BRADLEY SPARKS, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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The court held that the detention of the defendant beyond the time necessary to issue a traffic citation was an illegal detention.
A deputy stopped Sparks for a broken headlight, obtained consent to search, then called a canine unit after consent was withdrawn. The dog alerted, an…
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DAVIS, Judge.
Bradley Sparks appeals his convictions for possession of methamphetamines and possession of marijuana. He argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress. We agree and reverse.
A Polk County Sheriffs deputy stopped Sparks’ vehicle because a headlight was not working. The deputy asked Sparks for his driver’s license and registration, and Sparks complied. The deputy then asked for consent to search the vehicle. Sparks initially agreed but then withdrew the consent. The deputy stopped his search and called for the assistance of a canine unit. Upon the unit’s arrival, the dog alerted and narcotics were discovered.
Sparks moved to suppress the narcotics, arguing that the deputy had improperly detained him while awaiting the canine unit. Although there was some dispute as to how long the deputy required Sparks to wait for the arrival of the canine unit, the trial court found that the wait was twenty minutes. The trial court concluded that the wait of twenty minutes was reasonable and denied the motion to suppress. The trial court erred in this finding.
“[A] person may not be detained for a traffic violation for any longer than necessary to issue a citation.” Summerall v. State, 777 So. 2d 1060, 1061 (Fla. 2d DCA 2001). The testimony in this case indicates that once the citation was completed, Sparks was detained for some period of time. Although the deputy was unclear as to the time that elapsed, he did acknowledge that he completed writing the citation for the headlight prior to the arrival of the canine unit and that he did not give Sparks the citation or otherwise indicate to him that he was free to leave. Accordingly, the time between the completion of the writing of the citation and the arrival of the canine unit was an illegal detention. The trial court, therefore, erred by denying the motion to suppress.
Reversed and remanded.
BLUE, C.J., and COVINGTON, J., Concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
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Houston Whitfield v. State, 33 So. 3d 787 (Fla. 5th DCA 2010)…to do the necessary license/warrant checks and issue the citation — even including the several minutes expended on verifying Whitfield’s authority to drive the car — was significantly less than the twenty-nine minutes expended. In Sparks v. State, 842 So. 2d 876, 877 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003), the deputy had finished writing a citation for driving with a broken headlight before the canine unit arrived twenty minutes after the initial stop, and the court found an illegal detention. Similarly, in Williams v. State,…
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Hilaire Poliar v. State, 898 So. 2d 1013 (Fla. 4th DCA 2005)…Florida courts have held where an officer ' does not have justification for a lengthy detention, a driver may be subject to a canine search of a car's exterior only within the time frame required to issue a citation. For example, in Sparks v. State, 842 So. 2d 876 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003), a twenty-minute delay between writing a citation for a non-working headlight and the arrival of a canine unit to search the vehicle was deemed an illegal detention. The officer completed writing the headlight citation before the…
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Napoleon v. State, 985 So. 2d 1170 (Fla. 1st DCA 2008)…op when a backup officer or canine unit arrives, the lapse of time is generally not unreasonable. See, e.g., Sanchez v. State, 847 So. 2d 1043 (Fla. 4th DCA 2003); Sands v. State, 753 So. 2d 630 (Fla. 5th DCA 2000). In contrast, in Sparks v. State, 842 So. 2d 876 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003), the deputy had finished writing a citation for driving with a broken headlight before the canine unit arrived twenty minutes after the initial stop, and the officer had neither given Sparks the citation nor told him he could go.…
Authorities Cited
- Tyron Summerall v. State, 777 So. 2d 1060 (Fla. 2d DCA 2001)