STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLANT,
v.
KORY BULLARD, APPELLEE

Fla. 4th DCA | 2005-01-26
No. 4D03-4880
KLEIN and MAY, JJ., concur.
891 So. 2d 1158 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fourth District (2005)

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

Florida appeals a trial court's suppression order in a case involving marijuana found on a high school student. The appellate court reversed, holding that school security had reasonable suspicion to remove the student from class based on a detailed, face-to-face tip from a student informant, even without independent corroboration.


Holding

The court held that the detailed, face-to-face tip from the student informant provided reasonable suspicion to justify removing Bullard from class. The court found the informant was not anonymous and the totality of circumstances—including the detailed nature of the report, the informant's direct communication with security, verification that both students were present at school, and Bullard's known pattern of skipping class—supported reasonable suspicion under the appropriate standard for school searches.


Headnotes

[1] A search of a student on school premises is permissible if supported by reasonable suspicion.

[2] Reasonable suspicion for a school search requires that the action be justified at its inception and the search be reasonably related in scope to the reason for the search…

Previewing 2 of 5 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

Key Quotes

“In order for reasonable suspicion to exist, the action must be justified at its inception, and the search must be reasonably related in scope to the reason for the search.”

Establishes the two-part test for reasonable suspicion in school search contexts

Previewing 1 of 3 key quotes on this case — the court’s exact language, pinpointed for members.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Facts & Procedural History

Kory Bullard, a high school student, was reported by another student in a face-to-face conversation to school security specialist Brent Roberson as po…

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
STEVENSON, J.

STEVENSON, J.

This is an appeal from a non-final order granting defendant Kory Bullard’s motion to suppress physical evidence. Because we find that the search in the instant case of a student on school premises was supported by reasonable suspicion, wé reverse.

Bullard, a high school student, filed a motion to suppress physical evidence, alleging that the marijuana and money found by school security specialists were obtained in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. A hearing was held and the trial court granted the motion, finding that based on the “uncorroborated” and “anonymous tip,” which was provided by a student informant, the school security specialist lacked reasonable suspicion to search Bullard. We do not agree that the tip in the instant case was “anonymous” and find that, under the totality of the circumstances, sufficient reasonable suspicion existed to justify the search.

The trial court correctly noted that the appropriate standard for school searches is reasonable suspicion. See State v. Whorley, 720 So. 2d 282, 283 (Fla. 2d DCA 1998). In order for reasonable suspicion to exist, the action must be justified at its inception, and the search must be reasonably related in scope to the reason for the search. See id. To have either a reasonable or founded suspicion, the detaining officer must have a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity based upon the totality of the circumstances. See Felton v. State, 753 So. 2d 640 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000).

Here, Brent Roberson, a security specialist at Flanigan High School, received a face-to-face, detailed report from a student alleging that Bullard possessed bags of marijuana. The student informant described Bullard’s identity and claimed that Bullard had approached him with the marijuana that morning. Roberson checked the attendance records and determined that the student informant and Bul-lard had signed into school at the same time that day. Roberson also testified that Bullard would occasionally be seen skipping class and standing in the same location at certain times, which “brought suspicion through all the security personnel.” Roberson spoke to an administrator and received permission to remove Bullard from class. Roberson, along with another security specialist, Howard Hayes, approached Bullard in class and asked Bul-lard to accompany them to the office. On the way to the office, Bullard ran away and threw seven baggies containing marijuana onto the ground. Once the security specialists caught up with Bullard, they took him to the office, searched him, and found $216 on his person.

In conclusion, we reverse the. trial court’s order granting the motion to suppress. We find that the detailed, face-to-face report given by the student informant was not an “anonymous tip” and provided reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, which justified the school security specialists removing Bullard from class and asking him to accompany them to the office.1 See Milbin v. State, 792 So. 2d 1272, 1274 (Fla. 4th DCA 2001)(stating that a witness providing information through face-to-face communication is not an anonymous tipster and is deemed sufficiently reliable to establish founded suspicion).

REVERSED and REMANDED.

KLEIN and MAY, JJ., concur. . The marijuana which Bullard discarded while running away fromthe security officers may have been legally "abandoned” as well, but this issue was neither raised nor briefed by the' parties.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw