DEBRA SUE BURDESS, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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Debra Sue Burdess was arrested for resisting an officer without violence after initially giving a false name during a consensual encounter with police. The Florida Fifth District Court of Appeal reversed her conviction, holding that because she was not legally detained when she provided the false name, her arrest was unlawful and the subsequent search of her purse was illegal.
The arrest was unlawful and the search was illegal. A person is not obligated to provide their correct identity to an officer unless that person is legally detained. Because Burdess was not legally detained when she gave the false name, her arrest for resisting an officer lacked a lawful basis.
[1] A person is not obligated to provide their correct identity to a law enforcement officer unless they are legally detained.
[2] An arrest for resisting an officer without violence is unlawful if the individual was not legally detained at the time of the alleged offense.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“when he asked if he could have a minute of her time, she agreed but was free to leave at any time”
Establishes that this was a consensual encounter, not a legal detention
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceAn officer approached Burdess at a motel based on a tip about a theft suspect matching her description. The officer testified he had no reason to deta…
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ORFINGER, M., Senior Judge.
Reserving her right to appeal the disposi-tive motion to suppress, appellant entered a plea of no contest to possession of cocaine and drug paraphernalia, following which adjudication of guilt was withheld and she was placed on drug offender probation. She contends that her arrest was unlawful resulting in an illegal search. We agree and reverse.
The arresting officer was given a tip that a suspect in some recent thefts was staying at a certain motel. When he arrived there he saw appellant, whose description matched that of the suspect, and who ran when she saw him. He testified that when he approached appellant he had no reason to detain her, and when he asked if he could have a minute of her time, she agreed but was free to leave at any time. When asked, she first gave her name as Debbie Diane Thomas, but when a passerby recognized her as Debbie Burdess, she admitted to the officer that her name was Debbie Burdess and gave her correct date of birth. The officer testified that no more than three minutes elapsed between the time he first approached her and the time he learned her correct name, but he arrested her for resisting an officer without violence, pursuant to section 843.02, Florida Statutes (1997). A search of her purse then revealed the contraband.
There was no testimony that the officer was impeded in any way by the giving of the original false information. No reports were prepared based on it, nor was any action taken in reliance on it. The information was corrected before it did any harm, and appellant was not being legally detained. See Steele v. State, 537 So. 2d 711 (Fla. 5th DCA 1989);1 C.T. v. State, 481 So. 2d 9 (Fla. 1st DCA 1985); P.P. v. State, 466 So. 2d 1140 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985). Cf. Caines v. State, 500 So. 2d 728 (Fla. 2d DCA 1987) (giving of false name resulted in filing of information against and court appearance of wrong person).
REVERSED.
DAUKSCH and COBB, JJ., concur. . Steele has been interpreted to hold that a person is not obligated to give his or her correct identity to an officer unless that person is legally detained. See D.G. v. State, 661 So. 2d 75, 76 (Fla. 2d DCA 1995). See also, Robinson v. State, 550 So. 2d 1186 (Fla. 5th DCA 1989).
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
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Dewayne Fripp v. State, 766 So. 2d 252 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000)…ed that the juvenile promptly and voluntarily recanted the false information and thus did not interfere with the officer’s performance of his duties other than by causing a relatively insignificant loss of time.” Id. Similarly, in Burdess v. State, 724 So. 2d 604 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998), while a police officer was conducting a theft investigation, the defendant gave the officer a false name. When a passerby recognized the defendant, she admitted her true name to the officer and gave her correct date of birth. Th…
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A.A.R. v. State, 926 So. 2d 463 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006)…e in deciding whether to permit recantation of a false name as a defense has been the extent of the delay in retracting and correcting the false information. The extent of the delay correlates to the amount of harm done, if any. In Burdess v. State, 724 So. 2d 604 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998), no more than three minutes elapsed between the time the defendant gave the arresting officer a false name and the time she furnished her correct name. The fifth district reversed her conviction, stating: There was no testimony…
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Geovani Gras v. State (11th Cir. Ct. App. Div. 2012)
Authorities Cited
- D.G. v. State, 661 So. 2d 75 (Fla. 2d DCA 1995)
- Steele v. State, 537 So. 2d 711 (Fla. 5th DCA 1989)
- P.P. v. State, 466 So. 2d 1140 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985)
- Caines v. State, 500 So. 2d 728 (Fla. 2d DCA 1987)
- C.T. v. State, 481 So. 2d 9 (Fla. 1st DCA 1985)
- Robinson v. State, 550 So. 2d 1186 (Fla. 5th DCA 1989)