State v. Ruiz, 78-262

• Decision Date: 02 August 1978
• Docket Number: No. 78-262,78-262
• Citation: 360 So.2d 1320
• Parties: STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Raymond RUIZ, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 1320

360 So.2d 1320

STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Raymond RUIZ, Appellee.

No. 78-262.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.

Aug. 2, 1978.

Joseph P. D'Alessandro, State's Atty., Louis S. St. Laurent, Chief Asst. State's Atty., and Delano J. Brock, Asst. State's Atty., Naples, for appellant.

David E. Rosendahl of Taylor, Locker & Conley, P.A., Naples, for appellee.

GRIMES, Chief Judge.

Defendant was charged with felony possession of marijuana, cocaine, and amphetamines. The court granted his motion to suppress the drugs except for a bag of marijuana found on the defendant's person during a search incident to his arrest. The state appeals the suppression of the other evidence, and defendant cross-appeals the order denying his motion to suppress the bag of marijuana.

On September 4, 1977, deputies Sisk and Jacobs responded to a complaint from the local Ramada Inn that a nude male was running about the premises and upsetting the guests. The deputies arrived at the motel and were led to the defendant's room. They knocked on the door of the motel room, identified themselves as police officers, and asked for permission to enter the room. The defendant verbally consented to the deputies' entry.

When the deputies entered the room, they found defendant standing in the middle of the room completely naked. A nude female was lying on the bed. Both deputies testified that defendant was quite intoxicated, apparently due to narcotics use. Jacobs asked him for identification. The defendant went to the dresser and began to look for some identification. At this point, Deputy Sisk spied an open attache case on top of the dresser and observed, inside the case, a small vial containing a white powdery substance which Sisk believed to be cocaine.

Both deputies noticed that as defendant searched for his wallet, he was picking up small bits of vegetable matter from the top of the dresser and inserting them in his mouth as if he were eating them. After the defendant handed him some identification, Deputy Jacobs went over to the dresser where he observed the substance which defendant had been picking up and eating. He showed the substance to Sisk, and they agreed that it appeared to be marijuana. Deputy Jacobs then informed defendant that he was under arrest and began to pat him down. The defendant had, immediately prior to this arrest, put on a pair of shorts, and in searching defendant's person incident to his arrest, Deputy Jacobs discovered a small baggie of marijuana in his pocket.

Deputy Sisk then went to the open attache case on top of the dresser and removed the vial of white powder which he had earlier spotted. Jacobs, in the meantime, picked up a plastic vial from the top of the dresser between the marijuana and the open attache case. This vial contained a small red pill which Jacobs believed to be some sort of narcotic. Jacobs testified that he had first seen the vial with the red pill when the defendant went to the dresser to obtain the identification. Sisk, however, never mentioned the small plastic vial containing the pill at any point during his testimony.

After the defendant was arrested Sisk removed him from the motel and transported him to the county jail in Deputy Jacobs' car. Jacobs remained behind to secure the evidence which they had gathered and to collect the defendant's personal effects in order to deliver them to him upon his release from jail. The motel manager was present when the defendant was arrested. She stated that once defendant was removed from the room and taken to jail she offered to Deputy Jacobs to secure the room with defendant's personal belongings inside. Deputy Jacobs, who at this time was conducting a thorough search of the room, ostensibly looking for defendant's personal belongings, declined the offer and told her that securing the room would be unnecessary. Jacobs then took the defendant's belongings, including his attache case and a pair of tennis shoes, and put them in Deputy Sisk's car and left the motel.

Apparently, Sisk and Jacobs met somewhere away from the jail and exchanged cars. Sisk then proceeded to the jail and took defendant's belongings to the booking office. While on the way to the office carrying both the defendant's belongings and some of his own notebooks, Sisk dropped some items, including the defendant's tennis shoes. As he bent over to retrieve these items, he noticed a shiny object stuffed inside the toe of one of the tennis shoes. He removed the object and discovered a plastic bag containing cocaine. Defendant was eventually charged with the possession of the narcotics seized in the motel room, as well as the bag of cocaine discovered in the toe of his tennis shoe.

On defendant's motion to suppress the court found that the search of defendant's person and the seizure of the contraband found thereon was lawful. However, the court found that the search of the room was an unnecessary search for inventory purposes and suppressed all of the contraband found as a result of that search, including the plastic vial inside the attache case, the marijuana found on the dresser top, and the small plastic vial containing the red pill. The court also suppressed the cocaine in the tennis shoe.

The state argues that the evidence found in the defendant's motel room should not have been suppressed as the result of an unnecessary and unreasonable inventory search. The state argues that the search of the motel room was not an inventory search but that the contraband in question was...