I.K. v. State
I.K. v. State
Opinion of the Court
After an adjudicatory hearing, I.K. was found guilty of criminal mischief, in violation of section 806.13(1)(b)(1), Florida Statutes (2015), and resisting an officer without violence, in violation of section 843.02, Florida Statutes (2015). The court withheld adjudication of delinquency and placed I.K. on probation. I.K. appeals, challenging the denial of his motion for judgment of dismissal as to the latter charge of resisting an officer without violence.
A motion for judgment of dismissal, the purpose of which is to test the legal sufficiency of the State's evidence, is reviewed de novo. R.J.K. v. State,
At trial, two officers of the Tampa Police Department (the "Department") testified that they received a dispatch call to respond to a residence for a local pickup of I.K. for violation of probation. They explained that the dispatch call-variously described as a "VOP, Local Pickup," a "dispatch call to respond to the residence ... for a pickup," and "A Violation of *1165Probation Pickup"-was an internal practice of the Department by which officers from the Department check in on juveniles who are on probation. For example, when the terms of probation require the juvenile to be home at a certain time, officers will go to the juvenile's house to see if he is violating his probation. If the officers "don't make contact with that juvenile there," they place a local pickup for that juvenile. The officer puts that information into the Department's system "with radio, as a pickup, so that ... any law enforcement that comes into contact with him ... will know he violated that curfew order."
Based on the dispatch call they received, the officers went to I.K.'s house to arrest him. They found him hiding in a closet in the back bedroom. When leading him out of the apartment, he refused to walk down the stairs so the officers had to physically carry him. Once they got him in the patrol car, he kicked out a window. They had to use a special technique to restrain him.
Section 843.02 provides that resisting an officer in the lawful execution of any legal duty without offering or doing violence to the officer is a first-degree misdemeanor. To adjudicate I.K. delinquent for resisting an officer without violence, the State must prove that "(1) the officer was engaged in the lawful execution of a legal duty; and (2) the defendant's action, by his words, conduct, or a combination thereof, constituted obstruction or resistance of that lawful duty." C.E.L. v. State,
In determining whether the officer was in the lawful execution of a legal duty, the court "must apply the legal standards governing the duty undertaken by the law enforcement officer at the" time of the defendant's resistance-including the Fourth Amendment and any other relevant requirements of law. C.E.L. v. State,
I.K. contends that the trial court erred by denying his motion for judgment of dismissal because the State failed to introduce the local pickup order, the order of probation that I.K. was under suspicion of having violated, or any other evidence proving that I.K.'s arrest for violation of probation was lawful. The State argues that the officer's testimony about the dispatch call was sufficient to prove that the officers were engaged in the lawful execution of their legal duty at the time of I.K.'s arrest. The State contends that the "local-pickup" dispatch call is similar to a BOLO (a "be-on-the-lookout") dispatch, pursuant to which an officer's stop of a suspect has been found to constitute the execution of a legal duty supporting an adjudication of delinquency for resisting an officer. See S.D.T. v. State,
The State is correct in comparing the dispatch call in this case to a BOLO. The officers were taking action based upon a *1166communication received by others in their law enforcement agency, informing them that the juvenile was under suspicion of having violated the terms of his probation. And under certain circumstances, the "local pickup" dispatch, a system for intra-officer communication, could be utilized to establish the lawful execution of a legal duty under the fellow officer rule to support an adjudication of delinquency for resisting an officer without violence. See
Here, however, the State adduced no proof that the juvenile was on probation at all, much less what the terms of his probation were and whether there was probable cause to believe he had violated those terms in order to justify an arrest. See § 985.101(1)(d), (4), Fla. Stat. (2015). It merely proved that the officers received direction to take I.K. into custody for violating his probation.
Another's knowledge of probable cause to believe that I.K. violated a specific condition of his probation might very well have motivated the dispatch call; and that knowledge could be imputed to the arresting officers despite their ignorance of those details. However, to establish that these officers were lawfully executing a legal duty when they took I.K. into custody, the State was required to adduce evidence establishing the factual basis for that probable cause. See, e.g., J.C. v. State,
Because the State adduced insufficient evidence to establish that taking I.K. into custody for violating his probation was a lawful execution of a legal duty, the trial court should have granted I.K.'s motion for dismissal of the charge of resisting an officer without violence. Accordingly, we must reverse the adjudication of delinquency for resisting an officer without violence. We affirm the adjudication of delinquency for criminal mischief.
Affirmed in part; reversed in part; remanded.
LaROSE, C.J., and MORRIS, J., Concur.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.