Marvin Harris v. State of Florida
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
Date FiledJuly 29, 2022
Docket2D21-2601
StatusPublished
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Full Opinion
DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDA
SECOND DISTRICT
MARVIN HARRIS,
Appellant,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA,
Appellee.
No. 2D21-2601
July 29, 2022
BY ORDER OF THE COURT:
Appellant's motion for written opinion, filed on June 6, 2022,
is granted. Appellant's alternative motions for rehearing, rehearing
en banc, and to certify conflict are denied.
IT IS ORDERED that the prior opinion dated May 25, 2022, is
withdrawn, and the attached opinion is substituted therefor. No
further motions for rehearing will be entertained.
I HEREBY CERTIFY THE FOREGOING IS A TRUE COPY OF THE
ORIGINAL COURT ORDER.
MARY ELIZABETH KUENZEL
CLERK
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DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF FLORIDA
SECOND DISTRICT
MARVIN HARRIS,
Appellant,
v.
STATE OF FLORIDA,
Appellee.
No. 2D21-2601
July 29, 2022
Appeal from the Circuit Court for Lee County; Robert Branning,
Judge.
Christopher E. Cosden, Law Office of Christopher E. Cosden, Fort
Myers, for Appellant.
Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Cerese Crawford
Taylor, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.
LUCAS, Judge.
Finding no merit in any of Marvin Harris' arguments, we affirm
the order below holding him in indirect civil contempt for refusing
to provide the passcode to access his iPhone in connection with a
search warrant. See Rojo v. Rojo, 84 So. 3d 1259, 1261 (Fla. 3d
DCA 2012) ("A trial court's contempt judgment 'comes to the
appellate court clothed with a presumption of correctness' which
should not 'be overturned unless a clear showing is made that the
trial court either abused its discretion or departed so substantially
from the essential requirements of law as to have committed
fundamental error.' " (quoting DeMello v. Buckman, 914 So. 2d
1090, 1093 (Fla. 4th DCA 2005))); see also State v. Shuttleworth,
927 So. 2d 975, 979 (Fla. 2d DCA 2006) ("We ordinarily defer to the
trial court's factual findings and credibility determinations.").
As Mr. Harris concedes, he has not yet been charged with any
crime related to his phone. His arguments challenging the
warrant's issuance and the propriety of the traffic stop and seizure
of his iPhone are, therefore, premature at this point. See In re
Subpoena Duces Tecum, 228 F.3d 341, 348 (4th Cir. 2000) ("A
warrant is a judicial authorization to a law enforcement officer to
search or seize persons or things. To preserve advantages of speed
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and surprise, the order is issued without prior notice and is
executed, often by force, with an unannounced and unanticipated
physical intrusion."); United States v. Info. Associated with Email
Acct. (Warrant), 449 F.Supp.3d 469, 475 (E.D. Pa. 2020) ("Courts
thus generally review challenges to search warrants either in a
motion to suppress during a criminal case or in an after-the-fact
civil rights lawsuit, not in a pre-execution motion to quash.");
Donovan v. Hackney, Inc., 583 F.Supp. 773, 778 n.3 (W.D. Okla.
1984) (observing that a person subject to a criminal search warrant
"rarely, if ever, has an opportunity to challenge the validity of a
search warrant before it is executed"); see also Abdo v. Abdo, 320
So. 3d 791, 794 (Fla. 2d DCA 2021) ("[P]roceedings charging
contempt for failure to obey an order cannot be used as a method of
reviewing the question of the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain
the original action." (quoting Shadow Lakes Woods, Inc. v.
Schneider, 414 So. 2d 3, 4 (Fla. 5th DCA 1982))).
Our affirmance, however, should not be understood as ruling
on any of the Fourth Amendment arguments Mr. Harris has raised.
To the contrary, if the State ultimately pursues charges against him
in connection with any evidence found on his iPhone, Mr. Harris
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will have—and the court below may be called upon to consider—the
full panoply of protections afforded under the state and federal
constitutions.1
Affirmed.
MORRIS, C.J., and KELLY, J., Concur.
Opinion subject to revision prior to official publication.
1 We would also note that Mr. Harris has not argued that
being held in contempt for refusing to provide his iPhone's passcode
constitutes compulsion of potentially testimonial evidence.
Compare State v. Stahl, 206 So. 3d 124, 136-37 (Fla. 2d DCA 2016)
(granting State's certiorari petition to compel accused individual to
provide the passcode to his iPhone that was the subject of a search
warrant), with Garcia v. State, 302 So. 3d 1051, 1055, 1057 (Fla.
5th DCA 2020) (certifying conflict with Stahl and concluding that
"the order under review requires that [the defendant] utilize the
contents of his mind and disclose specific information regarding the
passcode that will likely lead to incriminating information that the
State will then use against him at trial"), and Pollard v. State, 287
So. 3d 649, 656 (Fla. 1st DCA 2019) ("The application of Stahl is
inconsistent with protection of a defendant's right against self-
incrimination in situations where a defendant has not given up his
testimonial privilege in the password itself."), and G.A.Q.L. v. State,
257 So. 3d 1058, 1061-62 (Fla. 4th DCA 2018) ("[R]evealing one's
password requires more than just a physical act; instead, it probes
into the contents of an individual's mind and therefore implicates
the Fifth Amendment. . . . Thus, being forced to produce a
password is testimonial and can violate the Fifth Amendment
privilege against compelled self-incrimination.").
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