White v. State

• Decision Date: 26 February 1998
• Docket Number: No. 88813,88813
• Citation: 710 So.2d 949
• Court: Florida Supreme Court
• Parties: Tyvessel Tyvorus WHITE, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent.

Page 949

710 So.2d 949

Tyvessel Tyvorus WHITE, Petitioner, v. STATE of Florida, Respondent.

No. 88813.

Supreme Court of Florida.

Feb. 26, 1998.

Rehearing Denied June 1, 1998.

Nancy A. Daniels, Public Defender and David P. Gauldin, Assistant Public Defender, Second Judicial Circuit, Tallahassee, for Petitioner.

Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General; James W. Rogers, Bureau Chief, Criminal Appeals and Daniel A. David, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee, for Respondent.

ANSTEAD, Justice.

We have for review the opinion in White v. State, 680 So.2d 550 (Fla. 1st DCA 1996). We accepted jurisdiction to answer the following question certified to be of great public importance:

WHETHER THE WARRANTLESS SEIZURE OF A MOTOR VEHICLE UNDER THE FLORIDA FORFEITURE ACT (ABSENT OTHER EXIGENT CIRCUMSTANCES) VIOLATES THE FOURTH AMENDMENT OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION SO AS TO RENDER EVIDENCE SEIZED IN A SUBSEQUENT INVENTORY SEARCH OF THE VEHICLE INADMISSIBLE IN A CRIMINAL PROSECUTION.

Id. at 555. We have jurisdiction. Art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const. For the reasons expressed below, we answer the certified question in the affirmative. We hold that a citizen's property is protected by the federal and Florida constitutions against warrantless seizure even when the seizure is done pursuant to a statutory scheme for forfeiture.

MATERIAL FACTS ¹

On October 14, 1993, petitioner Tyvessel Tyvorus White (White) was arrested at his place of employment on charges unrelated to this case. After taking White into custody on those unrelated charges, and securing the keys to his automobile, the arresting officers seized his automobile from the parking lot of White's employment. The police did not seize the vehicle incident to White's arrest or obtain a prior court order or warrant to authorize the seizure. Rather, the basis of the seizure was the arresting officers' belief that White's automobile had been used several months earlier to deliver illegal drugs, and therefore the vehicle was subject to forfeiture by the government. ² After confiscation of the vehicle, a subsequent search turned up two pieces of crack cocaine in the ashtray.

Based on the discovery of the cocaine, White was charged with possession of a controlled substance. White subsequently objected to the introduction into evidence of the cocaine seized during the post-arrest search of his automobile. The trial court reserved ruling on the issue and allowed the evidence to go to a jury. White was thereafter convicted of possession of cocaine; and subsequently the trial court formally denied White's objection and motion to suppress the cocaine evidence.

On appeal, the First District affirmed White's conviction and approved the government's warrantless seizure of White's car. The majority opinion found that the government met the requirements of the Florida Contraband Forfeiture Act, sections 932.701-932.707, Florida Statutes (1993) (hereinafter Forfeiture Act) in that the warrantless seizure of White's automobile was based upon probable cause to believe that the vehicle had facilitated illegal drug activity at some time in the past. Further, the majority found that the warrantless seizure did not violate White's Fourth Amendment right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures. ³ In dissent, Judge Wolf asserted that the "warrantless seizure of an automobile absent exigent circumstances violates the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution even though probable cause exists to believe that the automobile is subject to forfeiture as a result of prior narcotics transactions." White, 680 So.2d at 557 (Wolf, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

Because the court found that neither this Court nor the United States Supreme Court had addressed the issue of whether law enforcement agencies must obtain a warrant prior to seizing a citizen's property under the Florida Contraband Forfeiture Act, the First District certified the issue as one of great public importance to this Court.

LAW AND ANALYSIS

In holding that no prior court authorization was required in order to seize and search White's vehicle, the First District majority applied the "automobile exception" to the warrant requirement. While we recognize the continuing validity of the "automobile exception" to the warrant requirement, we find it inapposite here.

