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157 Fla. 874

27 So.2d 349

Joyner v. State

Supreme Court of Florida

Decided September 20, 1946

Supreme Court of Florida · decided 1946-09-20

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“"The record discloses that at an early hour of the morning two policemen of the City of Jacksonville observed a car parked, and apparently without an occupant. Shortly thereafter they noticed someone in the car attempting to start it. It had been raining and evidently the motor had drowned out. One of the policemen threw his flashlight on the car and when he did so a man ran from it. He chased the man but did not catch him, whereupon he returned to the car and the other policeman. In the meantime the other policeman approached the car, flashed his light on it and observed a quantity of loose coins, sacks, etc. Thereupon the two remaining occupants were arrested and the car was searched which revealed a pistol, ammunition, a safe tumbler, a large quantity of currency consisting of rolled change, silver, bills and checks."”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 118 So. 2d 596 - Gispert v. State

Relies on Carroll v. United States · State ex rel. Stillman v. Merritt

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1946-09-20

How this case has been cited

Cited by 14 later decisions — most recently March 1974

14 state decisions

901946195019601970decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

*875 ADAMS, J.:

¶1 The record discloses that at an early hour of the morning two policemen of the City of Jacksonville observed a car parked, and apparently without an occupant. Shortly thereafter they noticed someone in the car attempting to start it. It had been raining and evidently the motor had drowned out. One of the policemen threw his flashlight on the car and when he did so a man ran from it. He chased the man but did not catch him, whereupon he returned to the car and the other policemen. In the meantime the other police approached the car, flashed his light on it and observed a quantity of loose coins, sacks, etc. Thereupon the two remaining occupants were arrested and the car was searched which revealed a pistol, ammunition, a safe tumbler, a large quantity of currency consisting of rolled change, silver, bills and checks. This caused the officers to think a robbery had been committed and that assumption soon proved to be correct. There can be no question of appellant’s guilt. The law does not prohibit all searches without a warrant. The constitutional prohibition is only against unreasonable searches. No other reversible error appearing, the judgment is affirmed upon authority of State ex rel. Stillman v. Merritt, 86 Fla. 164, 99 So. 230, and Carroll v. United States, 267 P. S. 132, 45 Sup. Ct. 280, 69 L. Ed. 543.

¶2 Affirmed.

CHAPMAN, C. J., TERRELL AND BUFORD, JJ., concur.
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