State v. Pratt
| Decision Date | 23 July 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. 79-2371,79-2371 |
| Citation | 386 So.2d 1249 |
| Parties | STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Brenda Louise PRATT, Anthony Lee Williams, Dell R. Callins and Horace Amos, Appellees. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Michael J. Satz, State's Atty., and Tresa B. Widmer, Asst. State's Atty., Fort Lauderdale, for appellant.
Sheldon M. Schapiro of Stone, Schapiro & Dell, P. A., Hollywood, for appellees.
The question involved in this appeal is the adequacy of an affidavit for a search warrant. The trial court found the affidavit inadequate because it failed "to establish the confidential informant's reliability and trustworthiness required by Aquilar-Spinelli (sic)." 1
A Broward County deputy sheriff filed an affidavit in which he stated that he had been contacted by a City of Hollywood detective who advised the affiant that he had a confidential informant who could make heroin purchases. The affidavit then details how the affiant, the Hollywood detective, and the confidential informant set up a controlled purchase of contraband. The confidential informant was searched, given a transmitting device and money, and taken to a location near the place where the buy was to occur. The police monitored the surveillance device as the confidential informant entered an apartment at a stated time, ordered two dime bags of "Red," paid for it, and departed at a specified time. The confidential informant was observed leaving the apartment and returning to the waiting police vehicle where she was again searched and nothing was found but the two bags which, upon analysis, were found to contain heroin. The confidential informant told the police that she observed approximately 100 tinfoil packets of heroin on the kitchen table in the apartment. The affidavit similarly detailed another purchase monitored by the police at the same apartment four days later.
A search warrant was issued based upon said affidavit, and execution of the warrant resulted in the seizure of contraband and the arrest of appellant. A motion to suppress the evidence was granted by the trial court because the affidavit failed to demonstrate the reliability of the informant.
We reverse upon authority of United States v. Ventresca, 380 U.S. 102, 85 S.Ct. 741, 13 L.Ed.2d 684 (1965), and Ludwig v. State, 215 So.2d 898 (Fla.3rd DCA 1968). The foregoing cases are authority for the proposition that where some of the underlying circumstances are...
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State v. Barreiro, 83-504
...by holding that the trial court was right for the wrong reasons, State v. Roberts, 415 So.2d 796 (Fla. 3d DCA 1982); State v. Pratt, 386 So.2d 1249 (Fla. 4th DCA 1980). The fact that the defendant has a right to have rulings unfavorable to him reviewed on direct appeal at the conclusion of ......
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State v. Williams, 83-1209
...DCA 1983); State v. Fisher, 416 So.2d 871 (Fla. 3d DCA 1982); State v. Roberts, 415 So.2d 796 (Fla. 3d DCA 1982); and State v. Pratt, 386 So.2d 1249 (Fla. 4th DCA 1980), in which the courts, employing the same theory of no jurisdiction over the defendants' cross-appeals, rejected the defend......
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State v. Roberts
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