In his dissent, Judge Wolf relied primarily on the opinion of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in U.S. v. Lasanta, 978 F.2d 1300 (2d Cir.1992). ⁴ He also noted this Court's opinion in Department

of Law Enforcement v. Real Property, 588 So.2d 957, 963 n. 14 (Fla.1991), wherein we recognized that because "article I, section 12 of the Florida Constitution expressly requires conformity with the fourth amendment of the United States Constitution, the warrant requirement of article I, section 12 also applies to seizures in forfeiture actions under Florida law." White, 680 So.2d at 558 (Wolf, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

DEPARTMENT OF LAW ENFORCEMENT

In Department of Law Enforcement, we were able to uphold the constitutionality of Florida's forfeiture act only by imposing numerous restrictions and safeguards on the use of the act in order to protect a citizen's property from arbitrary action by the government. In discussing the act we declared:

The Act raises numerous constitutional concerns that touch upon many substantive and procedural rights protected by the Florida Constitution. In construing the Act, we note that forfeitures are considered harsh exactions, and as a general rule they are not favored either in law or equity. Therefore, this Court has long followed a policy that it must strictly construe forfeiture statutes.

588 So.2d at 961. The major thrust of our holding was that in order to comply with constitutional due process requirements, the government must strictly observe a citizen's constitutional protections when invoking the drastic remedy of forfeiture of a citizen's property. In addition to expressly holding that the Fourth Amendment applies to forfeiture attempts by the government, we specifically explained:

In those situations where the state has not yet taken possession of the personal property that it wishes to be forfeited, the state may seek an ex parte preliminary hearing. At that hearing, the court shall authorize seizure of the personal property if it finds probable cause to maintain the forfeiture action.

Id. at 965. We conclude that the government's unauthorized and warrantless seizure, absent exigent circumstances not established here, clearly violated the constitutional safeguards we recognized in Department of Law Enforcement.

The government did not seek a warrant or an "ex parte preliminary hearing" here in order to secure a neutral magistrate's determination of probable cause. The government just seized the property, thereby putting the property owner and any others claiming an interest in the property in the position of having to take affirmative action against the government in order to protect their rights. This is the very antithesis of the cautious procedure we mandated in Department of Law Enforcement. We simply cannot accept the government's position that it may act at anytime, anywhere, and regardless of the existence of exigent circumstances, or a change in ownership or possession, to seize a citizen's property once believed to have been used in illegal activity, without securing the authorization of a neutral magistrate.

AUTOMOBILE EXCEPTION

As previously noted, the only basis asserted for the unauthorized government seizure here is the so-called automobile exception to the warrant requirement. The district court majority cited California v. Carney, 471 U.S. 386, 391, 105 S.Ct. 2066, 2069, 85 L.Ed.2d 406 (1985), for the proposition that automobiles are afforded less Fourth Amendment protection against warrantless searches and seizures due to their "ready mobility" and diminished expectations of privacy due to their pervasive governmental regulation. The automobile exception is predicated upon the existence of exigent circumstances consisting of the known presence of contraband in the automobile at the time, combined with the likelihood that an opportunity to seize the contraband will be lost if it is not immediately seized because of the mobility of the automobile. See Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 90 S.Ct. 1975, 26 L.Ed.2d 419 (1970). For example, in Carney, law enforcement officers had direct evidence ⁵ that illegal drugs were present and Since it is conceded that the government had no probable cause to believe that contraband was present in White's car, we conclude that Carney and the automobile exception are inapposite as authority. There is a vast difference between permitting the immediate search of a movable automobile based on actual knowledge that it then contains contraband and that an opportunity to seize the contraband may be lost if not acted on immediately, and the altogether different proposition of permitting the discretionary seizure of a citizen's automobile based upon a belief that it may have been used at some time in the past to assist in illegal activity. The exigent circumstances implicit in the former situation are simply not present in the latter situation.

that the suspect was distributing illegal drugs from the vehicle. Accordingly, the Court concluded that the officers "had abundant probable cause to enter and search the vehicle for evidence of a crime." Carney, 471 U.S. at 395, 105 S.Ct. at 2071.

The automobile exception is a narrow, situation-dependent exception which requires much more than the fact that an automobile is the object sought to be seized and searched. Critically, there must be probable cause to believe contraband is in the vehicle at the time of the search and seizure, Carney, ⁶ and there must be some legitimate concern that the automobile "might be removed and any evidence within it...