EMANNUEL CLARK, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE

Fla. 4th DCA | 2008-03-26
No. 4D07-1567
KLEIN and DAMOORGIAN, JJ„ concur.
976 So. 2d 1225 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fourth District (2008) Caution
Cited by 8 cases

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

Emannuel Clark was convicted of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and resisting an officer without violence. The appellate court affirmed the firearm conviction but reversed the resisting charge because the state failed to prove Clark knew the officer intended to detain him.


Holding

The court reversed Clark's conviction for resisting an officer without violence because the state failed to prove Clark had knowledge of the officer's intent to detain him. The court affirmed the conviction for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.


Headnotes

[1] To prove the offense of resisting an officer without violence, the state must establish that the officer was engaged in the lawful execution of a legal duty and that the…

[2] An individual who flees must know of the officer's intent to detain them to be guilty of unlawfully resisting an officer.

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

“An individual may be guilty of unlawfully obstructing an officer if he flees while knowing of the officer's intent to detain him and the officer is justified in making a stop pursuant to the Stop and Frisk Statute.”

Establishes the essential elements required to prove resisting an officer without violence, including the defendant's knowledge of the officer's intent to detain.

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

On July 28, 2005, deputies in unmarked vehicles drove into a pool hall parking lot in Fort Pierce. Deputy Jadin saw Clark run from a group of people a…

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
HAZOURI, J.

HAZOURI, J.

Appellant, Emannuel Clark, was convicted of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and resisting an officer without violence. His motions for judgment of acquittal were denied as to each charge and appellant appeals. We affirm without discussion the denial of the motion as to the possession charge. We reverse appellant’s conviction for resisting an officer without violence.

On July 28, 2005, at 11:00 P.M., a number of deputies in two or more unmarked vehicles drove into the parking lot of a pool hall in Fort Pierce through two separate entrances. They were not responding to a call or looking for appellant that night and they were wearing vests which had “sheriff’ marked only on the back. As Deputy Jadin drove past the building, he saw a group of four to six people standing at the north end of the parking lot. He immediately saw a person run away from the group just as his vehicle stopped. The person, appellant, ran across the parking lot, through Deputy Jadin’s vehicle’s headlights and toward a fence. Appellant had his hand in his waistband and when he reached the fence he dropped something which Deputy Jadin could not identify at that point. Deputy Jadin did not identify himself or order appellant to stop. Appel lant jumped the fence and disappeared. Deputy Jadin went to the location where appellant dropped the object and found a firearm. The deputies set up a perimeter and appellant was found and arrested.

In appellant’s motion for judgment of acquittal, he argued, inter alia, that the state failed to prove that he knew the officer intended to detain him. In Mosley v. State, 739 So. 2d 672 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999), this court held:

“To support a conviction under section 843.02, the state must show: (1) the officer was engaged in the lawful execution of a legal duty; and (2) the action by the defendant constituted obstruction or resistance of that lawful duty.” If the officer has either reasonable suspicion to stop the defendant, or probable cause for arrest, the element of the lawful execution of a legal duty is satisfied. The defendant is correct that “[fjlight, standing alone, does not constitute obstructing an officer nor does it give rise to a well-founded suspicion of criminal activity.” “An individual may be guilty of unlawfully obstructing an officer if he flees while knowing of the officer’s intent to detain him and the officer is justified in making a stop pursuant to the Stop and Frisk Statute.”

Id. at 675 (citations omitted). The Second District stated the law as follows:

To prove obstruction of an officer without violence, the State must establish that the defendant fled from the officer with knowledge of the officer’s intent to detain him and that the officer was justified in making the detention based on a founded suspicion that the defendant was engaged in criminal activity.

E.A.B. v. State, 851 So. 2d 308, 311 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003).

Deputy Jadin testified that appellant started to run the moment the unmarked law enforcement vehicles turned into the parking lot. Appellant passed in front of Deputy Jadin when his vehicle was stopped and he was getting out of the vehicle. When appellant neared the fence, he dropped something that Deputy Jadin thought might be a gun but he was not sure. Deputy Jadin did not tell appellant to stop. Appellant jumped the fence and disappeared. The evidence does not prove appellant had knowledge that Deputy Jad-in or any other officer intended to detain him.

Because the state failed to prove every element of the crime, the trial court should have granted appellant’s motion for judgment of acquittal. We reverse and remand for entry of a judgment of acquittal on the charge of resisting an officer without violence. We affirm appellant’s conviction for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

Affirmed in Part; Reversed in Part.

KLEIN and DAMOORGIAN, JJ„ concur.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • S.B. v. State, 31 So. 3d 968 (Fla. 4th DCA 2010)
    …lty of unlawfully resisting an officer, an individual who flees must know of the officer’s intent to detain him ....” Id. (citing H.H. v. State, 775 So. 2d 397, 398 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000)) (emphasis added). Here, like the defendants in Clark v. State, 976 So. 2d 1225 (Fla. 4th DCA 2008), and Parker v. State, 18 So. 3d 555 (Fla. 1st DCA 2008), although S.B. fled upon seeing the officers, there was no command to stop by the officers at the time S.B. began to flee. Also, one of the officers testified that he did no…
  • Janiel Molina Perez v. State, 138 So. 3d 1098 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014)
    …) (holding that the State failed to prove every element of the offense of resisting an officer where, although the appellant fled upon seeing the officers, there was no command to stop by the officers at the time the appellant fled); Clark v. State, 976 So. 2d 1225, 1225-26 (Fla. 4th DCA 2008) (reversing the appellant’s conviction for resisting an officer without violence because although the appellant ran when unmarked police vehicles pulled into the parking lot of a pool hall, the deputy did not tell the app…
  • Brown v. State, 199 So. 3d 1010 (Fla. 4th DCA 2016)
    …he was being pursued. Thus, although the evidence may reflect that S.B. was aware that he had caught the officers’ attention when he began to flee, it does not prove that he had knowledge that the officers intended to detain him.”); Clark v. State, 976 So. 2d 1225, 1226 (Fla. 4th DCA 2008) (“[A]ppellant started to run the moment the unmarked law enforcement vehicles turned into the parking lot.... [The deputy] did not tell appellant to stop.... The evidence does not prove appellant had knowledge that [the dep…

Previewing 3 of 4 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw