HERSHEL RAY BUCHANAN, APPELLANT,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLEE
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The court held that the defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in a hospital emergency room, thus the seizure of pills did not violate his constitutional rights.
A nurse discovered a bag of pills in the defendant's underwear while assisting him in a hospital emergency room. The defendant later moved the bag und…
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[*148] MILLS, Judge.
Buchanan pled nolo contendere to a charge of possession of methaqualone, Section 893.13(l)(e), Florida Statutes (1981), reserving the right to appeal the trial court’s denial of his motion to suppress. We affirm.
On 18 February 1982, Buchanan was involved in an automobile accident. He subsequently was transported to the Orange Park Hospital for treatment of his injuries and, once there, he was placed in a curtained-off area in the emergency room. Nurse Arch assisted Buchanan in removing his clothes. While doing so, she noticed a bag of pills sticking out of the back of his underwear. Suspecting that the bag contained illegal drugs, she went to notify a police officer who was in the building.
When she and the officer returned to where Buchanan was, she saw Buchanan sitting up on the bed with his hands underneath the mattress. Nurse Arch then walked over to the bed, stuck her hand underneath the mattress, and retrieved the bag which she had previously seen in Buchanan’s underwear. The bag was later found to contain methaqualone.
Buchanan contends on appeal, as he did below, that the seizure of the pills violated his right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures guaranteed by the federal and state constitutions. We cannot agree.
Before a defendant can challenge the legality of a search, he must have had a subjective expectation of privacy in the area searched, and that expectation must be one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable. Daniels v. State, 411 So. 2d 1034 (Fla. 1st DCA 1982). Even if Buchanan had formed a subjective expectation of privacy, it was simply unreasonable for him to have done so in a busy hospital emergency room where medical personnel were constantly walking in and out and where he could have expected to remain only a few hours at most.
AFFIRMED.
JOANOS and THOMPSON, JJ., concur.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
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State v. Butler, 1 So. 3d 242 (Fla. 1st DCA 2008)…ding reasonable expectation of privacy in private hospital room) and Morris v. Commonwealth, 208 Va. 331, 157 S.E. 2d 191, 194 (1967) (analogizing admitted hospital patient’s expectation of privacy with that of a hotel guest) with Buchanan v. State, 432 So. 2d 147, 148 (Fla. 1st DCA 1983) (finding no expectation of privacy in emergency room examination area enclosed by curtains, “where medical personnel were constantly walking in and out and where [patient] could have expected to remain only a few hours at mo…
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State v. Abislaiman, 437 So. 2d 181 (Fla. 3d DCA 1983)…illnesses occur at all hours, a hospital’s emergency room parking lot is one of the few places where one would expect a certain amount of traffic even at 2:30 a.m. Much of this traffic would be medical and ambulance personnel, see Buchanan v. State, 432 So. 2d 147 (Fla. 1st DCA 1983) (defendant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy inside a busy hospital emergency room where medical personnel were constantly walking in and out and where he could have expected to remain only a few hours at most) and…
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Purifoy v. State, 225 So. 3d 867 (Fla. 1st DCA 2017)…that the State improperly relied on that evidence to obtain his convictions. The State argues that the officer had the right to seize the bag of clothing under the open view doctrine (public place + probable cause) because, under Buchanan v. State, 432 So. 2d 147, 148 (Fla. 1st DCA 1983) (a pre-Jones case), before a defendant can challenge the legality of a search, he must have a reasonable expectation of privacy in that area, and there is, no reasonable expectation of privacy in a curtained-off area in a. b…
Previewing 3 of 4 citing cases — full citator treatment, depth of discussion, and citing context are member features.
Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceAuthorities Cited
- Williams v. Williams, 411 So. 2d 1034 (Fla. 1st DCA 1982)
- Daniels v. State, 411 So. 2d 1034 (Fla. 1st DCA 1982)