State v. Sobrino
| Decision Date | 11 June 1991 |
| Docket Number | No. 89-2540,89-2540 |
| Citation | 587 So.2d 1347 |
| Parties | The STATE of Florida, Appellant, v. Enrique SOBRINO, Appellee. 587 So.2d 1347, 16 Fla. L. Week. D1550 |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., and Angelica D. Zayas, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellant.
Carl H. Lida, Miami, for appellee.
Before BARKDULL, COPE and GERSTEN, JJ.
Appellant, the State of Florida, appeals the suppression of evidence seized from appellee, Enrique Sobrino, after he was stopped by a police officer outside the officer's territorial jurisdiction. We affirm.
A City of Medley police officer observed appellee driving out of the parking lot of a business area, where an audible burglar alarm was ringing. The business area was located across a canal, in the City of Hialeah Gardens. The officer followed appellee into Hialeah Gardens where he eventually stopped him. Hialeah Gardens is outside of the officer's territorial jurisdiction.
When the officer stopped appellee, the officer had no knowledge that appellee had committed a crime. While the officer detained appellee, other officers from Hialeah Gardens discovered that a burglary had been committed in that business area.
Upon stopping appellee, the officer discovered vise grips and a set of alarm keys on the front seat of appellee's car. The trial court suppressed this evidence based on the authority of Phoenix v. State, 455 So.2d 1024 (Fla.1984).
Phoenix v. State, involved an arrest made by police officers outside their jurisdiction. In Phoenix, the Florida Supreme Court held that an extrajurisdictional arrest could be validated as a "citizen's arrest." The court reasoned that "law enforcement officials, when they are outside their jurisdictions, should not be any less capable ..., nor should they have any greater power ... than private citizens." Phoenix v. State, 455 So.2d at 1025. The standard to be applied to an extrajurisdictional police arrest is the same as a "citizen's arrest":
A private citizen [has a] ... right to arrest a person who commits a felony in his presence, or to arrest a person where a felony has been committed and where the arresting citizen has probable cause to believe, and does believe the person arrested to be guilty. [Emphasis added.]
Phoenix v. State, 455 So.2d at 1025; see also U.S. v. Ible, 630 F.2d 389 (5th Cir.1980).
Thus, the two prong test set out in Phoenix clearly mandates both: (1) probable cause; and, (2) the belief that the person arrested is guilty of a felony. Here it is possible that the officer may have had probable cause, but the record fails to reveal compliance with the second prong, the belief that the person is guilty of a felony.
In this case, it is uncontroverted that the officer did not intend to arrest appellee. Further, the officer did not know that a felony had been committed. Finally, the officer did not believe that appellee had committed a felony. The officer testified that he had stopped appellee "for investigative purposes." The officer also testified that he did not stop appellee to place him under arrest.
The dissent's reliance on McAnnis v. State, 386 So.2d 1230 (Fla. 3d DCA 1980) is misplaced. In that case, a Broward County police officer completed the purchase of drugs in a home in Dade County, while Dade County police officers waited outside. The Broward County officer pulled his weapon to detain the drug dealer and prevent him from escaping. Ultimately, the Dade County officers entered the home and arrested the drug dealer. Clearly, the Broward County officer in McAnnis had probable cause and believed that a person committed a felony. Thus, the detention in McAnnis constituted a proper citizen's arrest.
Succinctly, a police officer has no power to effect a "stop" outside of his territorial jurisdiction unless there exists exigent circumstances, or the officer is on fresh pursuit. See Sec. 901.25, Fla.Stat. (1989); see, e.g., Hansen v. State, 385 So.2d 1081 (Fla. 4th DCA), rev. denied, 392 So.2d 1379 (Fla.1980).
The powers wielded by police officers are vast, and subject to abuse. Accordingly, such power has been restricted by strict construction, limited exceptions, and harsh remedies for violations of police powers.
Because abuses of police powers diminish our individual and collective civil rights, the penalty for any violation is one of the most serious ... suppression. See Steagald v. U.S., 451 U.S. 204, 101 S.Ct. 1642, 68 L.Ed.2d 38 (1981). To find otherwise, would result in an unjustified unbridled expansion of police "stop" powers:
Our rejection of [the State's] claim is not due to a lack of appreciation of the difficulty and importance of effective law enforcement, but rather to our firm commitment to "the view of those who wrote the Bill of Rights...."
