Recent Updates
April 28, 2010
State Must Prove Defendant's Knowledge of Driver's License Suspension
April 13, 2010
Sentencing Commission Votes to Eliminate Recent Criminal History Points
October 15, 2009
Consent to search inside of vehicle does not extend to locked containers
October 14, 2009
Making phone calls to get drugs for personal use not a felony
October 07, 2009
Duval County schools agree to reduce number of students getting arrested
Court rules person taken in handcuffs from scene is arrested, even if later relased
November 25, 2008
Topic: Criminal
The Th DC decided that a person taken from the scene in handcuffs, even if later released because they agreed to become an informant is deemed "arrested" and therefore entitled to all rights and privileges associated with being arrested. The 5th DCA applied the test for being arrested by the Florida Supreme Court in Melton v. State, 75 So. 2d 291 (Fla. 1954),, where the court stated the following four elements need to be weighted:
(1) a purpose or intention to effect an arrest under a real or pretended authority; (2) an actual or constructive seizure or detention of the person to be arrested by a person having present power to control the person arrested; (3) a communication by the arresting officer to the person whose arrest is sought, of an intention or purpose then and there to effect an arrest; and (4) an understanding by the person whose arrest is sought that it is the intention of the arresting officer then and there to arrest and detain him.
The State attempted to argue that the Defendant was detained and searched but not arrested because they were not booked into the jail. This was rejected by the Court by looking at the "Stop and Frisk" law, which is the law that allows police to temporally detain suspects.
Section 901.151 of Florida Statutes allows a law enforcement officer temporarily to detain a person when he or she encounters that person under circumstances that reasonably indicate that such person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime. Subsection (3) limits this by saying
No person shall be temporarily detained under the provisions of subsection (2) longer than is reasonably necessary to effect the purposes of that subsection. Such temporary detention shall not extend beyond the place where it was first effected or the immediate vicinity thereof. (Emphasis added by the Court)
The Court stated that "(w)e agree with our sister court in the First District that this statute explicitly indicates that "an investigatory stop may not extend beyond the place of the initial encounter." See Kollmer v. State, 977 So. 2d 712, 715 (Fla 1st DCA 2008). Likewise, we agree with the Third District's formulation of this principle:
Where . . . the detained individual is physically removed from the scene and involuntarily transported to the police station for questioning and/or investigation, the courts have had little difficulty in construing such a detention to be a de facto arrest. . .
Saturnino-Boudet v. State, 682 So. 2d 188, 193 (Fla. 3d DCA 1996), review dismissed, 689 So. 2d 1071 (Fla. 1997); see also Hayes v. Florida, 470 U.S. 811 (1985)."
In the end, the court found that taking the defendant from the scene to see if the person would be an informant was no different than taking the defendant to the police station for questioning.
This case can be found at Florida Law Weekly 33 Fla. L. Weekly D2648a
