Opinion
2D22-3145
08-18-2023
STATE OF FLORIDA, Appellant, v. ROBB MELHUS WALLIN, Appellee.
Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Helene S. Parnes, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellant. Howard L. Dimmig, II, Public Defender, and Kevin Briggs, Assistant Public Defender, Bartow, for Appellee.
Appeal from the Circuit Court for Sarasota County; Rochelle T. Curley, Judge.
Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Helene S. Parnes, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellant.
Howard L. Dimmig, II, Public Defender, and Kevin Briggs, Assistant Public Defender, Bartow, for Appellee.
LABRIT, JUDGE
The State appeals an order suppressing evidence that officers collected from Robb Melhus Wallin's motel room while executing a warrant for Mr. Wallin's arrest. The trial court found that the officers failed to comply with Florida's knock-and-announce statute, section 901.19, Florida Statutes (2021), so it suppressed the evidence. We reverse because the knock-and-announce requirement did not apply to the facts of this case.
At the time of the underlying events, Mr. Wallin resided in a motel room in Sarasota County. The motel has a U-shaped design with a common area and a pool in the center surrounded by motel rooms on three sides. A sidewalk wraps around the exterior of the rooms, and each room has sliding glass doors that face and exit onto the sidewalk and common area. There are no walls, gates, or other barriers that surround or close off public access to the motel and its common area.
In 2021, Charlotte County issued a warrant for Mr. Wallin's arrest. Because Mr. Wallin lived in Sarasota County at the time, officers from the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office executed the arrest warrant. One of the officers knew where Mr. Wallin lived and his room number at the motel. The officers thus went to the motel, entered the common area, identified the location of Mr. Wallin's room, and walked up to it.
Pertinent here, the officers observed that the sliding glass doors to Mr. Wallin's room were "completely wide open." Upon walking up to the room, the officers stopped approximately four or five feet from the doorway and looked inside. From that location-and through the open doors-the officers saw Mr. Wallin inside the room, along with what they believed to be narcotics in Mr. Wallin's hand and drug paraphernalia on Mr. Wallin's bed. The officers then saw Mr. Wallin sit on the bed and pick up the perceived drug paraphernalia as if to use it. At that point, one of the officers walked toward Mr. Wallin and announced, "Hey, Robb, sheriff's office, you have a warrant." The officers arrested Mr. Wallin based on the warrant, and they collected the narcotics and related paraphernalia from Mr. Wallin's room.
The officer could not recall whether he made this announcement as he approached the open doorway to Mr. Wallin's room, as he entered the room, or after he already entered. But the officer's lack of recollection is not material because we conclude that the knock-and-announce requirement did not apply.
The State later charged Mr. Wallin with possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. Mr. Wallin moved to suppress the evidence found in his motel room, arguing that the officers violated the knock-and-announce requirement in section 901.19 while executing the arrest warrant. The trial court granted Mr. Wallin's motion and suppressed the evidence based on our supreme court's decision in State v. Cable, 51 So.3d 434 (Fla. 2010). The State timely appealed the trial court's ruling under Florida Rule of Appellate Procedure 9.140(c)(1)(B).
The State argues, as it did below, that section 901.19 is inapplicable because the door to Mr. Wallin's room was open and no force was used or needed to enter. Because the State challenges the trial court's legal conclusion that section 901.19 applies, our review is de novo. See Ramos v. State, 344 So.3d 526, 527 (Fla. 2d DCA 2022) (explaining that on motions to suppress evidence this court "reviews legal conclusions and mixed questions of law and fact de novo").
Section 901.19 is entitled, "Right of officer to break into building." It provides:
If a peace officer fails to gain admittance after she or he has announced her or his authority and purpose in order to make an arrest either by a warrant or when authorized to make an arrest for a felony without a warrant, the officer may use all necessary and reasonable force to enter any building or property where the person to be arrested is or is reasonably believed to be.§ 901.19(1). This court has not previously determined whether the knock-and-announce requirement for arrest warrants in section 901.19 applies to open doors. But this court considered a similar knock-and- announce requirement for search warrants in State v. Brown, 564 So.2d 136, 136 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990), and we held it inapplicable where the defendant's doors were open and the officer entered peaceably.
In Brown, an officer executing a search warrant found both the door to the defendant's porch and the inner door to his home open. Id. The officer entered through the open doors and discovered cocaine and marijuana inside the home. Id. The trial court suppressed the evidence on the basis that the officer violated the knock-and-announce requirement for search warrants in section 933.09, Florida Statutes (1987). Id. But we reversed because "section 933.09 [did] not apply" and "[t]he officer was justified in walking through the open doors to execute the valid search warrant." Id. We also reiterated our holding in State v. Gray, 518 So.2d 301 (Fla. 2d DCA 1987), wherein we explained:
[T]he plain language of the statute [section 933.09] restricts its applicability. A literal reading of the statute reveals that the requirements are applicable only when an officer desires to effect a forcible entry into a residence....Nothing in the statute reflects that the enumerated steps [notice and wait for response] must precede a peaceful entry that does not involve force.Brown, 564 So.2d at 136 (alterations in original) (quoting Gray, 518 So.2d at 302).
Our supreme court has determined that the statute for arrest warrants at issue here, section 901.19(1), "parallels th[e] language for search warrants" in section 933.09. Cable, 51 So.3d at 438. Therefore, like section 933.09, a literal reading of section 901.19 renders the statute inapplicable where the officer has not executed a forcible entry. Because the officers in this case did not encounter a closed door or entryway, they did not have to execute a forcible entry into Mr. Wallin's room. Nothing in the statute's language suggests it applies where an officer peaceably enters a dwelling without needing to use even the slightest bit of force to enter.
The record establishes that the doors to Mr. Wallin's room were "completely wide open" and the officers entered without force to execute a valid arrest warrant. The knock-and-announce requirement in section 901.19(1) did not apply based on the statute's plain language, and as we held in Brown, the officers "did not need to stop and wait for permission to enter peaceably," 564 So.2d at 136. We therefore reverse the order suppressing the evidence found in Mr. Wallin's motel room and remand for further proceedings.
While the plain language of section 901.19 guides our decision, this statute also "appears to represent a codification of the English common law which recognized the fundamental sanctity of one's home yet nevertheless provides that an arresting officer 'may break open doors, if the party refused upon demand to open them.'" Benefield v. State, 160 So.2d 706, 710 (Fla. 1964) (quoting 1 Matthew Hale, Pleas of the Crown 583 (1763)). This common law knock-and-announce rule permitted "the sheriff (if the doors be not open) [to] break the party's house, either to arrest him, or to do other execution of the K[ing]'s process, if otherwise he cannot enter." Wilson v. Arkansas, 514 U.S. 927, 931 (1995) (second alteration in original) (emphasis added) (quoting Semayne's Case, 77 Eng. Rep. 194, 195 (K.B. 1603)). Thus, the common law rule "hinged on whether the sheriff or bailiff confronted an open or closed door," United States v. Sherrod, 966 F.3d 748, 753 (8th Cir. 2020), which is consistent with our holding here.
Reversed and remanded.
SLEET, C.J., and SMITH, J., Concur.
Opinion subject to revision prior to official publication.