MITCHELL CLEVELAND, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE

Fla. 4th DCA | 1990-03-14
No. 89-0551
DELL and WALDEN, JJ., concur.
557 So. 2d 959 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fourth District (1990) Caution
Cited by 4 cases

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.

Synopsis

Mitchell Cleveland appealed the revocation of his probation after cocaine was discovered in a locked toilet stall at a probation center and he admitted smoking it. The Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal affirmed the denial of his motion to suppress the evidence and statement, but reversed and remanded regarding improper calculation of time-served credit toward his sentence.


Holding

The court held that Cleveland had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the locked communal stall, analogous to a jail inmate's cell; the trial court properly denied suppression of both the evidence and statements in the probation revocation context (though such statements would be inadmissible in a separate criminal prosecution); and the trial court erred by failing to credit time served prior to commencement of probation.


Headnotes

[1] A probationer has no reasonable expectation of privacy in a locked communal stall within a probation and restitution center.

[2] The search of a probationer in a locked communal stall within a probation and restitution center is analogous to the search of a jail inmate's cell, where no reasonable e…

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

Key Quotes

“The issue of a "reasonable" or "justified" expectation of privacy turns on two requirements; the subjective expectation of privacy and most importantly whether the expectation is one that "society is prepared to recognize as reasonable".”

Establishes the legal standard for evaluating reasonable expectation of privacy claims under the Fourth Amendment framework.

Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Facts & Procedural History

Cleveland was a resident at the Palm Beach Probation and Restitution Center. While making rounds, probation officer Willis observed Cleveland sitting …

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
POLEN, Judge.

POLEN, Judge.

Appellant seeks review of the trial court’s revocation of his probation. He alleges error in the denial of his motion to suppress and in the amount of time served credited towards his sentence. We affirm in part and reverse and remand in part.

At the violation of probation hearing, probation officer Willis testified that while he was making his rounds of the probationer’s living quarters, he spotted appellant, a resident at the Palm Beach Probation and Restitution Center, sitting on a toilet in a locked stall. Willis went to the adjacent stall, stood on the toilet and looking over into appellant’s stall, observed appellant smoking from a can. Willis unlocked appellant’s stall, asked him to come out, took the can from him, searched him and arrested him. Appellant was never advised of his Miranda rights and subsequently admitted he was smoking cocaine that he purchased on his way home from work. The trial court denied appellant’s motion to suppress both the cocaine and his statement, found appellant’s possession of cocaine violated the conditions of his probation and revoked his probation.

We do not accept appellant’s argument that the search was illegally based on a violation of his reasonable expectation of privacy in a locked communal stall. The issue of a “reasonable” or “justified” expectation of privacy turns on two requirements; the subjective expectation of privacy and most importantly whether the expectation is one that “society is prepared to recognize as reasonable”. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 360, 88 S.Ct. 507, 516, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967) (concurring opinion); Hudson, 468 U.S. at 525, 104 S.Ct. at 3199.

The instant scenario is more akin to the warrantless search of a jail inmate’s cell, the product of which is admissible in evidence because there was no reasonable expectation of privacy [Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 82 L.Ed.2d 393 (1984)] than to a warrantless search of a probationer’s home [Grubbs v. State, 373 So. 2d 905 (Fla.1979)] or the home of an individual on community control [Braxton v. State, 524 So. 2d 1141 (Fla. 2d DCA 1988) ], in which case the exclusionary rule embodied in search and seizure provisions of the Florida Constitution is applicable. See State v. Cross, 487 So. 2d 1056 (Fla.1986); State v. Dodd, 419 So. 2d 333, 335 (Fla.1982). Appellant had no reasonable expectation of privacy.

The second point raised by appellant is whether the trial court erred in denying his request to suppress the statements made to his probation and restitution center counselor, wherein he admitted smoking the cocaine. These statements were obtained notwithstanding the counselor’s failure to give appellant Miranda warnings. We hold that in the context of a probation revocation proceeding, and given the facts of this case, the trial court did not err in failing to suppress the admissions. However, we wish to point out that if such admissions were attempted to be used in a separate criminal prosecution for the new offense of possession of cocaine, we are of the view that they would not be admissible. In the alternative, if it were found to be error not to suppress the admissions — a point which we do not reach — we would hold that such error is harmless within the context of State v. DiGuilio, 491 So. 2d 1129 (Fla.1986). We affirm the trial court’s denial of appellant’s motion to suppress.

The state concedes and we agree that the trial court erred in failing to credit appellant with the time served prior to commencement of probation. State v. Green, 547 So. 2d 925 (Fla.1989). Therefore, we reverse and remand for entry of a revised sentencing order consistent with Green.

DELL and WALDEN, JJ., concur.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • Basilio Ramirez v. State, 654 So. 2d 1222 (Fla. 2d DCA 1995)
    …on. Walker v. State, 636 So. 2d 583, 584 (Fla. 2d DCA 1994) (quoting California v. Carney, 471 U.S. 386, 395, 105 S.Ct. 2066, 2071, 85 L.Ed.2d 406, 414 (1985)). The authority that persuaded the trial court is distinguishable. In Cleveland v. State, 557 So. 2d 959 (Fla. 4th DCA 1990), the court concluded that a probationer residing at a probation and restitution center did not have the same expectation of privacy inside a locked toilet stall as a nonincarcerated person because confinement at a probation cente…
  • Hudson v. State, 887 So. 2d 365 (Fla. 4th DCA 2004)
    …nda rights prior to his admission of a violation of his probation” does not render the admission inadmissible at a probation revocation hearing. Evans v. State, 356 So. 2d 1355, 1356 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978) (emphasis added); see also Cleveland v. State, 557 So. 2d 959, 960 (Fla. 4th DCA 1990) (holding that un-Miran-dized statements to a probation and restitution center counselor were admissible in a probation revocation proceeding). I agree with the reasoning of those cases holding that evidence obtained in viol…

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw