As a criminal defense attorney, I encounter new and unpredictable daily challenges. Every once in a while, a case will offer profound insights into our criminal justice system. One such case involves a client named Clint. Clint had everything in life going against him, but he possessed one trait that I desperately envied. He was incredibly handy. Clint could build, repair, recondition, fabricate, and fix anything mechanical, selling these skills for $20 per hour. When he hired me, he was trading his time for rehabilitating a home in Apopka, Florida, where he was born, raised, and lived.
Despite his skills, Clint had significant challenges. He had three children born outside of marriage, with their mothers pursuing him for child support, the government was after him for back taxes, and he had a crippling meth habit. Clint looked the part of a meth addict, a white guy with scraggly, sallow skin and a generally disheveled appearance. When I met him, Clint had just been arrested for possession of methamphetamine in his work truck.
The Referral
Clint came to my office on the recommendation of his former boss. Most of my business came from referrals, as my former clients kept me busy. Most people ask their friends for referrals when they are at odds with the law. Word of mouth was the best advertisement for me. Growing up in Florida helped because I knew a lot of local people.
Clint’s Account of the Event
Clint had been charged with possession of 12 grams of methamphetamine at 2 a.m. on the day in question. He advised that he had been rolling southbound on Highway 441 in Apopka when roads were mostly empty. A police officer driving eastbound in a perpendicular street claimed he could tell Clint was driving with high beams on, which is illegal. The Apopka police officer made a U-turn and followed him for two miles. Clint stated he did not violate any traffic laws. He advised he was driving a beat-up work truck, duly tagged and registered in this small rural town, where he caught the attention of a bored, dishonest cop.
Officer Brown hit the blue lights just before the jurisdiction went from the Orange County part of Apopka to the Seminole County line in Altamonte Springs. If he had waited until Clint got to the Seminole County line, it would have been an invalid or illegal stop.
At the Scene of the Arrest
Clint advised that he dutifully pulled his rusty Chevy to the side of Highway 441 in a safe, grassy area. Officer Brown demanded Clint’s license, registration, and insurance papers. Clint had the papers ready and repeatedly asked why he had been stopped, pointing out that he hadn’t been speeding, weaving, or running any stop lights. The officer would not answer him. He was more intent on aggressively searching the interior of Clint’s truck with a high-powered flashlight, looking for any evidence of criminal wrongdoing. The officer correctly assumed that Clint was not on the job, and he recognized the gaunt and nervous look on the face of an addict. Without any hard evidence or illegal behavior, the police officer was on a mission.
Officer Brown ordered Clint out of the truck for a standard standby reason—officer safety. Once Clint opened the door to exit the truck, the illegal search of Clint’s truck began in earnest. Clint knew his protests of the police officer’s behavior would only provoke anger from Officer Brown, but he couldn’t help himself. He kept asking why he was stopped and kept telling the officer to stop searching his truck.
The Illegal Search
Clint did not do anything illegal. The officer, on the other hand, was conducting an illegal search. The officer responded to Clint’s disgruntlement by calling for backup and reported to dispatch that he was searching a vehicle because he observed a crushed soda can and saw white powder on the floorboard of the decade-old construction truck.
Once backup arrived, the officers executed an extensive search of the vehicle. In the right rear passenger seat, Officer Brown found a flashlight which he unscrewed, peered into, and hit the motherload; a cellophane bag with 12 grams of meth. Clint was handcuffed, stuffed into an officer’s car, and taken to the Apopka jail for questioning. He bonded out on $2,000 bail and was given a court date.
The Violation of Constitutional Rights
Sometimes, I can resolve a case in a couple of hours. Sometimes, I can call a prosecutor to work something out or ask for a plea conference or orchestrate a meeting with a judge. Sometimes, the threat of going to trial resolves the issue. Trials can be expensive, and it is best for all involved to find a resolution before the trial. Clint’s case was not one of those quick-fix cases. In my opinion, there was absolutely no reason to stop Clint on this occasion and absolutely no reason to search his vehicle. The minute the District Attorney provided me with the police reports, I filed a motion to suppress the evidence from the stop and the search of his vehicle.
We live in the United States. We have laws. Police Officers are not supposed to stop, search, harass, cajole, impede, or restrict citizens’ movements without probable cause. This situation makes the blood boil in the veins of true believers and defenders of the U.S. Constitution.
