Opinion
No. 90-2464.
November 20, 1991.
Appeal from the Circuit Court, Broward County, J. Leonard Fleet, J.
Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, and Melvina Racey Flaherty, Asst. Atty. Gen., West Palm Beach, for appellant.
Raymond C. Miller of Tobin and Miller, Fort Lauderdale, for appellee.
The state appeals the trial court's order that granted appellee's motion to suppress. The trial judge found that "at no time did the . . . investigation originate, occurr [sic], or terminate within the city limits of Fort Lauderdale" and suppressed all the evidence because the Fort Lauderdale police acted outside their jurisdiction when they conducted their investigation of appellee. We reverse.
The record established that the investigation of appellee originated in the City of Fort Lauderdale, the territorial jurisdiction of the investigating officer, and therefore, the trial judge should not have granted appellee's motion to suppress. See Goodman v. State, 399 So.2d 1120 (Fla. 4th DCA 1981) (municipal police officer has authority to conduct investigation outside jurisdiction if subject matter of investigation originated within his or her own jurisdiction). The confidential informant [CI] had been convicted as the result of an arrest by the Fort Lauderdale Police Department. He contacted a Fort Lauderdale police officer because of the obligations of that conviction. That officer opened a file on the CI and began an investigation. He had the CI informer contact appellee by telephone, which the officer recorded on a telephone located at the Fort Lauderdale Police Department. Other phone calls were also recorded. When the CI completed the plans for a drug deal to take place outside of Fort Lauderdale, the officer contacted a Broward Sheriff's Department deputy, who took over the investigation which led to appellee's arrest and the search of his residence.
REVERSED AND REMANDED FOR FURTHER PROCEEDINGS CONSISTENT WITH THIS OPINION.
POLEN and GARRETT, JJ., concur.
FARMER, J., dissents with opinion.
The issue on appeal is whether the trial court erred in holding that the Fort Lauderdale detectives were acting outside of their territorial jurisdiction when they intercepted telephone conversations between a confidential informant and Price. In Goodman v. State, 399 So.2d 1120, 1121 (Fla. 4th DCA 1981), this Court held that a "municipal officer conducting an investigation outside his territorial jurisdiction, the subject matter of which originated in his own jurisdiction," has not improperly exceeded his authority. (emphasis supplied). See also State v. Chapman, 376 So.2d 262 (Fla. 3d DCA 1979), cert. denied, 386 So.2d 642 (Fla. 1980); Parker v. State, 362 So.2d 1033 (Fla. 1st DCA 1978), cert. denied, 373 So.2d 460 (Fla. 1979).
In this case, the trial court emphasized that there was no evidence of any action taken by Price in the City of Fort Lauderdale, and found that the subject matter of the Price investigation did not originate in Fort Lauderdale. I view the inquiry as to where an investigation originated as factual in nature, and therefore accept the factual finding, as I must, of the trial judge on this point.
The State argues that the Price investigation originated in Fort Lauderdale because the confidential informant initially communicated with Detective Losey in Fort Lauderdale. I do not believe that the place of an initial communication establishes all by itself as a matter of law that any following investigation must have originated in the jurisdiction of the initial communication. And even if it did, the record does not indicate that either Losey or the caller was in Fort Lauderdale at the time of this initial contact.
Although I very likely would have found as the State urges had I been the trial judge, I am not free to do so as an appellate judge. The ruling of the trial court on a motion to suppress comes to us engarbed with a coat of correctness, and we must interpret evidence, inferences and deductions to sustain the trial court's ruling. Owen v. State, 560 So.2d 207 (Fla.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 111 S.Ct. 152, 112 L.Ed.2d 118 (1990); State v. Nova, 361 So.2d 411 (Fla. 1978); McNamara v. State, 357 So.2d 410 (Fla. 1978). There is substantial competent evidence in the record in this case to support the conclusion that the subject matter of the investigation did not originate, occur, or terminate within the city limits of Fort Lauderdale.
I think an affirmance is required.