Background
Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), investigating a suspected drug trafficking organization in Leon County, obtained a valid search warrant for a residence where member Ja’Mario Paramore was allegedly storing narcotics and drug proceeds. When executing the warrant, officers knocked and announced their presence multiple times, but announced possession of a search warrant only seconds before forcibly entering with a battering ram — providing insufficient time for occupants to respond. Cocaine, MDMA, over $23,000 in cash, and two firearms were found inside. Keith Alexander Times, one of four people present, was charged with trafficking in amphetamines, possession of cocaine, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
Times moved to suppress all evidence, arguing that officers violated section 933.09, Florida Statutes, the state’s knock-and-announce statute governing search warrant executions. The trial court agreed and suppressed the evidence, relying on the Florida Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in State v. Cable, which had held that exclusion is the proper remedy for statutory knock-and-announce violations. The First District Court of Appeal affirmed, acknowledging it was bound by Cable but noting that Florida’s position had become the minority approach among states following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2006 decision in Hudson v. Michigan, which held that federal Fourth Amendment knock-and-announce violations do not require suppression.
The First District certified as a question of great public importance whether evidence obtained under a valid search warrant must be suppressed to remedy a violation of section 933.09’s knock-and-announce requirement. The Florida Supreme Court accepted jurisdiction and agreed to answer the question.
The Court’s Holding
The Florida Supreme Court answered the certified question in the negative, holding that suppression of evidence is not a required — or even authorized — remedy for a violation of section 933.09. The Court found that the statute’s plain text imposes no exclusionary remedy, and that chapter 933 already provides its own enforcement mechanism: section 933.17, which makes it a second-degree misdemeanor for an officer to willfully exceed authority or act with unnecessary severity when executing a search warrant. The Court reasoned that when the Legislature intends to authorize exclusion as a remedy — as it has done elsewhere, such as in Florida’s wiretapping statute — it says so explicitly. Because no such authorization exists in section 933.09, the Court declined to infer one.
The Court expressly receded from State v. Cable, 51 So. 3d 434 (Fla. 2010), to the extent inconsistent with its opinion. It concluded that Cable had erred by presuming exclusion was justified as a matter of state law without performing a proper statutory interpretation analysis, and by over-reading the earlier decision in Benefield v. State — which arose from a warrantless search with constitutional dimensions — and misapplying it to a case where the sole issue was the appropriate remedy for a statutory violation. The Court also held there were no significant reliance interests that would counsel adhering to Cable, since no one had structured conduct in expectation of the exclusionary remedy it provided.
The Court quashed the First District’s decision and remanded for further proceedings consistent with its opinion. Justice Labarga dissented, arguing that the exclusionary rule is a judicially created sanction — not a statutory remedy — and that Florida courts have properly applied it to knock-and-announce violations since 1964. He further contended that section 933.17 is a penal provision, not a true remedy, and that its practical non-use over more than a century renders it functionally null as a deterrent.
Key Takeaways
- Florida’s knock-and-announce statute (§ 933.09) does not authorize suppression of evidence as a remedy for violations; the Legislature’s chosen enforcement mechanism is the criminal penalty in § 933.17.
- The Florida Supreme Court overruled State v. Cable (2010), ending a 60-year Florida practice of applying the exclusionary rule to statutory knock-and-announce violations in search warrant cases.
- Where a Florida statute does not expressly include an exclusionary remedy, courts will not infer one — and the presence of a separate statutory enforcement provision weighs against judicial gap-filling.
- The ruling aligns Florida with the majority of states that, following Hudson v. Michigan (2006), do not suppress evidence solely because of a knock-and-announce procedural violation during an otherwise lawful warranted search.
Why It Matters
This decision significantly curtails a defendant’s ability to suppress evidence in Florida drug and weapons prosecutions where officers fail to strictly comply with knock-and-announce procedures before executing a search warrant. Prosecutors will no longer face suppression of lawfully seized evidence simply because entry was made too quickly or announcement was inadequate, provided the underlying warrant was valid. Defense practitioners must now look to other grounds — such as Fourth Amendment challenges to the warrant itself or the manner of execution — to seek suppression.
The ruling also carries a broader doctrinal signal: the Florida Supreme Court reaffirmed that remedies for statutory violations are a legislative prerogative, and that courts should not supply exclusionary sanctions the Legislature has omitted. Justice Labarga’s dissent raises a pointed practical concern that section 933.17 has never been used to prosecute an officer in over a century, meaning the decision may leave residents with no effective remedy when law enforcement ignores knock-and-announce requirements — a question the Legislature may now face pressure to address.