The Hearing: Was There Probable Cause for the Stop?
I filed a ten-page motion to have the evidence thrown out and the case dismissed. I then arranged for a two-hour hearing in front of the presiding judge. Officer Brown showed up for the hearing, all buttoned up, shined up, and ready to lie his way through the hearing. He claimed he could tell Clint’s high beams were on even though his view of the vehicle was from the side, and he never saw the lights straight on. When asked on cross-examination if he had any training or experience to discern whether or not a vehicle had high beams activated from the side of the vehicle, he said yes. He gave the judge a contrived, detailed explanation of such training.
As Clint’s defense counsel, I moved to invalidate the stop and have the case thrown out and ended. I quoted legal precedent stating that if law enforcement could detect such things from that sort of vantage point, they should be working for NASA rather than local law enforcement. The judge denied my motion to invalidate the stop on those grounds.
The Hearing: Was There Justification to Search the Truck?
The next issue raised was the search of the truck. The officer outlined his vast experience in detecting drug users and highlighted the crushed soda can, which he claimed to be used for drug smoking. He testified the white powder on the floorboard of the truck looked like cocaine. He further testified that since he had found drugs concealed in flashlights in other cases, it justified his decision to search the flashlight found in Clint’s vehicle.
I doubted every word of Officer Brown’s testimony. I challenged the officer on whether he used the on-scene drug testing equipment to confirm the presence of drugs. He said he declined to test before searching further, citing “exigent” circumstances. This word is used by law enforcement to circumvent the Constitutional protections and search at their discretion, regardless of a citizen’s rights. The rationale was that if results from the drug test came up negative, Clint might drive off with narcotics still being hidden elsewhere in the vehicle.
Questioning Credibility
During a hearing or a trial, I make observations of witnesses being questioned. In this case, I noticed the officer both pausing and turning slightly red when questioned how many times he had discovered drugs in a flashlight in his tenure as an officer with the Apopka Police Department. When pressed on cross-examination to provide an accurate count of how many times he found illicit materials in flashlights, he did not have a precise number but estimated at least a dozen. The word “liar” flashed in my mind repeatedly as I heard his responses. I struggled to contain myself and not yell out the word audibly.
The Ruling
The court made its ruling. The judge said, “Based on the officer’s extensive experience in discerning from a distant side view whether a vehicle had high beams activated, I find the stop valid. Additionally, based on the officer’s training and experience as an Apopka police officer in discovering narcotics in concealed flashlights, I hereby deny the motion to suppress the evidence. The case will go forward to trial.”
The Legal Arsenal
I was furious and outraged. I knew this officer was being deceptive, and I quickly devised a plan of action. Defense attorneys explore the nuances of the Constitution, particularly the Fourth Amendment’s protection from unreasonable search and seizure. We have an arsenal of motions to exclude evidence based on these Fourth Amendment rights.
The Public Records Request
As Clint and I parted company, I assured him our work was unfinished. While it was fresh in my mind, I sprinted four blocks to my office, brimming with venom and adrenaline. There, I drafted a public records request aimed at the Apopka Police Department, requesting every single arrest made by this officer wherein he made an arrest for drugs or narcotics.
Three days later, an older gentleman in the records department called me. He informed me this was an odd request and that fulfilling it would be cumbersome, time-consuming, and expensive. I told him politely but firmly that I was indifferent to the challenges. In two weeks, the records were ready. I cleared my afternoon, piled into my Ford 150, and blazed to Apopka City Hall. I handed over a check for $378 for copies, loaded a pile of papers in my banker’s box, and headed back to my Orlando office.
A Motion for Rehearing
I closely read each arrest affidavit of Officer Brown since his date of employment with the City of Apopka. In the hundreds of pages related to drug arrests made by this officer, there was not one mention of drugs ever being found in or near any flashlight.
My heart was pounding. I drafted a motion for a rehearing of the motion to suppress. I obtained transcripts from the initial hearing and methodically prepared my argument. Despite the judge’s previous ruling based on the officer’s experience with drugs in flashlights, I was armed with copies of all of Officer Brown’s drug-related arrests. I marched back into the rehearing with compelling evidence on the appointed day, six weeks later.
Where Was the Good Officer?
