Perry v. State

916 So. 2d 835, 2005 WL 1812837
District Court of Appeal of Florida·Decided August 3, 2005·No. 2D04-418·Published·Cited by 3 cases

Opinion

916 So.2d 835 (2005)

Tom Allen PERRY, Jr., Appellant,
v.
STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. 2D04-418.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Second District.

August 3, 2005.

*836 James Marion Moorman, Public Defender, and Alisa Smith, Assistant Public Defender, Bartow, for Appellant.

Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Elba Caridad Martin, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.

ALTENBERND, Judge.

Tom Allen Perry, Jr., was the passenger in a vehicle owned and operated by a known drug dealer who was on his way to deliver two ounces of methamphetamine to a confidential informant. When law enforcement stopped the vehicle to arrest the driver, a search of the driver revealed the expected two ounces of methamphetamine. A search of the car revealed a closed black bag located between the front seats of the vehicle, which contained a digital scale and a pipe. At this point, the officers did not engage the passenger, Mr. Perry, in an investigative stop pursuant to Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), to determine whether he knew about the drugs or paraphernalia. Rather, without further investigation, law enforcement arrested Mr. Perry for constructive possession of the paraphernalia concealed within the bag. Because law enforcement lacked probable cause to arrest Mr. Perry for constructive possession of paraphernalia, as further explained in this opinion, the trial court should have granted Mr. Perry's motion to suppress the small amount of methamphetamine found in his coin pocket during the search incident to that arrest. We therefore reverse Mr. Perry's judgment and sentence for possession of methamphetamine. In doing so, we conclude that the United States Supreme Court's recent decision in Maryland v. Pringle, 540 U.S. 366, 124 S.Ct. 795, 157 L.Ed.2d 769 (2003), does not announce a broad rule permitting the arrest of all persons within a car any time a valid search of the car reveals drugs or other contraband.

In August 2002, based on information from a confidential informant, the City of Lakeland Police Department and the Polk County Sheriff's Office were investigating an alleged dealer in methamphetamine. That drug dealer was Tom Perry, Sr., the father of Mr. Perry. We will refer to Mr. Perry's father as "Senior," to avoid confusion. Mr. Perry, the defendant, is approximately thirty years of age.

*837 Working with the informant, law enforcement attempted to set up a controlled purchase of methamphetamine from Senior. The informant called Senior to set up the sale. All calls between the informant and Senior were monitored by law enforcement.

Based upon these calls, Senior agreed to meet the informant at a predetermined location in order to receive one-half of the purchase price for two ounces of methamphetamine. Law enforcement provided the informant with approximately $700 in traceable funds. The informant, under surveillance by law enforcement including an officer who knew Senior, met with Senior at a restaurant. Senior arrived alone. When the informant and Senior left the restaurant, law enforcement confirmed that the informant had delivered the $700 to Senior.

Officers followed Senior as he drove to his residence and went inside. Thirty minutes later, officers followed Senior when he came out of the house, entered his car, and drove to a bar. No one accompanied Senior. The officers watched as Senior met with a woman in the parking lot of the bar; then the officers followed Senior as he drove home again alone.

Approximately five minutes after Senior arrived at his home, the woman whom he had met at the bar drove up and entered the home. The woman remained in the home for fifteen or twenty minutes and then left. In the interim, the informant had called Senior and learned that Senior would be leaving his home soon to deliver the drugs to the informant at a specified location in exchange for the balance of the purchase price.

Five minutes after the woman left, law enforcement observed Senior's car leave the residence. Although Senior had been alone in his travels up until this point, law enforcement now observed that there was an unknown passenger in the vehicle. Officers did not actually see Senior or the passenger enter the car. The car headed in the general direction of the designated location for the drug sale. On the way, officers stopped the vehicle and immediately placed Senior under arrest. In his pocket, officers discovered the two ounces of methamphetamine intended for delivery to the informant. This occurred at approximately 7:30 p.m.

Officers searched Senior's vehicle incident to his arrest. Mr. Perry was immediately ordered to step out of the vehicle. He was directed to step to the back of the vehicle and was given Miranda[1] warnings. During the search of the vehicle, officers discovered a small black bag between the front seats of the vehicle. The officer who performed the search could not remember if the bag was in plain view. The officer opened the black bag and found a digital scale and a glass tube pipe with a burn mark. Without any further discussion, an officer immediately placed Mr. Perry under arrest for possession of the drug paraphernalia. From the record, it is not clear that the officers had even identified Mr. Perry or knew he was related to Senior at the time of his arrest.

According to the officers, the discovery of the paraphernalia was the sole basis for the arrest and subsequent search of Mr. Perry. That search revealed a small amount of methamphetamine in the coin pocket of Mr. Perry's pants. The State ultimately dropped the charge against Mr. Perry regarding the possession of the paraphernalia found in the small black bag but charged him with possessing the methamphetamine found in his coin pocket.

*838 Prior to December 15, 2003, the outcome of this case would have been relatively simple. Mr. Perry was merely a passenger in a car driven by a known drug dealer. The police clearly had developed evidence that supported probable cause to reasonably believe that Senior knew about the digital scale and other paraphernalia in his car. However, they had no factual basis to conclude that the unknown passenger, who had only recently entered the car, had any knowledge about a small black bag on the floor between the seats. Although the circumstances justified an investigative stop of Senior's passenger pursuant to Terry, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889, the officers did not pursue this option to develop additional evidence. Based upon controlling precedent, these circumstances were insufficient to support the probable cause necessary to arrest Mr. Perry for constructive possession of paraphernalia. See Cady v. State, 817 So.2d 948 (Fla. 2d DCA 2002); McGowan v. State, 778 So.2d 354 (Fla. 2d DCA 2001); Zandate v. State, 779 So.2d 476 (Fla. 2d DCA 2000); Rennard v. State, 675 So.2d 1006 (Fla. 2d DCA 1996); Rogers v. State, 586 So.2d 1148 (Fla. 2d DCA 1991); see also Walker v. State, 741 So.2d 1144 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999); Edwards v. State, 532 So.2d 1311 (Fla. 1st DCA 1988).

This line of cases arose out of United States Supreme Court precedent requiring some type of individualized suspicion to support probable cause to arrest one person found in a group of people, one

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Perry v. State, 916 So. 2d 835, 2005 WL 1812837 (Fla. Ct. App. 2005).

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