Webster v. State

• Decision Date: 26 July 1967
• Docket Number: No. 703,703
• Parties: Harvey Roy WEBSTER, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 789

201 So.2d 789

Harvey Roy WEBSTER, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 703.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.

July 26, 1967.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 12, 1967.

Steadman S. Stahl, Jr., of Houston, Easthope & Stahl, Fort Lauderdale, for appellant.

Earl Faircloth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and James T. Carlisle, Asst. Atty. Gen., Vero Beach, for appellee.

CROSS, Judge.

The appellant (defendant) was indicted for murder in the first degree, tried and convicted by a jury that recommended mercy, adjudged guilty by the court and sentenced to life imprisonment. It is from this judgment and sentence he appeals.

The primary thrust of the appeal is the denial by the trial court to suppress evidence allegedly obtained by unlawful search and seizure.

In the early morning hours of May 12, 1965, officers of the sheriff's department of Broward County while on patrol came upon an automobile parked in a deserted area of Broward County. The officers stopped, inspected the automobile, found the engine running with all windows rolled up and a hose leading from the exhaust pipe into the rear window. The defendant was found inside unconscious. The officers immediately opened the car door and administered first-aid to the defendant who was attempting to commit suicide. An ambulance was called and the defendant was taken to the hospital.

The officers then checked the number of the license tag and found it to be registered in the name of the defendant. The officers then proceeded to the address obtained from the registration certificate for the purpose of informing someone of the defendant's attempted suicide. When the officers arrived at the address they proceeded to knock on the front door and after receiving no response knocked louder and yelled in hope of arousing any occupant therein. This attempt was unsuccessful; however, the officers did arouse a neighbor across the street who came and told them that a Mrs. Bradshaw lived in the house with the defendant. The officers told the neighbor the condition in which they had found the defendant and continued to determine if anyone was in the house. They went around the outside of the house to a bedroom and shone a light into the room. There, in the bed, they saw two feet protruding from under the covers on the bed, and the rest of the body was covered with the covers. A pillow was seen covering the area where the head was located. The officers then hammered on the window with their flashlights and hollered quite loudly. One officer then drove his car to the front of the house and put on his headlights lighting up the front of the house and the inside of the room where the body laid. The officers were advised by the neighbors that the defendant had made remarks in the past that if anything happened to Mrs. Bradshaw that he could not bear to live any longer. The officers being unable to arouse the person lying on the bed believed there was something desperately wrong and that the person lying therein was in dire need of help. The officers finding the doors and windows closed and locked went to one of the rear doors, removed the jalousie and with one of the neighbors entered the home. At the time of the entry into the home the officers had no search warrant. The officers went to the bedroom lifted the pillow from the head of Mrs. Bradshaw and found her throat cut. Other officers were then called and photographs were taken of the scene, and the body was removed to the hospital where the county medical examiner performed an autopsy.

It is the entry into the defendant's home in the absence of a search warrant and the seizure of the body of Mrs. Bradshaw that defendant contends is unlawful and that the evidence so obtained should have been suppressed.

In support defendant relies upon the well-established principle that ordinarily a home may not be searched without a search warrant except as incidental to an arrest that takes place in the premises. Haile v. Gardner, 1921, 82 Fla. 355, 91 So. 376. Admittedly, there was no search warrant in this instance.

In determining matters under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, ¹ and Section 22 of the Declaration of Rights, F.S.A., ² as contained in the Florida Constitution, we must bear in mind the basic principle that it is only 'unreasonable' searches that are prohibited, not all searches. Whether a particular search is or is not reasonable must be determined by the circumstances surrounding the search and the manner in which it was conducted. Range v. State, Fla.App.1963, 156 So.2d 534; McCain v. State, Fla.App.1963, 151 So.2d 841. The reasonableness or unreasonableness must be determined largely by the facts of the particular case.

The constitutional provision regulating searches and seizures is intended to protect persons against oppression and not to bring into being numerous minute technical obstructions against the enforcement of criminal law. United States v. McDaniel, D.C.1957, 154 F.Supp. 1.

For example, it has been said more than once that that which is in plain view is not the product of a search. Ker v. State of California, 1963, 374 U.S. 23, 83 S.ct. 1623, 10 L.ed.2d 726; united States v....