Rodriguez v. State
| Decision Date | 10 December 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. SC14–160.,SC14–160. |
| Citation | 187 So.3d 841 |
| Parties | Miguel RODRIGUEZ, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
187 So.3d 841
Miguel RODRIGUEZ, Petitioner,
v.
STATE of Florida, Respondent.
No. SC14–160.
Supreme Court of Florida.
Dec. 10, 2015.
Rehearing Denied March 16, 2016.
Carlos Jesus Martinez, Public Defender, and Shannon Hemmendinger, Assistant Public Defender, Eleventh Judicial Circuit, Miami, FL, for Petitioner.
Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL; Jill Diane Kramer, Assistant Attorney General, and Richard L. Polin, Bureau Chief, Miami, FL, for Respondent.
PERRY, J.
Miguel Rodriguez seeks review of the decision of the Third District Court of Appeal in Rodriguez v. State, 129 So.3d 1135 (Fla. 3d DCA 2013), on the ground that it expressly and directly conflicts with decisions of this Court and the district courts of appeal on the application of the inevitable discovery doctrine. See Fitzpatrick v. State, 900 So.2d 495 (Fla.2005) ; Moody v. State, 842 So.2d 754 (Fla.2003) ; Jeffries v. State, 797 So.2d 573 (Fla.2001) ; Maulden v. State, 617 So.2d 298 (Fla.1993). We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(3), Fla. Const. Because we find that the Third District improperly applied the inevitable discovery doctrine to the facts of this case, we quash the decision below.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE AND FACTS
The facts of this case were presented below:
Several bail bondsmen were attempting to locate one of their clients. The client, who had been charged with marijuana cultivation in a different house, had listed the address of Mr. Rodriguez's home on his application for the bond. When the bondsmen knocked on the front door of that home, Mr. Rodriguez answered. He told the bondsmen that he did not know their client and that he was alone in the home. The
bondsmen requested permission to search the home to be certain their client was not hiding there, and Mr. Rodriguez consented. The bondsmen noticed a smell of marijuana in the home.
Encountering a locked bedroom door, the bondsmen asked Mr. Rodriguez to open it so they could confirm that their client was not hiding there. Mr. Rodriguez unlocked the door and told the bondsmen that he was growing marijuana in the room. At that point, one of the bondsmen in the group moved outside and called the police to report what the bondsmen had observed.
About thirty minutes later, a uniformed officer arrived at the home. The officer testified that Mr. Rodriguez invited him to enter. The officer saw the grow room, called the narcotics squad, and placed Mr. Rodriguez in handcuffs in the back of the officer's squad car while they waited for the narcotics detectives to arrive. The bondsmen remained at that location throughout, and spoke to the lead detective when the narcotics unit arrived.
The lead detective testified that Mr. Rodriguez signed a form consenting to a search of the home. Mr. Rodriguez testified that he only signed the consent forms because the narcotics detectives had guns and most were also wearing masks. After their search confirmed the presence of a "grow room" containing six-foot marijuana plants, lights, and 36 pounds of marijuana, the detectives arrested Mr. Rodriguez.
The defense filed a motion to suppress. At the hearing on that motion, the circuit court heard testimony from the lead bondsman, the police officer who first responded to the call from the bondsmen, the lead narcotics unit detective, and Mr. Rodriguez. The state did not establish that the police officer or any detective had made any efforts to obtain a search warrant before law enforcement entered the home or Mr. Rodriguez was arrested. The lead detective did, however, testify that he would have sought a warrant if Mr. Rodriguez had not consented to the search.
The court denied the motion to suppress, although the court found that Mr. Rodriguez's consent to entry by the police and detectives, and his signature on the consent form, were coerced. The court concluded that the inevitable discovery doctrine applied because probable cause had been established before law enforcement requested consent, and:
Soon as the bail bondsman calls and says, Listen I'm looking at a hydroponics lab to me that's a trigger. If they had not gotten consent they would have gone and gotten a warrant.
Following the denial of the motion to suppress, Mr. Rodriguez entered a guilty plea and reserved the right to appeal the suppression issue. He was adjudicated guilty and sentenced, and [then appealed to the Third District Court of Appeal].
