State v. Anders

596 So. 2d 463, 1992 WL 43260
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedMarch 11, 1992
Docket89-1183
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 596 So. 2d 463 (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, 596 So. 2d 463, 1992 WL 43260 (Fla. Ct. App. 1992).

Opinion

596 So.2d 463 (1992)

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

No. 89-1183.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.

March 11, 1992.
Motion for Certification and Stay of Mandate Denied April 14, 1992.

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

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

ANSTEAD, Judge.

This case is before us on remand from the supreme court for further proceedings in accord with its holding and opinion in State v. Hunter, 586 So.2d 319 (Fla. 1991). In 1989, the trial court dismissed drug charges against Richard Anders and codefendant William Hood and this court affirmed. We now affirm the dismissal as to Anders but reverse as to Hood.

FACTS

The trial court dismissed the charges because of the government's use of a convicted informant in setting up the drug transaction with Anders and Hood. The trial court's order provides:

THIS CAUSE came on to be heard upon the Defendant's Motion to Dismiss alleging a violation of his right to Due Process of Law. The Court having studied the pleadings, heard argument of counsel, and being otherwise fully advised in the premises concludes that the Motion must be GRANTED based on the following findings of fact and conclusions of law:
FINDINGS OF FACT
The Defendant RICHARD ANDERS was arrested on April 19, 1988. On May 5, 1988, an Information was filed in the Circuit Court of Broward County charging ANDERS with trafficking in cocaine in violation of Florida Statute 893.135(1)(b)(3) and Florida Statute 893.03(2)(a)(4). ANDERS' conviction would carry a minimum mandatory 15 years *464 imprisonment without parole and a $250,000 fine.
In all material respects ANDERS' arrest stemmed directly from the efforts of a confidential informant named Jorge Livermore. Livermore had been arrested by the Plantation Police Department and charged with trafficking in 190 pounds of marijuana and possession of a hand gun. For his crimes, Livermore faced a three year minimum mandatory sentence at the time of his arrest.
In order to avoid his minimum mandatory sentence, Livermore made an agreement with the prosecutor that he would set-up an unspecified number of persons in order to lower his sentence. The agreement never was reduced to writing. Initially, Livermore cooperated with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), with the understanding that his cooperation with the DEA would be credited as part of his cooperation with the State.
Livermore's initial cooperation with the DEA resulted in the arrest of a person wholly unrelated to the instant case after Livermore purchased one kilogram of cocaine from him. After procuring this one kilogram arrest, Livermore pled guilty to attempted trafficking in front of the Honorable Patti Englander Henning. However, Judge Henning was unwilling to sentence Livermore to community control based on this one kilogram arrest. Instead Livermore was told that to avoid serving any time in prison, he would have to make additional arrests. He was given no other guidance with respect to the additional arrests he would have to make except that the State Attorney made him aware that he would have to do more cooperation in order to further reduce his sentence and that he would have to make a Broward County case.
Livermore was given a performance deadline, a time limit in which he would have to procure more arrests in order to keep himself out of jail. In deposition, Livermore stated "if I didn't perform in "X" amount of time, I would be looking at 18 months [in jail]." (Deposition of Livermore at p. 20). According to Livermore, he felt pressured to provide other arrests.
Other than requiring an arrest in Broward County, Livermore was not given any guidelines or restrictions, oral or written, to guide his cooperation activities. He never was told to avoid entrapping others or, indeed, anything at all about how to deal or what to say to potential targets.[1]
During this time, Livermore used what he dubbed "his creativity" and concocted a story that he had friends who worked at Eastern Airlines (where Livermore had, in fact, worked) who had found 20 kilograms of cocaine and were willing to sell it for Seven Thousand Dollars ($7,000) a kilogram for resale at a higher amount. He stated that he decided to conduct a reverse sting in which he would offer drugs for money rather than money for drugs, because he "just felt personally would be easier to set-up a case that way." He also chose the weight that he would offer.
Livermore first contacted Patrick Walsh, a person with whom he had worked at a Miami stock brokerage house. Livermore had seen Walsh supply small personal use amounts of cocaine to people in a few isolated instances, but admitted that he went to him with this trafficking-quantity deal as just a shot in the dark:
Q: Is it a fair statement that in an effort to fulfill your obligation with the State of Florida, you decided, "I am going to go to Walsh and see if I can develop anything there."?
Livermore: Correct. (Deposition of Livermore at p. 30-1)
Livermore then had lunch with Walsh and told him his Eastern Airlines story and offered him 20 kilograms of cocaine for Seven Thousand Dollars ($7,000) a kilogram. Walsh said that he would consider the deal and get back to him.
According to Livermore, the next thing he knew, ANDERS was "in the middle of the picture... . All of a sudden, [ANDERS] is involved with it and [Walsh] — I am not talking to [Walsh] anymore. I *465 am talking to Rick." Livermore had not seen Walsh or ANDERS for seven or eight months before he approached them with the reverse sting. ANDERS told him that he knew a man from out-of-town who sometimes went to West Palm Beach who might be interested in the narcotics. This person turned out to be Defendant Hood.
Livermore had no reason to believe that ANDERS ever had engaged in drug trafficking. In fact, Livermore, stated that just as he knew that Walsh had never dealt quantity of drugs before, all that he knew about ANDERS was that ANDERS and he had "smoked a couple of joints of marijuana" and he once bought a very small amount of marijuana from ANDERS. After several phone calls with ANDERS, Livermore felt that he had sufficiently interested ANDERS in the transaction and he contacted the DEA to tell them about the deal he had put together. However, the DEA declined to pursue the case because they had checked ANDERS and Walsh's name and found no criminal background on either and "didn't normally do cases like this." (Deposition of Livermore at p. 39). After the DEA refused to work with Livermore, he approached Plantation Detective Paul Liccardo, the Detective with whom he had originally worked. Liccardo introduced Livermore to Detective Joe Hoffman and Detective Dennis Cracraft of the Broward County Sheriff's Department. Unlike the DEA, the detectives were interested in consummating the deal. Cracraft and Hoffman met once with Livermore and Livermore told them about the Eastern Airlines story he had used to lure Walsh and ANDERS. The detectives agreed to go along with the scenario.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
596 So. 2d 463, 1992 WL 43260, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-anders-fladistctapp-1992.