Morales v. State

407 So. 2d 321
District Court of Appeal of Florida·Decided December 15, 1981·No. 80-248, 80-249·Published·Cited by 41 cases

Opinion

407 So.2d 321 (1981)

Zeinida MORALES, Oscar Blanco, Livio Blanco and Humberto Martinez, Appellants,
v.
The STATE of Florida, Appellee.

Nos. 80-248, 80-249.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.

December 15, 1981.

*323 Greene & Cooper and Sharon L. Wolfe, Carol King Guralnick, Miami, for appellants.

Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., and Steven R. Jacob, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

Before HUBBART, C.J., and BASKIN and DANIEL S. PEARSON, JJ.

HUBBART, Chief Judge.

The central question presented for review is whether a warrantless search of the hold of a person's sea-going vessel and the subsequent seizure of marijuana contained therein conducted by U.S. Customs officials in the territorial waters of the United States [i.e., within the seas extending three nautical miles from the U.S. coastline], after the said vessel has recently entered such waters from the high seas [i.e., the seas outside the three mile limit from the U.S. coastline], constitutes an unreasonable search and seizure of the vessel in violation of the said person's rights guaranteed by the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 12 of the Florida Constitution. We hold that such a warrantless search does not violate said person's rights guaranteed by the above constitutional provisions as the subject search and seizure constitutes a reasonable border search; this result is not changed by the fact that U.S. Customs officials have: (a) no articulable suspicion that the occupants of the said vessel have been involved in criminal activity; and (b) no probable cause to believe that the said vessel contains contraband or other evidence of crime. We, accordingly, affirm the judgments and convictions under review by this appeal.

I

The facts pertinent to the above issue are as follows. On June 8, 1979, U.S. Customs officials received information from an unknown source that a vessel located in Bahamian waters along with two smaller vessels were about to bring a shipment of marijuana into the United States. A U.S. Customs air patrol plane was immediately dispatched *324 to go to Orange Cay, south of Bimini, to look for the subject vessels. Upon the pilot's arrival, three vessels were observed leaving the area, although the vessels did not match the descriptions previously given. The Customs pilot nonetheless followed these vessels by air from that point until the vessels reached a lighthouse point off Key Biscayne, Florida, well within three nautical miles of the Florida coastline.

Meanwhile, U.S. Customs officials located in nearby vessels off the Florida coast, were notified by the air patrol of the exact location of two of the surveyed vessels as they entered U.S. territorial waters. Both of these vessels were subsequently stopped, boarded and searched by U.S. Customs officials, together with Dade County Public Safety Department officers, in U.S. territorial waters near Miami, Florida. The first vessel was stopped and searched in Biscayne Bay, near the Rickenbacker Causeway by the Seaquarium. The second vessel was stopped and searched 1/4 mile off Virginia Key, near Bear Cut. In each instance, U.S. Customs officials boarded the vessels, lifted up the hatch on the vessel and seized a large quantity of marijuana in the hold. The defendants Zeinida Morales and Oscar Blanco were on the first vessel, and the defendants Livio Blanco and Humberto Martinez were on the second vessel. They were all placed under arrest after the discovery of the subject marijuana.

The defendants were subsequently charged in a two-count information with: (1) possession of marijuana with intent to sell [§ 893.13(1)(a), Fla. Stat. (1979)]; and (2) trafficking in marijuana [§ 893.135, Fla. Stat. (1979)] in the Circuit Court for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida. The trial court dismissed the second count of the information and the state has taken no appeal therefrom. The defendants filed timely pre-trial motions to suppress the above marijuana on unreasonable search and seizure grounds. No contention was made below by the state that the defendants lacked standing to bring these motions. The trial court heard and denied the motions after reviewing by stipulation the prediscovery depositions taken in this case in which the above facts were revealed.

The defendants subsequently entered nolo contendere pleas to the crime of possession of marijuana with intent to sell, specifically reserving for review the denial of the motions to suppress. The defendants appeal; we have jurisdiction to entertain the appeal, and the authority to reach the issue preserved for review as the issue preserved is clearly dispositive of the case. Brown v. State, 376 So.2d 382 (Fla. 1979).

II

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as made enforceable against the states through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,[1] provides that: "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated... ." Article I, Section 12 of the Florida Constitution contains a virtually identical provision.[2]

Two requirements must necessarily be met before any person may successfully claim that his rights guaranteed by the above constitutional provisions have been violated. First, there must be a "search[] and seizure[]" of that individual's "person[], house[], papers" or "effects" conducted by an agent of the government; stated differently, there must be an official invasion of that individual's reasonable expectation of privacy. Katz v. United *325 States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967); Norman v. State, 379 So.2d 643 (Fla. 1980); Elson v. State, 337 So.2d 959, 963 (Fla. 1976); State v. Oliver, 368 So.2d 1331, 1335 (Fla. 3d DCA 1979), cert. dismissed, 383 So.2d 1200 (Fla. 1980). Second, the search and seizure in question, must be "unreasonable," as not all searches and seizures are proscribed by the above constitutional provisions, but only those which are "unreasonable," Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 222, 80 S.Ct. 1437, 4 L.Ed.2d 1669 (1960); Chacon v. State, 102 So.2d 578, 588 (Fla. 1958); Brown v. State, 46 So.2d 479 (Fla. 1950); stated differently, the official invasion of one's reasonable expectation of privacy must be an "unreasonable" invasion.

Both the foregoing requirements are separate and distinct and both must be met before there can be any violation of an individual's rights guaranteed by the above constitutional provisions. Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U.S. 98, 112, 100 S.Ct. 2556, 2565, 65 L.Ed.2d 633 (1980) (Blackmun, J., concurring). Moreover, any evidence secured in violation of either of the above constitutional provisions is inadmissible in evidence in a Florida court against the person whose search and seizure rights were violated. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961); Gildrie v. State, 94 Fla. 134, 113 So. 704 (1927); Fla. Const. art. I, § 12.

Finally, it should be noted that the person who a

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