STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLANT,
v.
C.E., A CHILD, APPELLEE

Fla. 5th DCA | 1991-08-22
No. 90-2419
COWART, J., concurs., HARRIS, J., concurs specially with opinion.
583 So. 2d 1121 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fifth District (1991) 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.

Synopsis

The appellate court, bound by a prior en banc decision, remanded the case for further testimony on the pretextual stop issue, while the concurring opinion urged consideration of additional issues including the legality of an arrest in a home and the interpretation of a city ordinance.


Holding

The court, referencing a prior en banc decision, remanded the case to the trial court to take additional testimony regarding the pretextual stop.


Facts & Procedural History

A thirteen-year-old juvenile was stopped by an officer for riding a bicycle on the sidewalk without a bell and subsequently fled into his home, where …

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
W. SHARP, Judge.

W. SHARP, Judge.

The state appeals from an order granting C.E.’s motion to dismiss the juvenile delinquency petition filed against him. He was charged with riding a bicycle in violation of Orlando Municipal Ordinance, chapter 10, section 10.08. That ordinance prohibits persons from riding bicycles on the city streets without a bell or gong. C.E. was also charged with resisting arrest without violence.1 Defense counsel moved to dismiss on the grounds that the ordinance was unconstitutional and that the stop was pre-textual. The court ruled the ordinance was unconstitutional, relying on Powers v. State, CJAP89-95 (Sept. 25, 1990). We reverse.

In Thomas v. State, 583 So. 2d 336 (Fla. 5th DCA 1991), this court recently upheld the constitutionality of this ordinance. In Thomas, we held that section 10.08 is a proper exercise of the city’s police power, that it does not conflict with constitutional or statutory limitations, and that it is not preempted by other statutes. We also upheld the power of a police officer to arrest a person who violates the ordinance in his presence.2

Accordingly, we reverse the order dismissing the petition against C.E. We remand for further proceedings. On remand, the trial court may consider and take further evidence (if necessary) on the question of whether the stop was pretextual, since it did not reach that issue prior to dismissing the petition.

REVERSED and REMANDED.

COWART, J., concurs.

HARRIS, J., concurs specially with opinion.

. Section 843.02, Fla.Stat. (1989).

. Section 901.15(1), Fla.Stat. (Supp.1990).

Concurrence
HARRIS, Judge,

HARRIS, Judge,

concurring specially:

I concur, as I must, because of our en banc decision of Thomas v. State cited by the majority. We remand to the trial court to take additional testimony in order to determine the undisposed issue of pretextual stop. I write because I believe there are additional issues that deserve further inquiry. A closer look at the facts is important.

The Orlando bicycle brigade has struck again. Officer Zwieg of the Orlando Police Department was driving in an unmarked vehicle (although in uniform) when he spotted C.E., a thirteen-year-old Black juvenile, riding a bicycle on the sidewalk with another Black youth on the handlebars. The bicycle was not equipped with a bell.1 Determined to make an “arrest,” Zwieg made a U-turn and took up pursuit of the bicycle yelling “Stop!”

C.E. abandoned the bicycle and fled into his nearby home. Zwieg, undaunted, made the arrest. The search must have been negative because C.E. was originally charged only with “riding a bicycle on a city street, to-wit: West Federal Street without a bell or gong.” Considering the seriousness of the offense, the state attorney’s office added the charge of resisting arrest without violence because the thirteen-year-old fled into his home.

On remand the trial court will consider the pretext issue. I urge the court to also consider whether C.E. was properly arrested in his home in light of Welsh v. Wisconsin, 466 U.S. 740, 104 S.Ct. 2091, 80 L.Ed.2d 732 (1984) and whether riding a bicycle on a sidewalk is the legal equivalent of riding a bicycle “on a city street, to-wit: Federal Highway” as alleged in the charging document.

. Some have suggested, perhaps facetiously, that the function of the second youth was to sit on the handlebars and shout "Honk! Honk!” when anyone ventured into the path of the bicycle.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • Hundley v. State, 613 So. 2d 500 (Fla. 5th DCA 1993)
    …ity. The violation of the curfew ordinance gave the arrest the color of legality. It became the trial court’s duty, if requested, to determine whether this underlying arrest may have been illegal because of its pretextual context. See State v. C.E., 583 So. 2d 1121, 1122 (Fla. 5th DCA 1991) (In delinquency petition case in which juvenile was charged with violating municipal bicycle ordinance and resisting arrest without violence, this court said that trial court improperly held ordinance unconstitutional but o…
    1 / 2

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw