STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLANT,
v.
JOEL R. VALLONE, APPELLEE
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The State appeals an order suppressing evidence obtained via search warrant. The trial court erred in treating the affiant's source—a citizen informant whose identity was readily ascertainable—as an anonymous tipster requiring reliability information in the affidavit. The appellate court reversed, holding that a citizen informant with easily traceable identity satisfies any veracity concerns.
The trial court erred in granting the motion to suppress. D.C. was not an anonymous tipster or confidential informant because his identity was readily ascertainable from the affidavit, which identified him as a relative of a named Stuart officer. A citizen informant's identity satisfies concerns about veracity without requiring additional reliability information in the affidavit.
[1] A search warrant affidavit based on information from an informant whose identity is readily ascertainable is not based on an anonymous tipster.
[2] A citizen informant is presumed to be reliable, satisfying any questions about the informant's veracity.
Previewing 2 of 4 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“Whether a person is a confidential informant depends on the facts.”
Establishes that the use of initials alone does not determine confidential informant status; the actual circumstances must be examined.
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceDefendant Vallone asked his high school friend D.C. to help transfer files between computers. While assisting, D.C. discovered child pornography files…
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KLEIN, J.
The state appeals an order granting appellee defendant’s motion to suppress evidence obtained under a search warrant. The trial court granted the motion because it concluded the affidavit on which the search warrant was based was given by a confidential informant and the affidavit did not include information about the reliability of the informant. We reverse.
The officer signing the affidavit for the search warrant identified the informant as D.C. The affidavit reflected that defendant, who had been a friend of D.C.’s since high school, had asked D.C. to help him transfer files from an old computer to a new one. D.C. complied and, while doing so, noticed that some of the files consisted of child pornography which was described in the affidavit.
D.C. informed a Stuart police officer, who was D.C.’s relative, but because the computer was outside of that officer’s jurisdiction, the officer contacted a sheriffs detective assigned to investigate computer crimes involving child pornography. The detective interviewed D.C., obtained the search warrant based on that information, and found the pornographic material where D.C. indicated it would be.
The trial court treated the motion to suppress as though the information received by the detective were from an anonymous tipster or confidential informant who could not be identified. The trial court may have erroneously made that assumption based on the fact that the informant’s initials were used in the affidavit rather than his name; however, that is not the criteria. Whether a person is a confidential informant depends on the facts. State v. Johnson, 285 So. 2d 53 (Fla. 2d DCA 1973).
The identity of D.C. was easily ascertainable, as the affidavit stated that D.C. was a relative of a named Stuart officer who had referred him to the detective. An informant whose identity is readily ascertainable is not an anonymous tipster. State v. Maynard, 783 So. 2d 226 (Fla.2001) (also holding that one officer’s knowledge of an informant’s identity is imputed to a different officer obtaining the warrant).
Because it was undisputed that D.C. was a citizen informant, which is sufficient to satisfy any questions about the informant’s veracity, State v. Novak, 502 So. 2d 990 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987), the trial court erred in granting the motion to suppress. Reversed.
WARNER and POLEN, JJ., concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
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State v. Cook, 972 So. 2d 958 (Fla. 5th DCA 2007)…this conclusion because the information was provided by a citizen informant, and its reliability was therefore presumed. State v. Maynard, 783 So. 2d 226, 230 (Fla.2001); State v. Woldridge, 958 So. 2d 455, 459 (Fla. 2d DCA 2007); State v. Vallone, 868 So. 2d 1278, 1279-80 (Fla. 4th DCA 2004). The trial court also concluded that the information provided by Mr. Williams was insufficient to establish a fair probability that evidence of the alleged crime would be found. We again disagree. The affidavit revealed…
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State v. Seamus Eugene MC Neela (Fla. 2d DCA 2023)…hose files many images of children in sexually explicit positions. In reversing a suppression order, the Fifth District held that this "information was clearly sufficient to support the issuance of a search warrant." Id. (citing State v. Vallone, 868 So. 2d 1278, 1278-80 (Fla. 4th DCA 2004)). In Vallone, the warrant affidavit described images alleged to be child pornography that the defendant's friend had noticed on the defendant's computer while helping the defendant transfer files. 868 So. 2d at 1279. T…
Authorities Cited
- State v. Maynard, 783 So. 2d 226 (Fla. 2001)
- State v. Novak, 502 So. 2d 990 (Fla. 3d DCA 1987)
- State v. Johnson, 285 So. 2d 53 (Fla. 2d DCA 1973)