WALL v. STATE (2022)

Heather Wall appeals her judgment and sentence following a nolo contendere plea, in which she reserved her right to appeal the denial of her dispositive motion to suppress evidence illegally seized from her purse. She argues that the trial court erred in determining that the evidence seized from her purse would have inevitably been discovered. We agree and reverse.

Wall, along with co-defendants Lonnie Lamb, Jr., and Hannah Austin, were passengers in a vehicle driven by co-defendant Lonnie Lamb, Sr., when the vehicle pulled up to a Key Food Supermarket in Winter Garden. Lamb, Jr., and Austin exited the vehicle and entered the store, purchasing several gift cards while inside. When they returned to the vehicle, Lamb, Sr., entered the store and purchased additional gift cards. All of the gift cards were purchased with a credit card whose number had to be manually entered by the cashier. Suspecting that the credit card was cloned, the manager at Key Food called law enforcement to report a possible fraud. He also described the three people he observed getting back into the vehicle. Wall, who never left the vehicle, was not one of the people described to law enforcement.

An officer with the Winter Garden Police Department responded to the call, saw a vehicle that matched the description given by the Key Food manager and, upon noting that the vehicle's tag was expired, conducted a traffic stop.¹ A second officer arrived shortly thereafter and, following up on the call from the store, began a fraud investigation. Wall and the other three occupants of the vehicle were immediately detained and instructed to sit on the curb next to the vehicle. Wall's purse remained in the vehicle, out of Wall's reach and out of the reach of the co-defendants. It was soon discovered that Wall had an active warrant out of Texas for her arrest. Following her arrest under that warrant, and without consent or a search warrant, officers searched the vehicle and its contents, including Wall's purse. In the purse, officers found various types of identification and multiple credit cards not belonging to any of the vehicle occupants. Shortly after Wall's arrest, the owner of the vehicle arrived at the scene, hoping to retrieve his vehicle. Despite the fact that the Winter Garden Police Department has no policy that would prohibit the release of the vehicle to its owner, law enforcement instead conducted an inventory search and towed the vehicle.

Wall was eventually charged with perpetuating a scheme to defraud, fraudulent use of personal identification information, and trafficking in counterfeit credit cards. After the court denied her motion to suppress the evidence found in her purse, Wall pled no contest to the charges and was sentenced to time served followed by eighteen months’ probation.

In her motion to suppress, Wall appropriately challenged neither the stop (as the vehicle did, in fact, have an expired tag) nor her arrest (as it was pursuant to an active Texas warrant). Rather, she challenged the warrantless search of her purse, arguing that the search was not authorized as incident to her arrest or under the inevitable discovery doctrine. Following a hearing on Wall's motion, the court agreed the search incident to Wall's arrest was not permitted because the search bore no relation to her arrest under the Texas warrant. However, the court concluded that, because Wall was being arrested, her possessions, including her purse, would have gone to jail with her, where they would have been inventoried. The court, relying on Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 104 S.Ct. 2501, 81 L.Ed.2d 377 (1984), concluded that, pursuant to the inevitable discovery rule, the evidence found on the scene in Wall's purse would have been discovered by lawful police work, and denied the motion.

We agree with the trial court that under Gant, the search of the purse was improper. See Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332, 351, 129 S.Ct. 1710, 173 L.Ed.2d 485 (2009) (holding police may search passenger compartment of vehicle incident to recent occupant's arrest only if it is reasonable to believe arrestee might access vehicle at time of search or that vehicle contains evidence of offense of arrest). The purse was not within Wall's reach at the time of her arrest because she was out of the car sitting on the curb while the purse was on the passenger seat of the vehicle. In fact, all passengers were out of the vehicle. Additionally, the record is devoid of any indication that there was probable cause that the purse contained evidence related to the Texas warrant for which Wall was arrested.

Therefore, the issue turns to whether the evidence seized from the purse was admissible pursuant to the inevitable discovery rule. This doctrine requires the State “to establish by a preponderance of evidence that the police ultimately would have discovered the evidence independently of the improper police conduct by means of normal investigative measures that inevitably would have been set in motion as a matter of routine police procedure.” Cummings v. State, 956 So. 2d 559, 560 (Fla. 5th DCA 2007) (internal quotations omitted). There does not have to be an absolute certainty of discovery but rather a reasonable probability. Hatcher v. State, 834 So. 2d 314, 318 (Fla. 5th DCA 2003).

An inventory search as part of the impoundment of a vehicle is recognized as an exception to the warrant requirement. See State v. Townsend, 40 So. 3d 103, 105 (Fla. 2d DCA 2010). Law enforcement is not required to offer an alternative to impoundment, if they act in good faith. Id.; Robinson v. State, 537 So. 2d 95 (Fla. 1989). However, a law enforcement agency must show that it was operating under a standard or criteria before law enforcement can impound a vehicle and conduct an inventory search. Ross v. State, 319 So. 3d 807, 812 (Fla. 2d DCA 2021); Tyler v. State, 185 So. 3d 659, 663 (Fla. 4th DCA 2016); Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U.S. 367, 368, 107 S.Ct. 738, 93 L.Ed.2d 739 (1987). It is the State's burden to put evidence of that standard before the court. Ross, 319 So. 3d at 812.

Moreover, “[t]he validity of an inventory search relies on its purpose.” Williams v. State, 903 So. 2d 974, 977 (Fla. 4th DCA 2005). “An inventory search serves the needs of protection of the owner's property, protection of police against claims lost or stolen property, and protection of police against potential danger from such things as explosives.” Rodriguez v. State, 702 So. 2d 259, 262 (Fla. 3d DCA 1997). The arrest of a defendant, standing alone, does not justify the impoundment of his or her legally parked car. Williams, 903 So. 2d at 977.

The officer in this case simply testified that he did not normally release vehicles back to the owners. When asked whether the vehicle should have been released to its owner pursuant to department policy, he stated, “It could have, but it was not.” He could not detail what the actual policy was, and when asked what the purpose of the inventory search was, he simply stated, “The car was going to be towed.” He explained that “we don't just let the people who pick up the vehicles just take them.” We conclude that this testimony was insufficient to support a finding that law enforcement conducted an impoundment and inventory search in accordance with a standardized policy. See Williams, 903 So 2d at 977 (reversing order denying defendant's motion to suppress where officer did not indicate that impoundment was necessary for one of the purposes justifying inventory searches, and record was devoid of any standardized policy). Although there was no testimony or other indication that law enforcement was acting in bad faith or decided to impound the vehicle based only on suspicion of evidence of criminal activity, the State failed to present evidence that law enforcement acted in accordance with an established governing standard when they decided to impound the vehicle and conduct an inventory search. Without evidence of such policies to determine whether law enforcement complied with such procedures, the trial court could not properly determine that the inventory search was valid and that the discovery of the evidence seized from the purse was therefore inevitable.

The State next argues that even if the impoundment of the vehicle was improper, Wall's belongings likely would have been transported to the jail and examined as part of an inventory due to her arrest on a lawful warrant. However, there was no evidence presented that Wall would have chosen to take her purse to the jail upon her arrest rather than leave it with the owner of the vehicle. The court merely speculated that the purse would have gone with Wall to jail and that the officers at the jail would search her belongings, discovering the fraudulent credit cards and identifications in the process. This finding was not supported by competent, substantial evidence.

Because the trial court could not determine that the evidence seized from Wall's purse would inevitably have been discovered, we find that the court erred in denying the motion to suppress.

REVERSED and REMANDED.

FOOTNOTES

1.   There were no charges or citations issued regarding the expired tag.

HARRIS, J.

EVANDER and SASSO, JJ., concur.