State v. Santana

Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida Opinion filed May 20, 2015. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing. ________________ No. 3D14-2132 Lower Tribunal No. 13-911-A-K ________________ The State of Florida, Appellant, vs. Lourdes Santana, Appellee. An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Monroe County, Mark H. Jones, Judge. Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, and Marlon J. Weiss, Assistant Attorney General, for appellant. Carlos J. Martinez, Public Defender, and Howard K. Blumberg, Special Assistant Public Defender, and Susana Rodriguez and Stanislav Shamayev, Certified Legal Interns, for appellee. Before WELLS, LAGOA, and LOGUE, JJ. LOGUE, J. The State appeals an order suppressing evidence. The trial court concluded that a reasonable person in the defendant’s position would not have felt free to leave. Viewing the evidence presented at the suppression hearing in the light most favorable to sustaining the court’s ruling, and reviewing de novo the application of law to the historical facts, we affirm. Compare J.N. v. State, 778 So. 2d 440, 442 (Fla. 3d DCA 2001) (concluding that a juvenile’s encounter with police was a seizure where three uniformed police officers “ordered him to stop and arguably blocked [his] passage with the police vehicles”), and F.E.H., Jr. v. State, 28 So. 3d 213, 216-17 (Fla. 4th DCA 2010) (holding a juvenile’s encounter with police was a seizure where a detective’s “order” to “come here” combined with the presence of four or five other officers conducting a police sweep “created a display of authority sufficient to convince a reasonable juvenile that he had no choice but to comply with the detective’s direction”), with E.V. v. State, 138 So. 3d 1163, 1165 (Fla. 3d DCA 2014) (holding a juvenile’s encounter with one police officer was consensual where the juvenile testified that the officer “asked me come over here”). Affirmed. 2