State v. Baez

• Decision Date: 10 November 2004
• Docket Number: No. SC02-1173.,SC02-1173.
• Citation: 894 So.2d 115
• Parties: STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Robert BAEZ, Respondent.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

894 So.2d 115

STATE of Florida, Petitioner, v. Robert BAEZ, Respondent.

No. SC02-1173.

Supreme Court of Florida.

November 10, 2004.

Rehearing Denied January 5, 2005.

Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, Tallahassee, FL, and Celia A. Terenzio and Melynda L. Melear, Assistant Attorney Generals, West Palm Beach, FL, for Petitioner.

Carol Haughwout, Public Defender and Gary Lee Caldwell, Assistant Public Defender, Fifteen Judicial Circuit, West Palm Beach, FL, for Respondent.

PER CURIAM.

We have for review Baez v. State, 814 So.2d 1149 (Fla. 4th DCA 2002), which expressly and directly conflicts with the decision in Lightbourne v. State, 438 So.2d 380 (Fla.1983). We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(3), Fla. Const.

The following facts were accepted by the trial court as an accurate representation of the events, as the court found the police officer's testimony to be credible. There was a notification made to the police and Broward Emergency Medical Services of a vehicle parked at night in a normally abandoned warehouse area in the city of Weston, Broward County. The officer, upon arriving to the dimly lit warehouse area between 8:30 and 9 p.m., used his flashlight to look inside the vehicle to see Baez, who was "slumped" over the wheel of a parked white van. The officer then knocked on the passenger-side window with his flashlight. He was concerned about Baez, who appeared asleep or in need of medical attention. Baez immediately awoke, and the officer asked him through the car window if he was alright. Baez, not able to hear the officer's question, opened the door and got out of his car. The officer did not request or demand that Baez step out of the vehicle. Once Baez was outside of the vehicle, the officer repeated his inquiry into Baez's condition, and Baez responded that he was alright and had just fallen asleep. The officer then requested to see some "identification." Baez produced his driver's license, which the officer looked at and then went to his police car to run a computer warrant check. The computer check revealed an outstanding warrant for Baez's arrest from New Jersey, and Baez was arrested. After being placed in the arresting officer's police car, Baez was later transferred into another police car. The arresting officer found two small plastic bags containing cocaine in the officer's car where Baez had been seated.

Baez was charged with possession of cocaine, and he moved for suppression of the evidence, arguing that once the officer retained his license, after identifying him, he was unlawfully detained while the officer ran the warrants check. The trial court denied the motion to suppress, finding that the defendant consented to the search in a consensual encounter, and Baez was convicted by a jury for possession of cocaine and sentenced to five and a half months in jail. The Fourth District Court of Appeal reversed, finding that after the officer had inspected appellant's driver's license the consensual encounter had ended and that Baez was detained in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights while the officer was holding his identification. Baez v. State, 814 So.2d at 1151. We quash the Fourth District's decision and hold that Baez was not unreasonably detained while the officer ran a warrants check on Baez's driver's license.

This case is similar to and should follow Lightbourne v. State, 438 So.2d 380 (Fla.1983). In Lightbourne, this Court found that the request for and subsequent warrant check of the defendant's driver's license was not a violation of the Fourth Amendment. In Lightbourne, the officer responded "for the purpose of investigating the citizen's call regarding a suspicious vehicle." Id. at 389. The defendant in Lightbourne sat awake in his parked car, while Baez was asleep behind the wheel. Id. at 388. In both instances, the officer asked for identification and the citizen voluntarily handed over a driver's license. Baez left his car on his own volition, while Lightbourne remained inside the parked car. In each case, the officer inspected the license and then brought the license to the police car to run a warrant check. Id. at 387. We found in Lightbourne, under circumstances there existing, that an officer could ask for identification and take the identification to the police car to run a routine warrant check on the information without there being an unconstitutional stop or seizure. This Court held in Lightbourne:

Officer McGowan's investigation of the suspicious vehicle in this case does not rise to the level of an unconstitutional stop or seizure. Officer McGowan simply approached the parked car, asked defendant a few simple questions as to the reason for his presence there, his current address, and then ran a routine check on defendant's car and identification. Surely the average, reasonable person, under similar circumstances, would not find the officer's actions unduly harsh. There is nothing in the record that would indicate that prior to defendant voluntarily relinquishing his driver's license to Officer McGowan he was not free to express an alternative wish to go on his way. The Court need not consider here the question of what would happen if a citizen, asked for identification under somewhat similar conditions, and who upon declining to surrender such identification, was placed under arrest. The implication is that in reality, rather than theory, one who has been so confronted by an officer is not free to leave.