Illinois v. Rodriguez, --- U.S. ----, 110 S.Ct. 2793, 111 L.Ed.2d 148 (1990) (quoting Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 98 S.Ct. 2408, 57 L.Ed.2d 290 (1978)). Unlike the dissent, we find no need to add a citizen's investigative stop to the lexicon of the Fourth Amendment.
Accordingly, the trial court correctly followed the law and properly suppressed the evidence.
Affirmed.
The motion to suppress should have been denied.
At 1:50 a.m., an officer of the Medley Police Department was sitting in his police vehicle near a canal which separates the town of Medley from the town of Hialeah Gardens. He heard a burglar alarm begin to ring. The alarm was coming from a deserted business area across the canal in Hialeah Gardens, approximately 150 yards away. The officer observed a vehicle leave a parking lot at a high rate of speed. No other vehicles were in the area. The parking lot had only one entrance and dead-ended into the business building. There was no other vehicle access to the parking lot except the driveway from which the vehicle was exiting.
At the hearing on the motion to suppress, the Medley officer testified:
[Prosecutor]: All right, Officer. The car leaves. What do you do next?
[Officer]: I began to follow it along South River Drive on my side, advising Hialeah Gardens over the radio through our dispatcher and then through their dispatcher of what had just occurred.
[Prosecutor]: And the substance of your conversation was what?
[Officer]: That I had an alarm with a vehicle leaving and that I was pulling out onto, crossing the bridge onto U.S. 27th, going into, trying to keep track of the vehicle and if they would have a unit respond.
(Emphasis added). The Medley officer followed the car on a parallel road, keeping the vehicle in sight at all times. The Medley officer activated his lights, caught the car, and stopped it. At the time of the stop, the Medley officer was within the jurisdiction of Hialeah Gardens.
The Medley officer directed defendant Enrique Sobrino to step out of the car and stand at the rear of his vehicle while waiting for a Hialeah Gardens officer to arrive. The Medley officer looked into the car for weapons and observed a pair of vise-grip pliers and alarm keys on the front seat. The Medley officer did not touch the items, ask the suspect any questions, or conduct any search. A Hialeah Gardens officer arrived one to two minutes after the stop. Meanwhile, a second Hialeah Gardens officer went to the warehouse and radioed that there had in fact been a breakin. Within a few minutes, the second Hialeah Gardens officer came to the place where defendant was stopped. He arrested defendant and charged him with burglary and possession of burglary tools.
Defendant filed a motion to suppress the evidence seized from the car: the pliers and the alarm keys. At the evidentiary hearing on the motion to suppress, the Medley officer testified as just summarized. He also testified:
[Prosecutor]: And you didn't stop him for the purpose of placing him under arrest, did you?
[Officer]: I stopped him to detain him.
[Prosecutor]: You just stopped him for investigative purposes, is that correct?
[Officer]: Yes, sir.
[Officer]: No, sir.
The State argued that the Medley officer's stop was a proper citizen's arrest under Phoenix v. State, 455 So.2d 1024 (Fla.1984). The defense argued that it was an investigative stop, and that there is no such thing as a citizen's investigative stop.
The trial court ruled that the officer did not have probable cause to arrest defendant and granted the motion to suppress the pliers and the alarm keys. The State stipulated that the trial court ruling was dispositive of the case 1 and this appeal ensued.
The question presented is whether the Medley officer's action was a proper citizen's arrest under Phoenix v. State. 2 Phoenix authorizes an officer to make an out-of jurisdiction arrest under the same circumstances in which a citizen could make a citizen's arrest.
Florida follows the common law rule for citizen's arrest, which was described as follows in Phoenix:
At common law, a private citizen could make an arrest without a warrant in certain specific circumstances:
455 So.2d at 1025. (citations omitted).
As argued and decided below, the sole issue was whether the Medley officer had probable cause to believe that defendant had committed a felony. Turning to that issue first, an...
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...has no official authority to arrest an offender outside the boundaries of the officer's county or municipality."); State v. Sobrino , 587 So. 2d 1347, 1348 (Fla. 3d DCA 1991) (noting that, in general, "a police officer has no power to effect a ‘stop’ outside of his territorial jurisdiction"......
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