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395 So. 2d 280

Docket No. 79-1037.

Thomas v. State

Andrew THOMAS, Appellant, v. The STATE of Florida, Appellee.

District Court of Appeal of Florida

Decided March 17, 1981.

District Court of Appeal of Florida · decided 1981-03-17

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“[T]he validity of a search of a defendant conducted after probable cause to arrest him has arisen is unaffected by the fact that the search comes before the arrest.”

quoted by 3 later decisions, including Freeman v. State, 529 So. 2d 1226 - State v. Smith

“[w]here, by objective standards, probable cause to arrest for a certain offense exists, the validity of an arrest does not turn on the fact that an arrest was effected on another charge.”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including Freeman v. State, 562 So. 2d 705 - State v. Gonzalez

Relies on Chambers v. Maroney · Rawlings v. Kentucky · Rivera v. United States

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1981-03-17

How this case has been cited

Cited by 38 later decisions — most recently March 2015 · most notably State v. Copeland (1987), 467 So. 2d 1063 - Palmer v. State (1985)

38 state decisions

2701981199020002010decided

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 →

¶1Bennett H. Brummer, Public Defender and Alan R. Dakan, Asst. Public Defender, for appellant.

¶2Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., and Anthony C. Musto, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.

¶3Before HUBBART, C.J., and BASKIN and DANIEL S. PEARSON, JJ.

¶4DANIEL S. PEARSON, Judge.

¶5We affirm Thomas' conviction. The trial court correctly denied Thomas' motion to suppress the fruits of a burglary found during a search of Thomas' person.

¶6The arresting officers believed that the circumstances, at most, justified an arrest for loitering and prowling and, incident to an arrest on that charge, conducted a search of Thomas. Even if, as Thomas suggests, an arrest on that charge was unlawful because the officers immediately upon stopping Thomas gave him Miranda warnings, which arguably inhibited him from dispelling the officers' concern, see Section 856.021, Florida Statutes (1977); State v. Ecker,311 So.2d 104 (Fla.), cert.*281denied sub nom., Bell v. Florida,423 U.S. 1019, 96 S.Ct. 455, 46 L.Ed.2d 391 (1975), there existed, notwithstanding the officers' mistaken and contrary belief, probable cause to arrest Thomas on a charge of burglary. See, e.g., Chambers v. Maroney,399 U.S. 42, 90 S.Ct. 1975, 26 L.Ed.2d 419 (1970). Where, by objective standards, probable cause to arrest for a certain offense exists, the validity of an arrest does not turn on the fact that an arrest was effected on another charge. Chaney v. State,237 So.2d 281 (Fla. 4th DCA 1970), cert. denied,403 U.S. 904, 91 S.Ct. 2205, 29 L.Ed.2d 680 (1971); United States v. Ullrich,580 F.2d 765 (5th Cir.1978). Moreover, given the existence of probable cause to arrest Thomas for the offense of burglary, the validity of the search of Thomas is unaffected by the fact that the search preceded his formal arrest on that charge. Rawlings v. Kentucky,448 U.S. 98, 100 S.Ct. 2556, 65 L.Ed.2d 633 (1980); Dixon v. State,343 So.2d 1345, 1347 n. 3 (Fla. 2d DCA 1977).

¶7AFFIRMED.

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