STATE OF FLORIDA

v.

EDDIE POKE

Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida

Opinion filed October 29, 2025. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

________________

No. 3D24-0657 Lower Tribunal No. M21-23621 ________________

State of Florida, Appellant,

vs.

Eddie Poke, Appellee.

An Appeal from a non-final order from the County Court for Miami- Dade County, Betsy Alvarez-Zane, Judge.

James Uthmeier, Attorney General, and Katryna Alexis Santa Cruz, Assistant Attorney General, for appellant.

Carlos J. Martinez, Public Defender, and Andrew Stanton, Assistant Public Defender, for appellee.

Before SCALES, C.J., and MILLER and BOKOR, JJ.

BOKOR, J.

2

The State appeals the trial court’s order granting defendant Eddie Poke’s motion to suppress statements made and physical evidence discovered during a traffic stop. We have jurisdiction. Fla. R. App. P. 9.140(c)(1)(B). Because the trial court improperly found the evidence barred under Miranda,¹ we reverse and remand.

I.

Background

On June⁶, 2021, Sergeant Jose Bonilla pulled over Poke’s vehicle after determining that Poke’s license plate was expired. The sergeant approached the window, informed Poke of the purpose of the stop, and asked if there were any firearms inside the vehicle. Poke replied that his license was suspended and that he had a rifle in a black duffel bag on the back seat. The duffel bag was in plain sight on the back seat of the vehicle on the driver’s side. The sergeant then asked Poke if he had a concealed weapon permit, radioed a “Code 55” to dispatch,² and asked Poke to exit the car.

After Poke exited, the sergeant frisked him and asked him to sit on the front bumper of the police car while searching the vehicle. The sergeant also asked Poke if the weapon was his, to which he responded affirmatively. The

Poke was subsequently arrested and charged with driving with a suspended license, carrying an unlicensed concealed firearm, and possessing an open container of alcohol in the vehicle. He moved to suppress both physical evidence found during the search of the vehicle (the open container) and allegedly incriminating statements made during the stop, claiming that they resulted from an improper custodial interrogation without Miranda warnings. The trial court agreed, finding that Poke was in custody for Miranda purposes from the time the sergeant reported the Code

4 55. The trial court reasoned that all statements and physical evidence recovered after that point must be suppressed.

II.

Analysis

The grant of suppression was error.³ “Miranda warnings apply only to in-custody interrogations,” which refers to “questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way.” Ross v. State, 45 So. 3d 403, 414–15 (Fla. 2010) (quoting in part Miranda, 384 U.S. at 444). But not every interaction with the police constitutes an arrest. See Ramirez v. State, 739 So. 2d 568, 573 (Fla. 1999) (“A person is in custody if a reasonable person placed in the same position would believe that his or her freedom of action was curtailed to a degree associated with actual arrest. The proper inquiry is not the unarticulated plan of the police, but rather how a reasonable person in the suspect’s position would have perceived the

3 “This Court’s review of the suppression order involves a mixed question of law and fact; the trial court’s factual findings are presumed correct if supported by competent, substantial evidence, while we review, de novo, the trial court’s ruling on the legality of the search.” State v. Harris, 273 So. 3d 1100, 1101 (Fla. 3d DCA 2019). “[A] trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress comes to the appellate court clothed with a presumption of correctness, and the reviewing court must interpret the evidence and reasonable inferences and deductions derived therefrom in a manner most favorable to sustaining the trial court’s ruling.” Id. (quoting Pagan v. State, 830 So. 2d 792, 806 (Fla. 2002)).

4 Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S.¹ (1968).