State v. Gifford

• Decision Date: 28 February 1990
• Docket Number: No. 88-1910,88-1910
• Parties: 15 Fla. L. Weekly D599 STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Walter Allen GIFFORD, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 444

558 So.2d 444

15 Fla. L. Weekly D599

STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Walter Allen GIFFORD, Appellee.

No. 88-1910.

District Court of Appeal of Florida Fourth District.

Feb. 28, 1990.

Rehearing Denied April 19, 1990.

Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Deborah Guller, Asst. Atty. Gen., West Palm Beach, for appellant.

Richard L. Jorandby, Public Defender, and Louis G. Carres, Asst. Public Defender, West Palm Beach, for appellee.

POLEN, Judge.

In the course of a police investigation, appellee became a suspect in a sexual offense case. A police records check revealed an outstanding probation violation warrant in appellee's name. Even though appellee protested repeatedly that the warrant was no longer in force, police officers arrested him and brought him to a jail facility. Further inquiry into the warrant substantiated appellee's claims. ¹ When the jail authorities so informed the investigating officer, who was interviewing the two victims of the sexual offense at the hospital's emergency room, the officer instructed them to continue to detain appellee since the officer had probable cause to arrest him. When, approximately four hours later, the detective arrived at the jail, he advised appellee of his Miranda rights and conducted an interview during which appellee gave a written confession. Subsequent to the interview, the detective formally informed appellee that he was under arrest for the sexual offense crime. ²

At the motion to suppress hearing, the trial court determined that while the continued detention was lawfully based on probable cause, the written statement was inadmissible because it flowed from an initial illegal arrest, the taint of which was never dissipated. We reverse.

A void or nonexistent warrant may not be the basis for a legal arrest and search. Martin v. State, 424 So.2d 994, 995 (Fla. 2d DCA 1983); Pesci v. State, 420 So.2d 380, 382 (Fla. 3d DCA 1983). Therefore, the fact that the arresting officers did not discover the warrant's invalidity until after the arrest did not transform it into a lawful one. Nor does the "good faith exception" to the exclusionary rule apply and validate the arrest. See United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984).

However, subsequent to the initial unlawful arrest, when the detective ordered appellee's continued detention, appellee was lawfully "arrested" based on probable cause, advised of his Miranda rights and confessed. The record reflects ample support for the trial court's finding of a sufficient showing of independent probable cause for this arrest. The detective testified that, prior to interviewing appellee, he had probable cause because (a) he had interviewed the victims and witnesses; (b) while with the victims and sexual assault counselors at the medical center, he picked up bits and pieces of information from the road patrol commander; and (c) the vehicle described as an instrumentality of the offense by both victims was found at appellee's residence. This is much more than a mere suspicion lacking articulable facts or a bare conclusion. See Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527, reh'g denied, 463 U.S. 1237, 104 S.Ct. 33, 77 L.Ed.2d 1453 (1983).

While it would have been theoretically more pristine for the officer to follow protocol, especially given the illegality of the initial arrest, the sequence of events and totality of the circumstances were such that the officer had no realistic alternative but to order appellee detained rather than released and re-arrested. Detention by one officer at the direction of another is legal. United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 105 S.Ct. 675, 83 L.Ed.2d 604 (1985); State v. Kehoe, 498 So.2d 560 (Fla. 4th DCA 1986), approved, 521 So.2d 1094 (Fla.1988).

It is not dispositive that appellee was not informed of the carnal knowledge arrest until after receiving Miranda warnings and giving his confession. State v. Emery, 411 So.2d 341 (Fla. 4th DCA 1982). In Dunaway, the Supreme Court clearly stated that application of the fourth amendment's requirement of probable cause does not depend on whether an intrusion of this magnitude is termed an "arrest" under state law. No formal words are required stating that an individual is under arrest. The critical issue is whether probable cause for the arrest exists in light of the facts of each case. Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979).

In determining whether a statement made subsequent to an illegal arrest is the product of free will, in addition to the giving of Miranda warnings, a fifth amendment threshold requirement, the court must satisfy fourth amendment concerns by examining the "causal connection" between the illegal arrest and the subsequent statement. The court must consider: (1) the temporal proximity of the illegal arrest and the statement; (2) the presence of intervening circumstances; (3) and the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct. Dunaway, 442 U.S. at 219, 99 S.Ct. at 2260 [citing Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 603, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 2261, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975) ]. In the instant case, approximately four hours passed between the illegal arrest and appellee's statement, the elements that supported the detective's probable cause were intervening factors and the official conduct was performed in good faith.

