Opinion
1D22-794
09-06-2023
State of Florida, Appellant, v. Damien A. McCartha, Appellee.
Ashley Moody, Attorney General, and Miranda L. Butson, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee; Jack Campbell, State Attorney, and Anne C. Scott, Assistant State Attorney, Tallahassee, for Appellant. Jessica J. Yeary, Public Defender, and Tyler K. Payne, Assistant Public Defender, Tallahassee, for Appellee.
Not final until disposition of any timely and authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or 9.331.
On appeal from the County Court for Leon County. Monique R. Richardson, Judge.
Ashley Moody, Attorney General, and Miranda L. Butson, Assistant Attorney General, Tallahassee; Jack Campbell, State Attorney, and Anne C. Scott, Assistant State Attorney, Tallahassee, for Appellant.
Jessica J. Yeary, Public Defender, and Tyler K. Payne, Assistant Public Defender, Tallahassee, for Appellee.
BILBREY, J.
The question this case presents is whether Appellee's vehicle was "involved in the crash" allowing for a warrantless misdemeanor arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol, when Appellee's vehicle was found by the arresting officers overturned in a ditch with a damaged headlight, but with no evidence that the vehicle had hit anything besides the road and the ditch. We hold that the vehicle was involved in the crash, so the officers were lawfully permitted to make a warrantless arrest of Appellee. As a result, we reverse the suppression order entered by the trial court and remand for further proceedings.
On September 20, 2019, at 1:16 a.m., Officer Mixon of the Tallahassee Police Department responded to a report of a traffic crash. Officer Mixon found Appellee standing near his pickup truck, which was mostly overturned in a ditch. The driver's side of the truck was in the ditch, and the passenger's side was up in the air. The truck was not operable.
When Officer Mixon arrived, Appellee was talking with a driver who had stopped to check on Appellee. Appellee was not observed in the truck, and no one else was present at the scene. Appellee's truck had not hit another vehicle, person, or structure other than the road and the ditch. There was damage to the roadway and the truck including a broken headlight.
Officer Mixon started an investigation because he believed Appellee was driving under the influence. Officer Mixon requested assistance from Officer Northway, a drug recognition expert. Officer Northway Mirandized Appellee, and after Appellee waived his rights, questioned him. Appellee smelled strongly of alcohol.
Officer Northway administered field sobriety exercises, and Appellee performed poorly. Appellee eventually refused to perform further exercises because Officer Northway would not let Appellee return to his overturned truck for cigarettes. In seeking to return to his truck, Appellee described what had occurred as a crash. Appellee's truck was towed out of the ditch. A cup with alcohol and an empty miniature liquor bottle were discovered.
Appellee was arrested for DUI and transported to the Leon County Jail. There, after an observation period, Appellee registered a .191 blood alcohol content on the breath test. Appellee was charged with DUI with a BAC over .15.
Appellee moved to suppress his arrest and all evidence obtained during and afterward. Appellee claimed that his arrest for misdemeanor DUI was invalid since no crime occurred in the presence of the arresting officers. He further argued that his truck being in a ditch was not a "crash" so as to allow his warrantless arrest.
A suppression hearing was held, and Officers Mixon and Northway testified. Officer Mixon testified that the truck hit the roadway, the ditch, and the ground. Officer Northway testified that there was damage to the driver's side headlight. Videos and photographs were admitted by the State. Appellee did not testify or offer any evidence. The State argued that the truck had been in a crash, so that Appellee did not have to be seen in actual physical control of the vehicle for the officers to make the arrest. Appellee argued that the truck being flipped over in a ditch was not a crash. The county judge took that matter under advisement.
At a status hearing the judge announced her ruling. She stated that the primary issue was whether what occurred was a crash, and she stated that it was not. The motion to suppress was granted, and the judge entered a written order ruling that what occurred was not a crash. All evidence from the warrantless arrest was suppressed. The State appealed.
"A trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress comes to the appellate court clothed with a presumption of correctness and the court must interpret the evidence and reasonable inferences and deductions derived therefrom in a manner most favorable to sustaining the trial court's ruling." McCloud v. State, 208 So.3d 668, 675 (Fla. 2016) (quoting Rolling v. State, 695 So.2d 278, 291 (Fla. 1997)). On appeal, we "defer to the trial court's factual findings if they are supported by competent, substantial evidence, but review its legal conclusions de novo." Rodriguez v. State, 187 So.3d 841, 845 (Fla. 2015). Here, since there are no factual issues in dispute, and the issue is how the law applies to the uncontested facts, our review is de novo.
