{"id":367,"date":"2018-09-04T13:59:34","date_gmt":"2018-09-04T17:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tampacriminallawyer.net\/?p=367"},"modified":"2026-01-09T06:04:44","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T11:04:44","slug":"gun-evidence-thrown-out-by-appeals-court-in-florida-after-bad-search","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/gun-evidence-thrown-out-by-appeals-court-in-florida-after-bad-search\/","title":{"rendered":"Gun Evidence Thrown Out by Appeals Court in Florida After Bad Search"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the United States, the police are not just able to search anyone at any time. The Constitution \u2013 specifically the Fourth Amendment &#8211; guarantees that individuals are free from illegal search and seizure. If you are searched illegally, there is not usually anything you can do about it in that moment. However, if evidence of illegal activity is found during the search, and that evidence is later used to convict someone of a crime, the conviction may be vacated. That is what happened in this case, heard by the Florida Fifth District Court of Appeal. The laws around what is an illegal seizure and illegal search are very fact specific. Therefore, if you have questions you should talk to a knowledgeable Florida criminal defense attorney familiar with Florida laws and they can help you to figure out whether a search was permissible in your specific circumstances.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Terry Stops<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>A 1968 case called <em>Terry<\/em> established the test for what is legal when it comes to \u201cstop and frisk\u201d searches. The test has two prongs. First, for the search to be permissible the police need to have a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity \u201cafoot.\u201d The police need to be able to articulate what makes them suspicious of the behavior; it can\u2019t just be based on a vague feeling or hunch. They don\u2019t need to witness actual criminal behavior, but there needs to be something that they can define as relatable to potential criminal activity.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/gun-evidence-thrown-out-by-appeals-court-in-florida-after-bad-search\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading Gun Evidence Thrown Out by Appeals Court in Florida After Bad Search\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the United States, the police are not just able to search anyone at any time. The Constitution \u2013 specifically the Fourth Amendment &#8211; guarantees that individuals are free from illegal search and seizure. If you are searched illegally, there is not usually anything you can do about it in that moment. However, if evidence [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1821,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weapons"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Florida Appeal Tosses Gun Evidence After Search<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Gun found after a bad search in Florida? See how this appeals ruling tossed the evidence and may help your defense.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/gun-evidence-thrown-out-by-appeals-court-in-florida-after-bad-search\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Florida Appeal Tosses Gun Evidence After Search\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Gun found after a bad search in Florida? See how this appeals ruling tossed the evidence and may help your defense.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/florida-gun-search-evidence-suppressed-appeal.webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Hanlon Law, PA\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Florida Appeal Tosses Gun Evidence After Search","description":"Gun found after a bad search in Florida? See how this appeals ruling tossed the evidence and may help your defense.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/gun-evidence-thrown-out-by-appeals-court-in-florida-after-bad-search\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"Florida Appeal Tosses Gun Evidence After Search","twitter_description":"Gun found after a bad search in Florida? See how this appeals ruling tossed the evidence and may help your defense.","twitter_image":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/florida-gun-search-evidence-suppressed-appeal.webp","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Hanlon Law, PA","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/gun-evidence-thrown-out-by-appeals-court-in-florida-after-bad-search\/","url":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/gun-evidence-thrown-out-by-appeals-court-in-florida-after-bad-search\/","name":"Florida Appeal Tosses Gun Evidence After Search","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/gun-evidence-thrown-out-by-appeals-court-in-florida-after-bad-search\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/gun-evidence-thrown-out-by-appeals-court-in-florida-after-bad-search\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/florida-gun-search-evidence-suppressed-appeal.webp","datePublished":"2018-09-04T17:59:34+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-09T11:04:44+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8b1bbe17dcab105246cd4cb867e91837"},"description":"Gun found after a bad search in Florida? See how this appeals ruling tossed the evidence and may help your defense.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/gun-evidence-thrown-out-by-appeals-court-in-florida-after-bad-search\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/gun-evidence-thrown-out-by-appeals-court-in-florida-after-bad-search\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/gun-evidence-thrown-out-by-appeals-court-in-florida-after-bad-search\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/florida-gun-search-evidence-suppressed-appeal.webp","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/florida-gun-search-evidence-suppressed-appeal.webp","width":1000,"height":750,"caption":"Close-up of a person holding a black revolver, illustrating Florida gun crime evidence thrown out after an unlawful search"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/gun-evidence-thrown-out-by-appeals-court-in-florida-after-bad-search\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Gun Evidence Thrown Out by Appeals Court in Florida After Bad Search"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/","name":"Tampa Criminal Lawyer Blog","description":"Published by Tampa Criminal Attorney \u2014 Hanlon Law","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8b1bbe17dcab105246cd4cb867e91837","name":"Hanlon Law, PA","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c09dcc7ad49cb4e69012e689c8f8279e82819db3eccff0cdeeccdacb7210dc98?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c09dcc7ad49cb4e69012e689c8f8279e82819db3eccff0cdeeccdacb7210dc98?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Hanlon Law, PA"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/"]}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/florida-gun-search-evidence-suppressed-appeal.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1823,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367\/revisions\/1823"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}