Not to my surprise, the cop was conspicuously absent. He wasn’t all buttoned up and shined up in his uniform, ready to impress the judge and brag about what an awesome officer he was this time. For a dramatic effect in what lawyers call demonstrative aids, I placed the stack of arrest affidavits to my left. In making my arguments to the judge, I emphasized, “To my left, sir, and to your right, at the table of the defense counsel, I give you all of the drug arrests made by Officer Brown during his tenure with the City of Apopka. To my right, Your Honor, is the stack of arrest affidavits where this officer claimed to have found contraband in or around a flashlight. You will note that there is not one sheet of paper in this pile. Sir, at a minimum, this officer severely misremembered his actions in his career, or he deliberately misled this court to get a conviction. I ask you to reconsider the motion to suppress and prevent the State from presenting any illegally obtained evidence in future proceedings.”
Justice Prevails: Case Dismissed
The prosecutor struggled for something to counter. He weakly suggested that the law enforcement officer may have been confused, but since the drug was found, it should be admissible at trial. However, the judge would have none of it. He was as red-faced as the state attorney but for different reasons. He was angered that the officer had deceived him. The State filed a dismissal that day.
Clint remained poker-faced. He seemed bewildered because he was unfamiliar with the language, customs, and procedures in the courtroom drama he had just witnessed. Clint was glassy-eyed and sweaty, so I knew he hadn’t stopped using meth. Clint shook my hand as we parted company on the 12th floor of the courthouse. His hand had the rough texture of a working man and the cold and clammy touch of an addict.
Clint’s Ongoing Legal Struggles
Despite what may be called a victory in the State of Florida versus Clint, his troubles were far from over. He had scraped together the funds to pay for my services but had fallen further behind in his child support. The Department of Revenue, the child support enforcement agency in Florida, aggressively pursued him. He had a contempt hearing the following week in the same courthouse. If he could not come up with $7,500 for back child support, he was facing six months in the Orange County Jail.
For that case, he told me he had a court-appointed lawyer, one provided by the State, whom he spoke to once for a total of two minutes. Clint was lost in the system’s quicksand—one nightmare after the next.
The next morning, I received a call from Clint’s former boss, the man who referred him to me, to inform me that Clint had died of an overdose of heroin that night. His former boss suspected his overdose was intentional.
The Complexities of Criminal Defense
The case, the story, the saga, or however one would reference the situation with Clint, was fairly commonplace during the early 2000s. Experienced defense attorneys lived through story after story about clients like Clint. Some clients had the cards stacked against them, where police officers often misrepresented facts, and judges rubber-stamped the declarations and representations of these same law enforcement officers. The system of murky legal proceedings was maddening.
It is not to say that my clients are all innocent or all wronged by the system. The legal world just seems to have developed an us-against-them or a win-at-all-cost mentality. Even before law school, as a regular citizen, I pretty much thought people accused of crimes were guilty and needed to be punished. I discovered it was so much more layered and complicated.
Defending Liberties
True, in Clint’s case, those were his illegal drugs. The debate and dispute raging in courtrooms across every city, county, and State is about how much power we should give the government and law enforcement over the conduct of our everyday lives. At cocktail parties or social events, people often make remarks like, “Your client had dangerous drugs on him, so he deserved to be punished.” I either nod politely or try to explain the nuances of the Fourth Amendment.
I would explain the consequences, “This is not Nazi Germany. This nation is not a land of fascism. We can’t let unlawful searches and seizures happen unless we want to give up our freedom. In every courtroom daily, criminal defense attorneys try to defend everyone’s liberties, especially the “Clints of the world.”
Upholding Integrity in the Legal Process
I have handled thousands of cases. It is hard for me to answer the social question, “Are you handling any interesting cases?” They are all interesting to me. Since many criminal cases are in public records, publicly known facts can be discussed without violating attorney-client privilege. Clint’s case was poignant because the judge was so angered that he had been lied to by the police officer. Both Clint and justice got what they deserved because I took the trouble to uncover the truth of the situation.
My commitment to seeking the truth drives me to go through the extra machinations. I want to do my part to convey that police officers and the government shouldn’t have all the power and shouldn’t dictate to citizens what they can do in their private cars and homes. In seemingly minor cases, liberties are being lost, and our freedoms are being chipped away. It is easy for law enforcement officers to illegally bully citizens because, typically, nobody pays attention in a small drug case.
In the end, the officer was right; the accused was a drug addict, and he overdosed. Nonetheless, for freedom and democracy to work properly, it is crucial to go through the legal process with integrity, in this case, and every case.