ROBERT PEREZ, APPELLANT,
v.
THE STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE

Fla. 3d DCA | 1980-05-20
No. 79-1847
Before BARKDULL, HENDRY and BASKIN, JJ.
383 So. 2d 769 Florida District Court of Appeal, Third District (1980) Positive Treatment
Cited by 1 case

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.


Holding

The court held that the denial of the motion to suppress was proper and that the issue regarding the class of crime charged was raised too late on appeal.


Facts & Procedural History

The appellant was convicted of possession of over one hundred pounds of marijuana after being observed by a policeman carrying a bale of marijuana beh…

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.


Opinion of the Court
PER CURIAM.

PER CURIAM.

The appellant, after an adverse jury verdict, was convicted of possession of over one hundred pounds of marijuana.

He was apprehended by a policeman at about 6:15 A.M. after he was observed behind a furniture and appliance store in Key West carrying a bale of marijuana or “square grouper”. At a motion to suppress hearing, the defendant urged that it was an unlawful search and unreasonable seizure. The trial court denied same. . On appeal, appellant urges error; we find none. State v. Ashby, 245 So. 2d 225 (Fla.1971); State v. Belcher, 317 So. 2d 842 (Fla. 2d DCA 1975); Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 99 S.Ct. 421, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (1978).

A reasonable view of the record reveals that the truck and the defendant were on a public street loáding something at the rear of an appliance store in the early morning hours, not normal hours of operation. The police officer was justified in investigating and .he had a right to seize what he saw, which he testified he knew to be marijuana. Lightfoot v. State, 356 So. 2d 331 (Fla. 4th DCA 1978); Albo v. State, 379 So. 2d 648 (Fla.1980).

The appellant also attempted to raise a question in this court on the class of crime charged but he did not in the trial court. His complaint comes too late. Andrews v. State, 309 So. 2d 576, 577 (Fla. 1st DCA 1975), specially concurring opinion; Thompson v. State, 368 So. 2d 670 (Fla. 3d DCA 1979).

Therefore, the verdict, judgment of conviction, and sentence be and they are hereby affirmed.

Affirmed.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • Adoue v. State, 408 So. 2d 567 (Fla. 1981)
    …r, 317 So. 2d 842 (Fla. 2d DCA 1975) (where observations of suspicious activity on a porch [*574] were made from the street and objects were seized pursuant to those observations “expectations of privacy,” if any, were not violated); Perez v. State, 383 So. 2d 769 (Fla. 3d DCA 1980) (citing Belcher for upholding the seizure of marijuana being loaded onto a truck on a public street during the early morning hours). See also Air Pollution Variance Board v. Western Alfalfa Corp., 416 U.S. 861, 94 S.Ct. 2114, 40 L…

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw