THE STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLANT,
v.
CRAIG WASHINGTON, APPELLEE
AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.
Florida appeals the suppression of evidence (television, tool box, and paper bag) obtained after the defendant Washington abandoned them in an alley. The court holds that because Washington voluntarily abandoned the property in a place where he had no reasonable expectation of privacy, the police retrieval did not constitute a Fourth Amendment search or seizure, and the evidence should not have been suppressed.
The court held that the evidence should not have been suppressed because Washington voluntarily abandoned the property in a place where he had no reasonable expectation of privacy, and therefore the police retrieval of the items did not constitute a Fourth Amendment search or seizure.
[1] Property voluntarily abandoned by a defendant in an area where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy is not subject to Fourth Amendment protection.
[2] The retrieval of voluntarily abandoned property by law enforcement does not constitute a search or seizure under the Fourth Amendment.
Previewing 2 of 5 headnotes on this case. FLexlaw’s editorially structured points of law — every proposition, pinpointed — are reserved for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“It is not a search . . . for the police to retrieve property which a defendant has voluntarily abandoned in an area where he has no reasonable expectation of privacy”
Establishes the controlling legal standard that police retrieval of voluntarily abandoned property in areas without reasonable expectation of privacy does not constitute a Fourth Amendment search.
Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceOfficer Serrick observed Washington emerging from a motel parking lot at 5:45 a.m. carrying a television set, tool box, and brown paper bag. When the …
The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.
Explore caselaw by topic → Browse Abandonment Of Property cases and more on FLexlaw
SCHWARTZ, Judge.
The state appeals from an order suppressing evidence in a case in which the defendant Washington was charged with burglary of a conveyance and grand theft.
The record shows that an officer in a patrol ear saw Washington walking out of motel parking lot and down Biscayne Boulevard at about 5:45 in the morning. He was carrying a brown paper bag, a tool box and a television set. The officer, City of Miami patrolman Arthur Serrick, drove around the block; when he returned to the area, Washington was not there. A few seconds later, however, Serrick saw the defendant emerge from an alleyway with nothing in his hands. After he had stopped Washington a few feet away and put him in the back seat of his vehicle, the officer walked down the alley and found the items in question under a bush about 10 feet from the street. It developed that they had been taken from a burglarized van a short time before.
Under these circumstances the TV set, tool box, and paper bag with its contents should not have been suppressed. While the trial court considered that they had been seized pursuant to what it found was an unlawful detention, it is clear, as the appellee concedes, that the propriety of Ser-rick’s stop of the defendant is essentially irrelevant to the issue before us. This is so because it was established that Washington, totally without reference to any police activity which was either threatened or actually undertaken, had voluntarily abandoned the property in a place in which he plainly had no reasonable expectation of privacy.
Thus, their discovery and retrieval by the police did not amount to a Fourth Amendment search or seizure at all. As was said in the controlling case of State v. Oliver, 368 So. 2d 1331, 1335 (Fla. 3d DCA 1979): It is not a search . . . for the police to retrieve property which a defendant has voluntarily abandoned in an area where he has no reasonable expectation of privacy, Freyre v. State, 362 So. 2d 989, 991 (Fla. 3d DCA 1978), as where a person discards property (a) in the open fields while being pursued by the police, Hester v. United States, 265 U.S. 57, 44 S.Ct. 445, 68 L.Ed. 898 (1924), or (b) in the public street either prior to an attempted police stop, Mitchell v. State, 60 So. 2d 726 (Fla.1952); Holliday v. State, 104 So. 2d 137 (Fla. 1st DCA 1958); State v. Jackson, 240 So. 2d 88 (Fla. 3d DCA 1970), or after such a stop has been attempted or completed, State v. Nittolo, 317 So. 2d 748 (Fla.1975); State v. Padilla, 235 So. 2d 309 (Fla. 3d DCA 1970) ... the police seizure of such evidence does not invade a reasonable expectation of privacy belonging to the person in question. In each case, the person has made a voluntary decision to avoid a police search by discarding evidence in an area where he has no Fourth Amendment protection. As a consequence, he cannot later claim that, notwithstanding his conduct, he was the victim of a police search as to the evidence he discarded, [e.s.]
The order under review is therefore reversed and the cause remanded with directions to deny the motion to suppress.
Reversed and remanded.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
-
State v. Parker, 399 So. 2d 24 (Fla. 3d DCA 1981)…dant had abandoned the weapon, thus justifying the seizure. To constitute abandonment, the property must be discarded in a place where the person has no reasonable expectation of privacy, such as an open field, or public street. State v. Washington, 376 So. 2d 1216 (Fla. 3d DCA 1979); State v. Oliver, 368 So. 2d 1331 (Fla. 3d DCA 1979), cert. dism., 383 So. 2d 1200 (Fla.1980). As established by the record and our finding that the defendant had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the premise, his placement o…
-
Polk v. State, 405 So. 2d 758 (Fla. 3d DCA 1981)…e detention and search on authority of Sections 856.021 and 901.21, Florida Statutes (1979); State v. Ecker, 311 So. 2d 104 (Fla.1975), cert. denied, sub nom., Bell v. Florida, 423 U.S. 1019, 96 S.Ct. 455, 46 L.Ed.2d 391 (1975); State v. Washington, 376 So. 2d 1216 (Fla. 3d DCA 1979); Dixon v. State, 343 So. 2d 1345 (Fla. 2d DCA 1977). We note further that defendant does not challenge his conviction for loitering and prowling. As part of its proof in support of the charge of unlawful possession of a firearm b…
Authorities Cited
- Hester v. United States, 265 U.S. 57 (U.S. 1924)
- State v. Oliver, 368 So. 2d 1331 (Fla. 3d DCA 1979)
- State v. Padilla, 235 So. 2d 309 (Fla. 3d DCA 1970)
- State v. Nittolo, 317 So. 2d 748 (Fla. 1975)
- Holliday v. State, 104 So. 2d 137 (Fla. 1st DCA 1958)
- Mitchell v. State, 60 So.2d 726 (Fla. 1952)
- State v. Jackson, 240 So. 2d 88 (Fla. 3d DCA 1970)
- Freyre v. State, 362 So. 2d 989 (Fla. 3d DCA 1978)