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Motions to Suppress
Americans enjoy many constitutional rights as citizens, and one that every citizen should be aware of is the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. This concept is enshrined in the 4th Amendment of the Constitution as well asThe Florida Constitution Art. I, § 12, Fla. Const , and we all rely on this to prevent law enforcement officers from conducting any search of us or seizure of us without probable cause of a crime or civil infraction, or without reasonable suspicion of a crime. You need to know about a motion to suppress evidence to understand your rights.
If you have been the subject of an investigation, arrest, charge, or sworn complaint, most likely you have had some involvement with the police or a law enforcement agency. During the course of an investigation the law enforcement agent has most likely gathered evidence in some manner. After you have been charged you will have the ability to review the evidence against you, and try to determine if any of the evidence against you was gathered in violation of the 4th amendment, and therefore could be considered illegally gathered evidence. If successful in convincing a judge that the evidence was illegally obtained, the evidence may be ‘suppressed’ meaning it won’t be allowed to be used against you in the courtroom.
There are many statutes, rules, constitutional provisions, police regulatory policies, and ordinances which can apply to the many types of motions to suppress which may be available to any criminal defendant. Matt Landsman Gainesville defense attorney has extensive experience suppressing evidence in many types of cases, from drug cases to interrogations, to violent crime cases, and has the experience and expertise you need to help determine if the evidence being used against you has been illegally obtained.
Warrant and Warrantless Exceptions
The Fourth Amendment protects the right of individuals – including their persons, houses, papers and effects – from unreasonable search and seizure. Warrants cannot be issued but upon probable cause and must describe the person, place or thing to be searched with a sufficient amount of particularity.
A warrant is a document authorizing law enforcement officers to take someone into custody, or conduct a search or seizure of a place, thing, or things. Law enforcement officers obtain a warrant to search by convincing a neutral third party magistrate that probable cause exists. The rules governing search warrants are laid out in F.S. chapter 933. Generally a law enforcement officer needs to write a search or arrest warrant affidavit, then have it approved by a judge or magistrate, conduct the search or arrest, and then provide a search warrant return to the issuing Court. However, a vast majority of searches are conducted in the absence of a warrant because the courts have developed a number of exceptions to the warrant requirement, and you need to know a large body of law to analyze the strength or weakness of any particular search issue you may have.
Here are some examples of the general categories of search exceptions that may or may not apply to your or anyone’s circumstances:
Consent
Consent means you have been asked to allow a search and you freely and voluntarily waive your right to be free from unreasonable search or seizure. Many people do this because they are not aware that they have the right to refuse consent to search, (frequently you are not told this by the searching officer) or they feel intimidated or If consent is freely and voluntarily given the officers involved will not need to stop what they are doing and write a search warrant application and have a neutral judge scrutinize their work.
Plain View
Another exception is the plain view and open fields doctrine. The basic premise here is that if the officer can see an object in plain view they don’t have to write a search warrant because of the open and obvious presence of criminal evidence.
Exigent Circumstances
Generally this broad concept is seen as essentially an emergency like situation where the police reasonably need to act quickly because of some issue having to do with either the imminent destruction of evidence, the escape of suspects, or an imminent danger to one’s own life as well as that of others. The Courts in Florida have many differing opinions on what circumstances may qualify as exigent circumstances and what may not, and you want an experienced Gainesville criminal defense attorney to help analyze whether the police may have been acting improperly under the color of exigent circumstance warrant exceptions.
Stop and Frisk
Also known as a Terry Stop (based on a court case which gave rise to the concept).
This kind of stop allows an officer to briefly frisk the suspect for weapons. Generally this type of brief stop and detention needs to be supported by reasonable suspicion of a crime and a reasonable belief the suspect is armed or dangerous. This is a common occurrence in many cases and whether or not the police can justify their stop and frisk is highly case specific.
Suppression of Evidence
While your case is ongoing, if one of these or some other police unconstitutional practice is identified to the Court, your attorney can seek a hearing and the State and Defense can argue the issue at a motion to suppress hearing in Court. The Defense initially will bring up the illegal police conduct, and therefore any further evidence recovered by the police violates search and seizure law, and evidence obtained after the violation will be invalid as per the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine. The State will try to present argument or evidence or both to prove to the judge some warrant exception applies and the State should still be entitled to use the evidence obtained by law enforcement. A successful suppression hearing will most likely result in dropped charges if the evidence at issue constitutes the crime itself (i.e. drugs or weapons most commonly).
Arrest and Confession
Additional evidence can be obtained by the police during an arrest and during any subsequent interrogation or questioning of the suspect. There are additional motion to suppress concepts applicable to both, for example did the police mislead the suspect as to their constitutional rights (like Miranda rights) or was there any duress or coercion which led to a confession or statement of some kind. The subject areas here incorporate the 4th, 5th, and 6th amendment of the Constitution and you can learn more about these concepts and if they are applicable to your case with the help of a knowledgeable and experienced Gainesville Defense attorney like Matt Landsman.
If you have been charged with an offense you need experienced and knowledgeable defense attorney Matt Landsman to help you determine if you have any motion to suppress issues in your case. Call today for your free consultation.
Have you been accused of a crime in Gainesville or North Florida? Call or contact us online to schedule a free consultation in Gainesville Florida.