DWIGHT MAURICE MONROE, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, 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.
Dwight Monroe was arrested after police stopped a vehicle in which he was a passenger, leading to discovery of cocaine and a handgun. The court reversed his conviction, holding that the traffic stop for a bald tire was pretextual and lacked reasonable justification absent the officer's invalid purpose of investigating suspected drug activity.
The court held that the traffic stop was illegal because the State failed to demonstrate that a reasonable officer on drug patrol would have made a traffic stop for a bald tire under the facts and circumstances present, absent the officer's invalid purpose of investigating suspected drug activity. The subjective intent of the officer is not controlling; instead, the analysis focuses on whether a reasonable officer would have made the stop.
[1] A traffic stop is unlawful if the officer's subjective intent is to investigate for criminal activity unrelated to the traffic violation, and a reasonable officer would n…
[2] The existence of a Fourth Amendment violation turns on an objective assessment of the officer's actions in light of the facts and circumstances confronting them at the ti…
Previewing 2 of 4 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“[t]he existence of a fourth amendment violation 'turns on an objective assessment of the officer's actions in light of the facts and circumstances confronting him at the time.'”
Establishes the objective standard for evaluating pretextual traffic stops rather than the officer's subjective intent
Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceOfficer Escaravage, working on a drug task force, observed a vehicle repeatedly circling blocks around a lounge known for drug trafficking and high cr…
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 Pretextual Traffic Stop cases and more on FLexlaw
ORFINGER, Judge.
Reserving his right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress, the appellant pleaded nolo contendere to one count of possession of cocaine with intent to deliver and one count of carrying a concealed weapon. Appellant contends on appeal that the evidence was found as the result of an illegal search.1 We agree and reverse.
Officer Escaravage, the only witness to testify at the suppression hearing, was on a special drug task force the night he arrested defendant, who was a passenger in a vehicle that repeatedly circled the blocks around a lounge known for high crime and drug trafficking. This aroused the officer’s suspicion and he began to follow the vehicle. He conceded that he had no indication of criminal activity by the occupants of the car, but his suspicions caused him to follow the car, waiting for an opportunity to make a stop.
Finally, the officer observed a bald tire on the vehicle, so he stopped the vehicle to find out the identity of the driver and to advise him of the traffic violation. The occupants were removed from the vehicle. As defendant exited the car, he threw a coin purse and pill bottle on the ground under the car. Both containers held rock cocaine. The driver gave permission to search the vehicle, which search yielded the handgun.
Appellant argues that stopping the vehicle for a bald tire was only a pretext for a search, because the officer’s real motivation was to determine if the occupants in the car were doing anything illegal and there was no founded suspicion of illegal activity. In Kehoe v. State, 521 So. 2d 1094 (Fla.1988) the court resolved the conflict between the various district courts and adopted the approach of United States v. Smith, 799 F. 2d 704 (11th Cir.1986) to so-called “pretextual” traffic stops, holding that the subjective intent of the officer in making the stop was not controlling. Instead, “[t]he existence of a fourth amendment violation ‘turns on an objective assessment of the officer’s actions in light of the facts and circumstances confronting him at the time.’ ” (Citation omitted).
Kehoe, 521 So. 2d at 1096. In other words, the appropriate analysis is not whether the officer could have stopped the car, but whether a reasonable officer would have stopped the car absent another invalid purpose. Id. See also Porcher v. State, 538 So. 2d 1278 (Fla. 5th DCA 1989).
Here, there was no founded suspicion of criminal activity which would justify the stop. Neither did the State carry its burden of demonstrating that a reasonable officer on drug patrol would have made a traffic stop for a bald tire, absent another invalid purpose, under the facts and circumstances present here.
The evidence should have been suppressed.
The convictions are reversed and the case is remanded with directions to discharge the defendant.
REVERSED and REMANDED.
DAUKSCH and GOSHORN, JJ., concur. . Defendant has standing to object to the stop of the vehicle in which he was riding because that stop resulted in his seizure. State v. Montano, 527 So. 2d 916 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988); Adams v. State, 523 So. 2d 190 (Fla. 1st DCA 1988).
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By (12 total)
-
State v. Daniel, 665 So. 2d 1040 (Fla. 1995)…ctice of similar officers, because the stops were inherently contrary to law. Even customary practices cannot transform an illegal act into a legal one. The district courts are in general accord with the analysis outlined above. In Monroe v. State, 543 So. 2d 298 (Fla. 5th DCA 1989), the Fifth District addressed a situation where an officer on narcotics patrol stopped the defendant because the latter’s vehicle had a “bald tire.” The stop occurred after the vehicle was seen circling repeatedly around an area…1 / 2
-
Thomas v. State, 583 So. 2d 336 (Fla. 5th DCA 1991)…a mere pretext an objective standard is applied to determine if under the facts and circumstances a reasonable officer would have stopped the vehicle absent an additional invalid purpose. Kehoe v. State, 521 So. 2d 1094 (Fla.1988); Monroe v. State, 543 So. 2d 298 (Fla. 5th DCA 1989); see also, United States v. Smith, 799 F. 2d 704 (11th Cir.1986), Cf. Scott v. United States, 436 U.S. 128, 98 S.Ct. 1717, 56 L.Ed.2d 168 (1978). The trial court found that under the facts and circumstances the stop was not prete…
-
Cordero v. State, 589 So. 2d 407 (Fla. 5th DCA 1991)…t due to a similar problem and one car with “water in the taillights” where the taillights were not burned out. Appellant asserts that the stop by Officers Cutcher and Toler is similar to the stop this court held pretextual by us in Monroe v. State, 543 So. 2d 298, 299 (Fla. 5th DCA 1989). In that case, we rejected the explanation given by the officers for the traffic stop that one of the car’s tires was bald. Appellant argues that the state in the instant case made no showing that “water in the taillight” wa…
Previewing 3 of 12 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceAuthorities Cited
- Kehoe v. State, 521 So. 2d 1094 (Fla. 1988)
- United States v. Smith, 799 F.2d 704 (11th Cir. 1986)
- Adams v. State, 523 So. 2d 190 (Fla. 1st DCA 1988)
- Porcher v. State, 538 So. 2d 1278 (Fla. 5th DCA 1989)
- State v. Montano, 527 So. 2d 916 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988)