Rinehart v. State, 1096
| Decision Date | 02 September 1959 |
| Docket Number | No. 1096,1096 |
| Citation | 114 So.2d 487 |
| Parties | Ted J. RINEHART, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Hal S. Ives (of Ives, McIntosh & Davis), West Palm Beach, for appellant.
Richard W. Ervin, Atty. Gen., and Irving B. Levenson, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
Appellant appeals from a conviction in the lower court under a two-count information; first, attempting to break and enter with intent to commit a misdemeanor, petit larceny, and second, possession of burglary tools. On his appeal defendant urges five points; namely, (1) is an arrest, where no felony or misdemeanor was committed in the officer's presence, a lawful arrest, (2) is a search of a person and his car, without a search warrant, as a result of an unlawful arrest, legal, (3) does a search of a person's automobile without a valid search warrant by virtue of a 'purported consent', procured by duress and coercion, constitute a waiver, (4) does a mere act of knocking on a door of an apartment in a hotel building and then walking away constitute an attempt to break and enter the apartment for the purpose of taking and carrying away property of another of the value of less than one hundred dollars, and (5) does the mere possession of keys, together with other paraphernalia, constitute possession of burglarious tools within the meaning of the statute?
The state, being dissatisfied with the questions in the defendant's brief, has substituted its own and lessened the number to three. However, for the purpose of this appeal it is not necessary to answer the five questions posed by the defendant.
The facts of this case are relatively simple. A resident of the fashionable Palm Beach Towers Apartment Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida, during the daytime heard some one ring the doorbell to her apartment and immediately thereafter when she went to the door she saw the defendant walking down the hall, and her dog was barking furiously at him. She asked the man what he wanted and the defendant's answer was 'I have the wrong apartment', and he proceeded on. The tenant recognized the voice she had heard in December when the same circumstances had transpired and on which date another apartment in the hotel had been burglarized. The tenant immediately placed a call to the front desk of the hotel and reported this incident. Whereupon, the superintendent dispatched a bellhop to the floor of the tenant to investigate. The bellhop testified that he had observed the defendant leaving the building through a back door and coming around the side of the building near the front entrance. Both the building superintendent and the bellhop approached the defendant and engaged him in conversation, awaiting the arrival of the police whom the superintendent had summoned. When the police arrived, defendant initially denied having been in the hotel, but after being informed that he had been seen in the building, he admitted that he had been in the hotel visiting a married woman whose name he would not reveal. He was thereupon arrested by the police on a vagrancy charge. While he was under arrest he was asked by the police if he would give them permission to search his station-wagon, and his remark was, 'I might as well give you permission to search it because you will search it anyway.' Defendant then wrote out in his own handwriting his permission for the police to search his car. The car was searched and in it were found a pair of white gloves, a flash light, miscellaneous keys, small papers or cardboard with keys inserted containing addresses of various residences in Palm Beach County, several metal files, small screw drivers, a small vise, locks and lock equipment, key making equipment, and tools used for the manipulation of locks which are commonly know as lock picks.
In his first point the defendant argues that his arrest was illegal in that there was no offense committed in the presence of the police officers and cites § 901.15, Florida...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Canney v. State
...199 So.2d 324, at p. 328. The legality of an arrest does not depend upon the conviction or acquittal of the accused. See Rinehart v. State, Fla.App.1959, 114 So.2d 487, cert. dismissed Fla., 121 So.2d 654, cert. den. 365 U.S. 849, 81 S.Ct. 812, 5 L.Ed.2d 813 'In considering the legality of ......
-
Gonzalez v. State
...598 (1976)); Grimes v. State, 244 So.2d 130, 133 (Fla.1971); Davis v. State, 226 So.2d 257, 260 (Fla. 2d DCA 1969); Rinehart v. State, 114 So.2d 487, 489 (Fla. 2d DCA 1959). Other factors must be considered in determining whether consent to a search is voluntary, including whether there wer......
-
Johnson v. State
...1959); State ex rel. Green v. Capehart, 138 Fla. 492, 189 So. 708 (1939). Appellant's conviction must be upheld, Rinehart v. State, 114 So.2d 487 (Fla.App.2d 1959), certiorari dismissed 121 So.2d 654 (1960), certiorari denied 365 U.S. 849, 81 S.Ct. 812, 5 L.Ed.2d 813 (1961); Sutherland v. S......
-
Bailey v. State
...not in and of itself deprive the consent to a search of the essential free and voluntary quality. Ghelfi v. State, supra; Rinehart v. State, Fla.App.1959, 114 So.2d 487; see also, Annotation: Validity of Consent to Search Given by One in Custody of Officers, 9 ALR3d 858, et seq. A consent m......