A warrantless arrest for a misdemeanor is generally only allowed when a crime is committed in the presence of law enforcement. § 901.15(1), Fla. Stat. (2019). One exception to this general rule is that following "an investigation at the scene of a traffic crash" an officer "may arrest any driver of a vehicle involved in the crash when based on personal investigation, the officer has reasonable and probable grounds to believe that the person has committed" certain offenses including crimes under chapter 316. § 316.645, Fla. Stat. DUI is a crime under section 316.193, Florida Statutes, so if Appellee's vehicle was "involved in the crash," his arrest was lawful.
The fellow officer rule can be used when determining whether a misdemeanor was committed "in the presence of the officer." See State v. Lord, 150 So.3d 260, 262 (Fla. 1st DCA 2014); State v. Boatman, 901 So.2d 222, 224 (Fla. 2d DCA 2005). But "all elements of the offense must occur in the police officer's presence or have been personally observed by a fellow law enforcement officer." Lu Jing v. State, 316 So.3d 724, 730 (Fla. 4th DCA 2021). So unless the crash exception applied here, since the officers did not observe Appellee "driving or in actual physical control of a vehicle," they could not make a lawful misdemeanor arrest for DUI. §316.193(1).
When interpreting a statute, we are to give the language used by the legislature its "plain and ordinary meaning." Green v. State, 604 So.2d 471, 473 (Fla. 1992). In State, Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles v. Williams, 937 So.2d 815 (Fla. 1st DCA 2006), we sought to define the term "traffic crash" used in section 316.645. There, the driver's vehicle ran a stop sign and came "to rest in a nearby drainage ditch." Williams, 937 So.2d at 815. The incident caused approximately "$100 in damages to the vehicle." Id. Williams argued that since "no damage occurred to property other than that belonging to Williams" no crash had occurred. Id.
We rejected Williams' argument and stated, "'crash,' [is] variously defined as 'a breaking to pieces by or as if by collision' or 'an instance of crashing,' Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 271 (10th ed.1998), and 'collide,' which in turn means 'to come together with solid or direct impact.'" Williams, 937 So.2d at 817 (citations omitted). We held that a crash occurs when a driver/defendant's vehicle is damaged by colliding with "another object resulting in damage" to the vehicle. Id.
Although Williams suffered only minimal damage to her vehicle when it came to rest in a drainage ditch, that was sufficient to meet the definition of a "crash." Id. As we stated in Williams, "Although the term 'traffic crash' reasonably contemplates some degree of damage, it clearly does not imply that damage must have occurred to the property of another, nor does it set a minimum amount necessary in order for such an incident to legally occur." Id.
Here, Appellee claims that there was insufficient evidence of damage to the truck, but the undisputed testimony was that the truck's headlight was damaged. As a result, Appellee's truck was involved in a crash under the plain meaning of the term as stated in Williams.
Furthermore, Gaulden v. State, 195 So.3d 1123 (Fla. 2016), cited in the suppression order actually supports the State. There, the Court considered the meaning of the phrase "involved in a crash" when the victim had jumped or been thrown from a moving vehicle and the vehicle did not hit the victim. The Court defined the phrase to mean "that a vehicle must collide with another vehicle, person, or object." Id. at 1128.
The only difference here from the hit and run statute in Gaulden is section 316.645 discusses "the" crash rather than "a" crash. The distinction is immaterial.
The road and the ditch are objects. Contrary to Appellee's argument, what occurred was more than just normal contact between the truck and the road or the ditch. When Appellee's truck overturned, it collided with the ditch and was damaged. Driving through or into a ditch with no damage or impact on the operation of the vehicle may not be a crash. See Williams, 937 So.2d at 817 (citations omitted) (defining collide as "to come together with solid or direct impact"). But a vehicle coming to rest upside down in a ditch must have had solid or direct impact with the ditch, meeting the definition of collide, which in turn meets the definition of crash.
Justice Canady's concurrence in Gaulden is instructive. He stated that "'vehicle involved in a crash' is commonly understood to refer to circumstances in which the vehicle has been in collision with something or someone." Id. at 1128. He explained that the term "involved in a crash" includes a vehicle that "has flipped over and crashed into the ground" like Appellee's truck here. Id.
Since a crash occurred when Appellee's truck impacted the ditch and was damaged, the arrest of Appellee was lawful under section 316.645. The order granting Appellee's motion to suppress is reversed, and the case remanded for further proceedings.
REVERSED and REMANDED.
WINOKUR and LONG, JJ., concur.