Rodriguez, 129 So.3d at 1136–37 (footnotes omitted). Based on these facts, the Third District found that the trial court properly applied the inevitable discovery doctrine. Id. at 1138. On appeal, Rodriguez argues that because law enforcement was not conducting a separate ongoing investigation, and the officers were not in the process of obtaining a warrant when the illegal conduct occurred, the lower courts improperly relied on the inevitable discovery doctrine. We agree. From the totality of the evidence, we find that the application of the inevitable discovery doctrine was improper and hold that the trial court should have
suppressed the evidence obtained from the illegal search.
DISCUSSION
Standard of Review
"A trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress comes to the appellate court clothed with a presumption of correctness and the court must interpret the evidence and reasonable inferences and deductions derived therefrom in a manner most favorable to sustaining the trial court's ruling." Terry v. State, 668 So.2d 954, 958 (Fla.1996). Accordingly, "the appellate courts defer to the trial court's factual findings so long as the findings are supported by competent, substantial evidence, and review de novo the legal question of whether there was probable cause given the totality of the factual circumstances." State v. Hankerson, 65 So.3d 502, 506 (Fla.2011).
Merits
The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. Searches or seizures executed without prior approval by a judge or magistrate are "per se unreasonable." Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967). "[T]he warrant requirement is an important working part of our machinery of government, not merely an inconvenience to be somehow weighed against the claims of police efficiency." Riley v. California, ––– U.S. ––––, 134 S.Ct. 2473, 2493, 189 L.Ed.2d 430 (2014) (internal quotation marks omitted). Further, the exclusionary rule makes evidence obtained either during or as a direct result of an unlawful invasion inadmissible. See United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967) ; Murphy v. Waterfront Comm'n of N.Y. Harbor, 378 U.S. 52, 84 S.Ct. 1594, 12 L.Ed.2d 678 (1964) ; Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963) ; Silverthorne Lumber Co., Inc. v. United States, 251 U.S. 385, 40 S.Ct. 182, 64 L.Ed. 319 (1920). The purpose of the exclusionary rule is to sufficiently deter deliberate police misconduct. See Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. 135, 144, 129 S.Ct. 695, 172 L.Ed.2d 496 (2009). We recognize three exceptions to the exclusionary rule: "(1) an independent source existed for the discovery of the evidence; or, (2) the evidence would have inevitably been discovered in the course of a legitimate investigation; or (3) sufficient attenuation existed between the challenged evidence and the illegal conduct." Moody, 842 So.2d at 759 (citations omitted).
Of particular concern here is the inevitable discovery doctrine, which applies to balance the need to deter police misconduct with the societal cost of allowing obviously guilty persons to go free. Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 443, 104 S.Ct. 2501, 81 L.Ed.2d 377 (1984). The inevitable discovery doctrine was first adopted by the United States Supreme Court in Nix and has long been recognized by this Court. See, e.g., Mansfield v. State, 911 So.2d 1160 (Fla.2005) ; Fitzpatrick, 900 So.2d 495 ; Moody, 842 So.2d 754 ; Craig v. State, 510 So.2d 857 (Fla.1987).
Under this exception, "evidence obtained as the result of unconstitutional police procedure may still be admissible provided the evidence would ultimately have been discovered by legal means." Maulden [, 617 So.2d at 301 ]. In adopting the inevitable discovery doctrine, the Supreme Court explained, "Exclusion of physical evidence that would inevitably have been discovered adds nothing to either the integrity or fairness of a criminal trial." Nix, 467 U.S. at 446 [104 S.Ct. 2501]. In making a case for inevitable discovery, the State must demonstrate "that at the time of the
constitutional violation an investigation was already under way." Moody[, 842 So.2d at 759 (quoting Nix, 467 U.S. 431, 104 S.Ct. 2501 (Stevens, J., concurring in the judgment)) ]; see also Jeffries v. State, 797 So.2d 573, 578 (Fla.2001) ; Maulden, 617 So.2d at 301. In other words, the case must be in such a posture that the facts already in the possession of the police would have led to this evidence notwithstanding the police misconduct. See Moody, 842 So.2d at 759.
Fitzpatrick, 900 So.2d at 514.
Inevitability under this rule "involves no speculative...
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