State v. Blanco

6 Fla. Supp. 2d 162
CourtCircuit Court for the Judicial Circuits of Florida
DecidedJanuary 30, 1984
DocketCase No. 83-14561
StatusPublished

This text of 6 Fla. Supp. 2d 162 (State v. Blanco) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Circuit Court for the Judicial Circuits 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. Blanco, 6 Fla. Supp. 2d 162 (Fla. Super. Ct. 1984).

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

MORTON PERRY, Acting Circuit Judge.

Defendant Lazaro Jesus Santos was arrested and charged in an information with one count of trafficking in cocaine, in violation of Fla. Stat. Section 893.135(l)(b) (1981).

Santos moved to dismiss the information on the grounds of governmental misconduct by a confidential informant and by the City of [163]*163Hialeah Police Department. The Court held an evidentiary hearing on November 17, 1983, at which it heard testimony from the informant and was able to evaluate her demeanor and candor.

After hearing argument of counsel this Court orally granted the Motion to Dismiss, finding that the conduct of the untrained informant, paid on a contingent fee basis and acting without supervision by the Hialeah Police Department, was so shocking to the judicial conscience as to be violative of the defendant’s rights to due process under the United States and Florida constitutions.

This Order formally sets out the Court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law which underlie that oral ruling.

I. FACTS

The confidential informant whose conduct shocked this Court’s conscience was Yolanda Padrón, a person who was paid solely on a contingency basis.1 Her technique was to roam the streets of Hialeah, seeking chance encounters with men who had no previous history of involvement with drugs. She would engage the men in conversations which usually had sexual overtones, give them her telephone number, and later encourage them to find her a connection for a narcotics deal. Tr. at 26-38.

She used this technique successfully in approximately 35 cases over a three-year period, and was paid about $24,000 for her efforts. Tr. at 17-18, 26-27.

Supervision by the Hialeah Police Department was non-existent. No officer ever observed her chance encounters with defendants-to-be. No tape recordings were made of the initial meetings and Mrs. Padrón received no effective instruction from narcotics detectives on how to avoid entrapping her victims. She had never even heard the word “entrapment” until it was brought up at a deposition.2

Mrs. Padrón used her usual techniques with the defendant, Lazaro [164]*164Jesus Santos. She had never met him and had no information that he had any drug involvement when she happened to encounter him outside a Hialeah convenience store. They struck up a conversation laden with sexual (not narcotics) connotations, and she gave him her telephone number. 3 Tr. at 28-30. Mrs. Padron’s purpose in meeting Mr. Santos was to involve him in a drug deal so that she could continue to make her living working for the Hialeah Police Department. Tr. at 31-33.

This informant was motivated by money. Although Mrs. Padrón said that the biggest reason she worked as a confidential informant was because she hated drugs after her son became involved with narcotics, I do not find that testimony to be credible. She did not become an informant until eleven years after her son was arrested, and previously deposed that she began working as an informant because she needed the money. Tr. at 11-12, 57-58, 61-62. The Court finds as fact that Mrs. Padrón was motivated to work as an informant by the money she was paid on a contingent basis.4

II. LAW

Governmental misconduct is a matter of constitutional due process, a concept of fundamental fairness protected by both the United States and Florida Constitutions. See U.S. Const. amend. V; Fla. Const. art. I, Section 9. Garrett v. State, 390 So.2d 95 (Fla. 3d DCA 1980), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1004 (1981); Cotton v. State, 85 Fla. 197, 95 So.2d 668 (1923).

When conduct by a police department or its agents is so unfair as to shock the judicial conscience, the victim’s due process rights have been violated and any prosecution which resulted from such unfair conduct must be dismissed. Williamson v. United States, 311 F.2d 441 (5th Cir. 1962); State v. Glosson, No. AO-431, slip.op. (Fla. 1st DCA 1983).

After consideration of the Evidentiary Hearing testimony, the appli[165]*165cable case law and argument by counsel, this Court found that its judicial conscience was shocked and that Mr. Santos’ Motion to Dismiss had to be granted. See Transcript of Proceedings (November 17, 1983) at 45-46. This Court concluded, as a matter of law, that both the federal and state due process rights given to Mr. Santos had been violated.

A. Constitution of the United States

Employment of a confidential informant solely on a contingent fee basis carries such a danger for due process abuse that, when coupled with some other misconduct, dismissal is required under the United States Constitution.

In Williamson v. United States, an informant who “wanted to make some money” was targeted at three specific victims. 311 F.2d at 442. The Fifth Circuit held that, without careful instruction of the informant so that it was clearly understood, the informant would not induce his victims to commit a crime:

[W]e 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.

Id. at 44 (footnote omitted). Noting that it was the means to “make” the case which were “essentially revolting to an ordered society”, then-Judge Brown suggested that “there may be equally offensive actions which are less spectacular” but which would also offend fundamental fairness. Id. at 445 (Brown, J. concurring).

The concept that federal due process is offended when there is a contingency fee informant “plus” some other misconduct is illustrated in cases which found ameliorating factors absent from the facts of Williamson. None of those saving graces are present here. See United States v. Lane, 693 F.2d 385 (5th Cir. 1982); United State v. Joseph, 533 F.2d 282 (5th Cir. 1976), cert. denied, 431 U.S. 905 (1977); United States v. Garcia, 528 F.2d 580 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 898 (1976); Bullock v. United States, 383 F.2d 545 (5th Cir. 1967); Sears v. United States, 343 F.2d 139 (5th Cir. 1965).

In Lane, the defendants were predisposed to engage in illegal conduct. 693 F.2d at 388. Police could corroborate the informant’s [166]*166testimony in Joseph.5

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Florida v. Garrett
454 U.S. 1004 (Supreme Court, 1982)
Julian W. Sears v. United States
343 F.2d 139 (Fifth Circuit, 1965)
Griffith Francis Bullock v. United States
383 F.2d 545 (Fifth Circuit, 1967)
United States v. Jerry Joseph
533 F.2d 282 (Fifth Circuit, 1976)
United States v. James Earl Lane and Diane Willis
693 F.2d 385 (Fifth Circuit, 1982)
Garrett v. State
390 So. 2d 95 (District Court of Appeal of Florida, 1980)
Cotton v. State
95 So. 668 (Supreme Court of Florida, 1923)
Ratier v. Gates
95 So. 2d 667 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1957)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
6 Fla. Supp. 2d 162, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-blanco-flacirct-1984.