. . . .

In the case sub judice we find no "stop" or "seizure" of the defendant within the meaning of Terry and its progeny occurred prior to his removal from the car by Officer McGowan to conduct the pat-down search. Officer McGowan was simply performing his duty as a police officer to investigate a citizen complaint, motivated by a concern that the defendant might be in need of assistance. Once on the scene, the officer acted prudently for the protection of the safety of the concerned citizen and his neighbors in the community when he proceeded to check out the defendant's car and identification.

Id. at 387-88.

We note that this case is also not controlled by our recent decision in State v. Diaz, 850 So.2d 435 (Fla.2003). The facts presented in Diaz were:

A Hillsborough County Deputy Sheriff observed a vehicle driven by Diaz pass by with a temporary tag on the top of the rear window. Because he could not read the tag, the deputy initiated a traffic stop. At the suppression hearing, the deputy testified that as he approached the car he could clearly read the tag including the expiration date and found nothing improper. He walked up to the driver's side of the car and obtained information from Diaz, the driver, which ultimately led to the charge against Diaz of felony driving with a suspended license.

Id. at 436 (quoting Diaz v. State, 800 So.2d 326, 326-27 (Fla. 2d DCA 2001)). There, we held that based upon the totality of the facts presented, "the law enforcement officer ... had no justification for continuing the restraint of [the] motorist and obtaining information from him after it was clearly determined that no question remained concerning a violation of law or the validity of the car's temporary license plate." Id.

As stated in Diaz, the totality of the circumstances controls in cases involving the Fourth Amendment. See State v. Butler, 655 So.2d 1123, 1125 (Fla.1995)

. Here, the issue was not whether the reason for the stop had been eliminated by facts which developed after the stop had been made. Rather, the police officer was given the driver's license in a consensual encounter. The question was whether the police officer could then retain what he was consensually given long enough to do the computer check. The totality of the circumstances presented demonstrates that unlike in Diaz, the officer did have a reasonable basis and reasonable suspicion to investigate Baez further. Baez was found in a suspicious condition — slumped over the wheel of his van — in a location in which he should not normally have been — a dimly lit warehouse area at night. Baez voluntarily exited his vehicle, and when asked for identification, gave his driver's license to the officer. The officer had sufficient cause to further investigate by doing a computer check based on Baez's suspicious behavior. It was not unreasonable for the officer to proceed with the computer check when he had not yet eliminated reasonable concern and justified articulable suspicion of criminal conduct. Unlike in Diaz, the officer here had not eliminated all criminal suspicion.

Thus, for the reasons expressed herein, we quash the Fourth District's decision and remand for proceedings consistent with this decision.

It is so ordered.

WELLS, LEWIS, and CANTERO, JJ., concur.

WELLS, J., concurs with an opinion.

BELL, J., concurs in result only with an opinion.

QUINCE, J., concurs in result only.

PARIENTE, C.J., dissents with an opinion, in which ANSTEAD, J., concurs.

WELLS, J., concurring.

I concur with the majority decision. I do so for the following reasons.

Under the facts of this case, as testified to by the law enforcement officer and found by the trial judge to be credible,¹ the law enforcement officer received a call to assist Broward County Emergency Medical Services with a suspicious incident where a subject might be passed out behind the wheel of a vehicle. The law enforcement officer responded to the area, which was a normally unoccupied warehouse area. It was between 8:30 and 9 p.m., and the area had very limited lighting. When the law enforcement officer arrived on the scene, he observed the van, and inside the van he saw a person sitting behind the wheel. According to the law enforcement officer, this person was slumped over the wheel and it appeared that the person was either asleep or something was wrong with the person. The officer knocked on the window of the person's (Baez's) vehicle, at which time Baez sat up. The law enforcement officer, who was in...