State v. Anders

560 So. 2d 288, 1990 WL 45276
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedApril 18, 1990
Docket89-1183
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 560 So. 2d 288 (State v. Anders) 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
State v. Anders, 560 So. 2d 288, 1990 WL 45276 (Fla. Ct. App. 1990).

Opinion

560 So.2d 288 (1990)

STATE of Florida, Appellant,
v.
Richard ANDERS and William Hood, Appellees.

No. 89-1183.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.

April 18, 1990.

Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and John Tiedemann, Asst. Atty. Gen., West Palm Beach, for appellant.

Pamela I. Perry of Bierman, Shohat & Loewy, P.A., Miami, for appellee — Richard Anders.

Frank A. Rubino, Coconut Grove, for appellee — William Hood.

ANSTEAD, Judge.

This is an appeal from an order dismissing drug charges against the appellees-defendants on the grounds that the government acted improperly in setting up the drug transaction. We affirm.

LAW

In State v. Glosson, 462 So.2d 1082 (Fla. 1985), the Florida Supreme Court held that the due process provisions of the Florida Constitution limited the state's use of paid informants to set up drug transactions. The drug charges against Glosson and five co-defendants resulted from a "reverse sting" operation set up by an informant who had an agreement with the police *289 whereby he would be paid for setting up drug transactions and testifying in the subsequent criminal proceedings. When Glosson and his colleagues purchased drugs from the informant they were arrested. The trial court dismissed the charges on the ground that the utilization of an informant on a contingency fee basis deprived the defendant of his due process rights. The district court affirmed the dismissal. The supreme court affirmed and approved the district court's decision, noting:

The district court relied on Williamson v. United States, 311 F.2d 441 (5th Cir.1962), in holding the respondents had been denied due process because Wilson's contingent arrangement seemed to manufacture, rather than detect, crime.

462 So.2d at 1084. In Williamson, the court dismissed charges against two alleged moonshiners because government agents paid an informant money to set up the purchase of illicit whiskey from the two:

The uncontradicted and unexplained testimony as to the terms of Moye's employment make it necessary that the judgments of conviction be reversed. It may possibly be that the Government investigators had such certain knowledge that Williamson and Lowrey were engaged in illicit liquor dealings that they were justified in contracting with Moye on a contingent fee basis, $200.00 for Williamson and $100.00 for Lowrey, to produce the legally admissible evidence against each of them. It may be also that the investigators carefully instructed Moye on the rules against entrapment and had it clearly understood that Moye would not induce them to commit a crime, but would simply offer them an opportunity for a sale. None of these facts or circumstances were developed in the evidence, though Moye's deposition had been taken months before the trial.
Without some such justification or explanation, we cannot sanction a contingent fee agreement to produce evidence against particular named defendants as to crimes not yet committed. Such an arrangement might tend to a "frame up," or to cause an informer to induce or persuade innocent persons to commit crimes which they had no previous intent or purpose to commit. The opportunities for abuse are too obvious to require elaboration.

311 F.2d at 444 (footnote omitted; emphasis supplied).

In Glosson, the Florida Supreme Court noted that since Williamson the federal courts had narrowed the circumstances under which a due process violation could be based. The court rejected this narrow application:

We reject the narrow application of the due process defense found in the federal cases. Based upon the due process provision of article 1, section 9 of the Florida Constitution, we agree with [State v.] Hohensee [650 S.W.2d 268 (Mo. 1982)] and Isaacson that governmental misconduct which violates the constitutional due process right of a defendant, regardless of that defendant's predisposition, requires the dismissal of criminal charges.

462 So.2d at 1085. The court held that prosecutions based upon such contingent arrangements should be dismissed regardless of the evidence of predisposition on the part of the defendants.[1] The New York *290 appellate decision, cited with approval in Glosson, threw out charges against a defendant who was lured into selling drugs by an informant who was himself under prosecution, and who set up the deal in exchange for favorable treatment by the state. People v. Isaacson, 44 N.Y.2d 511, 406 N.Y.S.2d 714, 378 N.E.2d 78 (1978).

This court followed the holding of Glosson in Hunter v. State, 531 So.2d 239 (Fla. 4th DCA 1988). The contingent fee arrangement with the informant in Hunter involved the promise of release from a minimum mandatory prison term and fine rather than the direct payment of money. Cf. Isaacson, 378 N.E.2d 78. The convicted drug dealer-informant in Hunter set up drug transactions in order to avoid a 15 year minimum mandatory sentence and $250,000.00 fine. This court noted that like in Glosson, the informant had an invaluable stake in making new cases, and that:

As in Glosson, the informant acting under judicial, prosecution and law enforcement authorization, was given free reign to instigate and create criminal activity where none before existed. Subsequently he was the key witness for the state in appellants' prosecution... ."

Id. at 242 (footnote omitted).[2]

Based on the holding in Glosson that such government conduct barred prosecutions regardless of the defendant's prior disposition to commit the crime, this court held that both the informant's direct target and a codefendant, brought into the deal by the target, were entitled to discharge.[3]

*291 THIS CASE

The facts of this case are a mix of the facts involved in Glosson and Hunter. Anders and Hood were charged with purchasing drugs from Jorge Livermore, a convicted drug trafficker turned government informant. To avoid a minimum mandatory prison term, Livermore agreed to provide the state with "substantial assistance" by setting up other drug transactions. He acknowledged that he felt "appropriate pressure" to avoid going to prison. He was given a performance deadline, but was otherwise left unrestricted and unguided in how he was to set up transactions and who his targets might be. He testified that he "simply went out in the community and went fishing". Livermore approached Walsh, a stockbroker whom he used to work with, and whom he had twice previously seen give small amounts of cocaine to persons at the brokerage firm. When asked whether he was aware of whether Walsh dealt drugs, the informant said "No. Just those small quantities I was telling you about."

As noted above, Livermore was left completely free not only as to whom he approached but also as to the nature of the transaction to be set up. To entice Walsh, Livermore made up a story about a friend that he used to work with at Eastern Airlines who had come across a suitcase that had a bag with twenty kilos of cocaine in it.

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583 So. 2d 1051 (District Court of Appeal of Florida, 1991)
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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
560 So. 2d 288, 1990 WL 45276, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-anders-fladistctapp-1990.