Appellee's claim that his confession was involuntary due to intoxication, being under the influence of narcotics and fear of the detective, was a question of credibility which the trial court resolved adversely to appellee. The officers testified appellee exhibited no signs of fear or intoxication. Appellee's testimony indicates he imbibed no intoxicants for a period of fourteen hours prior to the confession. His testimony of inability to remember the entire interrogation is insufficient to establish intoxication. Thomas v. State, 456 So.2d 454 (Fla.1984), judgment aff'd, sentence vacated and case remanded, 546 So.2d 716 (Fla.1989). Nor was there evidence of coercion or threats made against appellee. His belief that the detective harbored ill will towards him was subjective, not caused by the detective's conduct and not grounds for suppression. Thomas, 456 So.2d at 458.

Granting the primary illegality of the arrest based on the warrant, appellee's confession, rather than resulting from exploitation of that illegality, was an act of free will sufficiently distinguishable to purge any "primary taint." Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963). The trial court's order granting the motion to suppress is reversed.

GLICKSTEIN, J., concurs.

ESQUIROZ, MARGARITA, Associate Judge, dissents with opinion.

ESQUIROZ, MARGARITA, Associate Judge, dissenting.

I respectfully dissent. I cannot agree with the majority's holding that the record contains sufficient evidence of independently acquired probable cause to justify Walter Gifford's continued detention after he was admittedly arrested illegally at his home, without probable cause and without a valid warrant.

First, case law suggests that this after-the-fact determination of probable cause is not constitutionally permissible, at least not when the initial detention amounts to a full-scale arrest. See United States v. Gutierrez-Guajardo, 699 F.Supp. 608, 610 (S.D.Tex.1988). See also Hayes v. Florida, 470 U.S. 811, 105 S.Ct. 1643, 84 L.Ed.2d 705 (1985); Spicy v. City of Miami, 280 So.2d 419, 422 (Fla.1973); Carter v. State, 199 So.2d 324, 328 (Fla. 2d DCA 1967). This is not a case featuring an initial police contact generated by a reasonable or founded suspicion of criminal activity, which turns sequentially into full-blown probable cause to arrest as events lawfully progress. See, e.g., United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 105 S.Ct. 675, 83 L.Ed.2d 604 (1985); United States v. Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675, 105 S.Ct. 1568, 84 L.Ed.2d 605 (1985); § 901.151, Fla.Stat. (1987). Even assuming that a reasonable or founded suspicion of criminal activity--based on articulable facts to justify a temporary detention--existed at the time of the initial police contact with Gifford, it is clear that Gifford was not merely "temporarily detained" for investigatory purposes when he was involuntarily taken from his home to the jailhouse for the ostensible purpose of interrogation. ³ In Hayes, the Court cautioned:

[T]he line is crossed when the police, without probable cause or a warrant, forcibly remove a person from his home or other place in which he is entitled to be and transport him to the police station, where he is detained, although briefly, for investigative purposes. We adhere to the view that such seizures, at least where not under judicial supervision, are sufficiently like arrests to invoke the traditional rule that arrests may constitutionally be made only on probable cause.

Hayes v. Florida, 105 S.Ct. at 1647.

Secondly, my review of the record fails to persuade me that it reflects probable cause for Gifford's arrest at any time prior to Gifford's jailhouse confession to Detective Walker. ⁴ Other than Walker's generalized claim to having acquired probable cause by the time he ordered Gifford's continued detention at the jail, the record's only discernible link between Gifford and the crime is Walker's bare bones statement that the vehicle used in the commission of the offense, as "described" by the victims, was found by other officers "at the residence where Mr. Gifford had been located." During his testimony, Walker did not provide even a general description of the vehicle, even though a description was allegedly given by the victims, nor did he refer to any other basis for the match presumably made with the vehicle parked outside Gifford's residence, which the arresting officers seized contemporaneously with Gifford's arrest. Detective Walker was the state's sole witness at the motion to suppress hearing, since neither the officer allegedly first...