Raettig v. State

406 So. 2d 1273
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedDecember 9, 1981
DocketVV-453
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 406 So. 2d 1273 (Raettig v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Raettig v. State, 406 So. 2d 1273 (Fla. Ct. App. 1981).

Opinion

406 So.2d 1273 (1981)

Lawrence R. RAETTIG, Appellant,
v.
STATE of Florida, Appellee.

No. VV-453.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.

December 9, 1981.

*1274 J. Victor Africano, Live Oak, for appellant.

Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., and Miguel A. Olivella, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

ERVIN, Judge.

Raettig pled nolo contendere to two drug related charges, reserving on appeal his contention that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress contraband seized from a camper-truck after he had stopped it at an agricultural inspection station. For the following reasons, we agree with Raettig that the motion to suppress should have been granted, and accordingly vacate the judgments and sentences and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

On August 10, 1979, at approximately 1:00 a.m., Raettig stopped his 1979 Dodge pick-up truck, with an attached camper shell, at an inspection station. An agricultural inspector then asked the appellant for permission to inspect the camper portion of the truck. Raettig testified at the suppression hearing that he attempted to locate the key to the camper, but was unable to find it and so advised the inspector. Raettig told the inspector that the truck belonged to his brother. The inspector, becoming suspicious of the appellant's manner, summoned Deputy Sheriff Richard Tucker to the scene. Tucker spoke with the inspector and was advised of the circumstances surrounding Raettig's detention. Tucker asked the defendant for permission to open the camper top but appellant again explained that he did not have the key and further refused to give the deputy consent to forcibly enter his vehicle. Upon that refusal, Tucker approached the truck and made a cursory search of it from the outside. He attempted to look through the windows of the camper but was unable to see anything inside them because they had been painted. He was, however, able to observe through the window of the cab an ordinary road map which appeared to him to have red marks depicting the locations of the inspection stations in Suwannee County. Tucker then directed the appellant to drive his vehicle to the Suwannee County jail some 15 miles from the inspection station.

Although there is some uncertainty in the record, the agricultural inspector apparently accompanied the deputy and the appellant back to the jail to serve as an affiant for a search warrant to search the appellant's vehicle. Upon their arrival at the jail, Deputy Tucker was advised by an assistant state attorney that he could not search defendant's vehicle without a search warrant and that the deputy did not have probable cause to search Raettig's vehicle at that time. Nevertheless, Deputy Tucker, while appellant was still being detained at the jailhouse, went outside and, with his flashlight, began another search of defendant's vehicle from the outside. He observed at the rear of the truck a crack between the bed of the truck and the base of the camper top which was six to eight inches long and about one-half inch wide. In a kneeling position, and with the aid of the flashlight, he was able to observe through the small opening some plastic bags and to detect what appeared to him to be marijuana inside the bags. He then crawled underneath the truck and found a seed which he was then unable to identify with certainty, but which was later determined to be of marijuana origin.

Based upon these observations, the deputy obtained a search warrant, and, pursuant to the warrant, broke into the camper top *1275 and found eight plastic bags containing 168 pounds of marijuana and a yellow one gallon plastic jug containing hashish. Upon these facts, the trial court denied the motion to suppress.

The state argues that the trial court's denial of the motion to suppress can be justified on either of two theories: (1) stop and frisk, (2) plain view or open view.

I. Stop and Frisk

We premise our discussion of the subject with the observations that the agricultural inspector clearly had the authority pursuant to Section 570.15(1)(a), Florida Statutes (1979), to stop Raettig's truck. See Sharpe v. State, 370 So.2d 42 (Fla. 1st DCA 1979); Stephenson v. Dept. of Agriculture & Consumer Services, 329 So.2d 373 (Fla. 1st DCA 1976), aff'd. 342 So.2d 60 (Fla. 1976). Moreover, the unique type of administrative detention involved here would permit the inspector to detain appellant for a longer period of time than merely to ask a few preliminary questions. Sharpe v. State, supra, at 44. And, although Deputy Tucker was not an authorized officer pursuant to Section 570.15, his participation in the detention as a deputy sheriff would not invalidate the appellant's detention. See Gryzik v. State, 380 So.2d 1102 (Fla. 1st DCA 1980). Cf. Section 570.15(3). Finally, because Sections 570.15(1)(b) and 570.15(1)(a)6 give the agricultural inspector a right to apply for a search warrant to search a stopped truck, it was not improper for Deputy Tucker to require appellant to bring his truck to the county jail for the purpose of conducting a more thorough inspection there. Cf. Miller v. State, 368 So.2d 943 (Fla. 1st DCA 1979). Once, however, the deputy was unable to obtain a search warrant at the jail, any colorable administrative justification for Raettig's detention necessarily ceased. A search conducted pursuant to an agricultural inspection detention cannot be conducted without compliance with the same probable cause standards applicable to criminal cases. Pederson v. State, 373 So.2d 367, 369 (Fla. 1st DCA 1979), cert. den., 383 So.2d 1203 (Fla. 1980); Stephenson v. Dept. of Agriculture & Consumer Services, supra. Raettig, then, should have been free to leave the jail after Deputy Tucker was advised he had no probable cause to obtain a warrant.

The state, however, attempts to justify the deputy's further detainment of appellant by relying on Section 901.151, Florida's stop and frisk statute. Although such limited searches are authorized upon an officer's founded suspicion, not tantamount to probable cause that a crime either is being committed or was committed, that lesser standard does not give the officer carte blanche authority to conduct a frisk which is unlimited in duration. Detentions for such purposes have traditionally been of only transient length. For example, a 30-40-minute stop of a motorist suspected of transporting drugs was held to be of excessive duration and not to qualify under the theory of stop and frisk as an exception to the Fourth Amendment requirement that detentions be reasonable. See Sharpe v. United States, 660 F.2d 967 (4th Cir.1981).

Finally, reasons often given for authorizing investigatory stops have no applicability to Deputy Tucker's further detention of appellant at the jail. He had already preserved the status quo, cf. State v. Martinez, 376 So.2d 931 (Fla. 4th DCA 1979), by securing appellant inside the jail. He had already taken a cursory view of appellant's truck at the inspection station. His safety was not threatened at the jailhouse, and it cannot be seriously suggested that the search of the truck outside the jail was necessitated by the purpose of finding weapons. Cf. M.A.P. v. State, 403 So.2d 1384 (Fla. 2d DCA 1981).

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