed themselves in an adjacent vacant house approximately fifty feet away. A street light on the corner provided good visibility. Before arresting Mr. Revels, the officers monitored the house for at least a few minutes. They observed two separate events in which cars pulled up to the curb in front of the house. A man who was sitting outside the house walked up to each car. On both occasions, the officers observed hand-to-hand transactions in which currency was exchanged for an unidentified object.

Within ten minutes of these events, at approximately 9:45 p.m., Mr. Revels arrived at the same location on his bicycle. The man from the house walked over to Mr. Revels, who had currency visible in his right hand. He gave the money to the man, and the man placed a small object in Mr. Revels' left hand. Mr. Revels then placed his left hand in his left jacket pocket. The police officer who made these observations testified that he could not identify the small object as crack cocaine, but the overall transaction was very similar to numerous other cocaine transactions that he had witnessed prior to this arrest.

The officers conducting the observation communicated by radio with a another officer in a police car. They advised the patrol officer to stop Mr. Revels and search his left front pocket. Mr. Revels was stopped within three blocks of the house, and a nonconsensual search of Mr. Revels' pocket revealed crack cocaine.

In Burnette, this court considered a similar case involving a house under observation in the same neighborhood as the house in this case. 658 So.2d 1170. The police methods and the time of day are comparable. Two critical factors distinguish this case from Burnette. First, the officers in Burnette did not observe an exchange of either money or drugs in the hand-to-hand transaction. Second, they did not observe two prior currency transactions on the same evening. In Burnette, this court held that the officers' narcotics experience, the reputation of the location, and the evidence of prior surveillance resulting in arrests was sufficient to warrant a Terry stop, but was not sufficient to establish probable cause for arrest. 658 So.2d at 1171. In both Burnette and this case, the search exceeded the pat-down permitted incident to a Terry stop. Accordingly, unless the police had probable cause to arrest Mr. Revels, this cocaine must be suppressed as the fruit of an illegal arrest.

Probable cause to arrest exists when the totality of the facts and circumstances within the officer's knowledge would cause a reasonable person to believe that an offense has been committed and that the defendant is the one who committed it. See Shriner v. State, 386 So.2d 525, 528 (Fla.1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1103, 101 S.Ct. 899, 66 L.Ed.2d 829 (1981); State v. McCormack, 517 So.2d 73, 74 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987); Cross v. State, 432 So.2d 780, 782 (Fla. 3d DCA 1983).

"The facts constituting probable cause need not meet the standard of conclusiveness and probability required of the circumstantial facts upon which a conviction must be based." Shriner v. State, 386 So.2d at 528. " 'In dealing with probable cause, ... as the very name implies, we deal with probabilities. These are not technical; they are the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act.' " Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 231, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 2328, 76 L.Ed.2d 527, 544 (1983) (citation omitted). "The officer need not actually see the law being violated nor must he satisfy himself beyond any question that a felony has been committed." Russell v. State, 266 So.2d 92, 93 (Fla. 3d DCA), cert. denied, 271 So.2d 140 (Fla.1972). An officer is permitted to take a realistic view of the facts in making a probable cause determination, see State v. Maya, 529 So.2d 1282, 1287 n. 7 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988), "for [p]robable cause is a matter of practicalities, not technicalities." McNeil v. State, 512 So.2d 1062, 1064 (Fla. 4th DCA 1987) (citation omitted), review denied, 519 So.2d 987 (Fla.1988).

State v. Russell, 659 So.2d 465, 468 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995).

We conclude that the totality of the facts and circumstances in this case would cause a reasonable person to believe that a drug offense had been committed and that Mr. Revels had committed the offense. In addition to the facts in Burnette, the fact that the officers witnessed the exchange of money in this case is critical to our decision. In the overall context of this case, the exchange of money is unlikely to be an exchange for any small object other than crack cocaine. The fact that the officers witnessed two prior exchanges on this same evening adds to the circumstances supporting probable cause.

In another recent case, Howard v. State, 623 So.2d 1240 (Fla. 2d DCA 1993), this court implicitly ruled that a similar arrest following surveillance was not based on probable cause. In Howard, money was observed in the hand-to-hand transaction, but there is no indication in the opinion that a specific house had been targeted because of its prior history or that recent similar transactions had occurred at the house. Similarly, in Winters v. State, 578 So.2d 5 (Fla. 2d DCA), review denied, 589 So.2d 292 (Fla.1991), we held that the officers there lacked probable cause after viewing an exchange of money in an alley. Although the alley was reportedly "known for drug activity," the opinion does not describe prior surveillance or arrests in the alley or the basis for its reputation. The surveillance appears to have been an isolated event by officers whose training and experience are not described in the opinion.

In Ramirez v. State, 654 So.2d 1222 (Fla. 2d DCA), review denied, No. 85,836, 662 So.2d 933 (Fla. Oct. 11, 1995), an officer observed a similar currency exchange that was not sufficient to create probable cause. In that case, however, the police had not established a controlled surveillance of a known drug outlet. It is apparent from the facts contained in the opinion that the police observation was a random event. See also Doney v. State, 648 So.2d 799 (Fla. 4th DCA 1994), review denied, 659 So.2d 272 (Fla.1995).

In Walker v. State, 636 So.2d 583 (Fla. 2d DCA 1994), the police stopped the defendant and searched his car after he had left the scene of alleged drug transactions. The circumstances of the surveillance are very similar to Mr. Revels' case. This court...