C.F., A CHILD, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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The court held that the anonymous tip, corroborated by police observation, provided sufficient founded suspicion for an investigatory stop, and that a juvenile's placement in community control may extend until their 19th birthday.
[1] An anonymous tip may form the basis for a lawful investigatory stop if the tip's details are sufficiently corroborated by police observation, demonstrating its reliabilit…
[2] The corroboration of specific details provided by an anonymous tip, such as the description of individuals, their location, clothing, and the presence of contraband in a…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligencePolice received an anonymous tip describing two suspects, their location, their activities appearing to be drug transactions, and the location of coca…
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FARMER, Judge.
C.F. appeals from the denial of his motion to suppress evidence seized by police after an investigatory stop. C.F. was one of two suspects detained by police, following an anonymous tip. The tipster described the suspects’ approximate height, weight, age and dress; related that the suspects stood in front of a house at 2130 Adams Street; that, from there, they would approach cars passing by, have short conversations with the drivers, and “do what appeared to be a drug transaction”; and that cocaine being sold by the suspects could be found in a plastic cup hidden in a specific place at the named address. Within a minute of their dispatch, the officers arrived at the given address, where they saw three youths fitting the description given by the tipster, and dressed as described. The youngsters immediately took flight and, after a very brief chase, the officers caught and detained them. They returned the boys to the house where they found the plastic cup in the place described. It contained rock cocaine. After being advised of his rights, C.F. admitted the cocaine belonged to him.
It is well established that:
A valid stop and frisk may be based on information obtained from an anonymous tipster if that information appears sufficiently reliable because of the surrounding circumstances or the nature of the information given in the tip itself.
Hetland v. State, 387 So. 2d 963 (Fla.1980). The information may be of such detail that it raises an inference of reliability. In the Interest of G.A.R., III, 387 So. 2d 404 (Fla. 4th DCA 1980). The degree to which those details are corroborated by police observation may justify an investigatory detention. Bussey v. State, 528 So. 2d 955 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988). Applying these principles to the facts of this case, we find that the details of the tip and the extent to which they were corroborated by police justified the investigatory stop at issue in this case. C.F. argues that the details of the tip in our case were too vague to support a legal detention, citing L.D.P. v. State, 551 So. 2d 1257 (Fla. 1st DCA 1989). That court hinged its conclusion, however, on the fact that there was no description of any of the individuals allegedly selling drugs, no indication of their heights, ages, clothing, etc., and no description of the activities the individuals were allegedly engaged in, and no indication of what types of drugs the individuals would be selling.
551 So. 2d at 1257. In contrast, the tipster in our case provided all of these details and more. Moreover, the officers here saw only the three males described by the informant at the named address; they were dressed exactly as described by the informant; they were discovered exactly where the informant said they would be found; and the plastic cup containing the cocaine was discovered exactly where the informant said it would be found.
The mere fact that our officers failed to see an actual drug transaction does not by itself render C.F.’s detention illegal. Nor can C.F. compare his case to Robinson v. State, 556 So. 2d 450 (Fla. 1st DCA 1990). In that case, the state argued that the search which revealed the contraband was performed incident to a lawful arrest. The court reversed, explaining that the officer did not have probable cause to make the arrest in the first place. In contrast, the state in our case argues only that its officers had a founded suspicion to justify a brief detention. It was during this detention that C.F., after being advised of his rights, voluntarily admitted that the cocaine inside the plastic cup was his.
C.F. has not explained, in any event, how any alleged unreliability in the tipster’s information yields the conclusion that the cocaine should be suppressed. If the police themselves had seen what the tipster described, surely that would have been enough for a founded suspicion to stop the youths and inquire what they were doing. The fact that they bolted and ran, upon simple inquiry, certainly allowed the officers to retrieve them long enough to see if the substance in the secreted container was contraband. And, even if all of that somehow fails, surely C.F.’s voluntary admission that the cocaine was his, and that there is no other way for him to make three or four hundred dollars a day, is enough to support a finding that he had committed a delinquent act.
C.F. also argues that an order placing a juvenile on community control for an indeterminate period of time and without an expiration date is improper. He argues that the order must specifically state that the term shall not exceed the period prescribed by law for the crime involved or extend past the child’s nineteenth birthday, whichever comes first. We disagree.
Section 39.054(l)(a)5, Florida Statutes (1991), provides that:
* * * the term of any order placing a child in a community control program shall be until his 19th birthday unless he is sooner released by the court, on the motion of an interested party or on its own motion.
At the same time, section 39.054(4) provides that:
Any commitment of a delinquent child to the department shall be for an indeterminate period of time, but the time shall not exceed the maximum time of imprisonment which an adult may serve for the same offense.
A commitment to the department is not the same thing as a placement in community control. They are alternative dispositions of a juvenile offender. We conclude from the language of these two statutes that a placement into community control may last longer than the maximum time of imprisonment for the same offense, so long as the actual duration does not extend past the offender’s 19th birthday. Nor is it necessary that a placement into community control state what the statute already provides: namely that it is an indeterminate placement. The fact that it cannot extend beyond the date on which the offender reaches his 19th birthday is not a condition which must be stated in the order, but is merely a limita tion on how long the placement may actually endure.
AFFIRMED.
ANSTEAD and WARNER, JJ., concur.
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C.P. v. State, 674 So. 2d 183 (Fla. 2d DCA 1996)…above statute provides that commitment and community service are limited to the maximum adult term or to the date of the juvenile’s nineteenth birthday, whichever occurs first. E.J. v. State, 595 So. 2d 282 (Fla. 1st DCA 1992). Contra C.F. v. State, 603 So. 2d 40 (Fla. 4th DCA 1992). The record in the instant case reveals that the five year maximum adult term for the crime of battery upon a school board employee will expire before the appellant reaches the age of nineteen. Therefore, we remand with instructi…
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T.J. v. State, 743 So. 2d 1158 (Fla. 2d DCA 1999)…rom these cases to the extent that they would require a disposition order under chapter 985 to recite a statutory age limitation. We conclude that both the juvenile and the State are on legal notice of the content of that chapter. See C.F. v. State, 603 So. 2d 40 (Fla. 4th DCA 1992). Cf. State v. Hart, 668 So. 2d 589, 592 (Fla.1996) (stating publication in statute provides constructive notice of conditions of probation); State v. Beasley, 580 So. 2d 139, 142 (Fla.1991) (stating publication in statute provide…1 / 2
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B.S.W. v. State, 668 So. 2d 1075 (Fla. 2d DCA 1996)…secute the appellant but only for battery. See Jaramillo. CAMPBELL and FRANK, JJ., concur. . Although we do not reach the sentencing issue because of our disposition, and because a similar issue may arise on remand, we note that C.F. v. State, 603 So. 2d 40 (Fla. 4th DCA 1992), is the proper precedent for the sentencing scheme imposed by the trial court.…
Previewing 3 of 6 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceAuthorities Cited
- Hetland v. State, 387 So. 2d 963 (Fla. 1980)
- Robinson v. State, 556 So. 2d 450 (Fla. 1st DCA 1990)
- L.D.P. v. State, 551 So. 2d 1257 (Fla. 1st DCA 1989)
- In the Interest of G. A. R., III, 387 So. 2d 404 (Fla. 4th DCA 1980)
- Bussey v. State, 528 So. 2d 955 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988)