Arrested for Resisting Over Window Tint. The State Never Filed the Charge.

In a recent Pinellas County case, a deputy pulled a car over in the middle of the night for what the arrest affidavit called dark windshield tint. A few minutes later the driver was in handcuffs, charged with resisting an officer without violence, with a civil tint citation on top of it.

He hired me within days of the arrest. The State Attorney’s Office hadn’t decided yet whether to file anything, and that timing turned out to be the whole story.

What He Was Facing

Resisting an officer without violence is a first-degree misdemeanor under section 843.02, Florida Statutes. That means up to a year in the county jail and a fine of up to $1,000 under sections 775.082(4)(a) and 775.083(1)(d).

The bigger cost is usually the record. A resisting conviction reads badly on a background check, because it tells an employer or a landlord that you fought with the police, whatever actually happened on the side of the road. And it doesn’t go away on its own.

The tint citation was a separate case, a noncriminal infraction with its own hearing in traffic court.

The Word in the Statute That Decides These Cases

Section 843.02 does not make it a crime to disobey an officer. It makes it a crime to resist, obstruct or oppose an officer “in the lawful execution of any legal duty.” That word lawful is part of the crime, and the State has to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt like every other part.

Florida courts state it as a two-part test. In Slydell v. State, 792 So. 2d 667, 671 (Fla. 4th DCA 2001), the court said the State must show that “(1) the officer was engaged in the lawful execution of a legal duty; and (2) the action by the defendant constituted obstruction or resistance of the lawful duty.” If the first part fails, the second does not matter.

It is not an old idea gathering dust. On October 2, 2026, the Fifth District Court of Appeal reversed a resisting conviction and ordered a judgment of acquittal in Holliday v. State, No. 5D2024-1865 (Fla. 5th DCA Oct. 2, 2026). The deputies there had a description from dispatch and nothing more, so they were not lawfully executing a legal duty when they told the man he couldn’t leave.

The Legislature took the word lawful out of the resisting-with-violence statute this year, and that change matters for the felony. It left the word in section 843.02. So in a resisting-without-violence case that starts with a traffic stop, the stop is not background. The stop is the case, and the rules for when a stop is lawful are on my search and seizure page.

Three Words of Probable Cause

Here, the affidavit gave one reason for the stop. The deputy saw a vehicle with dark windshield tint. That was the entire stated basis.

Florida does not ban windshield tint. Section 316.2952(2)(b) allows sunscreening material along a strip at the top of the windshield, as long as it is transparent and does not come down into the driver’s direct forward view, which the statute defines by the federal safety standard’s AS-1 line.

So a windshield tint violation turns on two questions. Is the material transparent, and does it reach below that line? An affidavit that says “dark windshield tint” answers neither one. This one did not say where on the glass the tint was, whether it came below the AS-1 line, or how the deputy could judge any of that looking at a moving car in the dark.

What the Affidavit Said He Was Doing

The rest of the affidavit described the resisting. The deputy told him to get out of the car several times, and by the affidavit’s own account he kept looking for his documents and moving around inside the car. On the times written in the affidavit, the stop and the arrest were about four minutes apart.

An officer can order a driver out of the car during a traffic stop. The United States Supreme Court said so in Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106 (1977), and I’d never tell a client otherwise. But Mimms is careful about its condition. It applies once a car has been lawfully detained for a traffic violation. It does not rescue a stop that was not lawful to begin with, and it sends you right back to the stop.

The Window Before the State Files

An arrest is not a formal charge. The deputy makes the arrest, and the State Attorney’s Office decides later whether to file a charging document and what to put in it. Until then the case sits in a kind of waiting room, and many folks don’t know anything can happen there. (I wrote about that window in another case, where four charges were never filed.)

You work that window with less, though. Before a charge is filed there’s no discovery, so the arrest affidavit is usually the only thing to work from.

So I wrote to the prosecutor before the filing decision. The letter laid out why this charge depended on the stop and what the affidavit left out, and it asked the office to review the body camera video before deciding whether to file.

How It Ended

The State filed a No Information. It’s a one-page document, and its key sentence says that the State Attorney, having investigated, “concludes that the facts and circumstances revealed do not warrant prosecution at this time.”

A No Information is not an acquittal, and the State does not give its reasons in one, so I won’t pretend to know exactly what decided it. I know what was in front of the prosecutor when she made the call. My client never had to stand in a courtroom and answer a criminal charge. There was no plea and no conviction.

The tint citation is still its own civil case with its own hearing, and the No Information does not dismiss it.

What to Take From This

If you’ve been arrested and the State hasn’t filed yet, the window is open now, and it closes when the filing decision gets made. Waiting for the first court date usually means waiting until after that decision.

Don’t pay the ticket that started it without talking to your lawyer first. Under section 318.14(4)(b), paying a civil traffic citation means you’re deemed to have admitted the infraction. When that infraction is the State’s reason for the stop, paying it hands over an admission to the very thing your defense says didn’t happen.

Document the car before you change it. If the stop was over tint, a light or a tag, photograph it inside and out, in daylight and at night, before you fix anything. Once it’s changed, nobody can ever test the affidavit against the car.

And if you already have a lawyer on a case that hasn’t been filed, ask one question this week: have you contacted the prosecutor yet, and what did you send? A few more questions worth asking any criminal defense lawyer are in this five-question test, and there’s more on how these charges work on my page on battery on an officer and resisting arrest and on criminal defense in Pinellas County.

Common Questions

Can I be convicted of resisting without violence if the stop was illegal?

Section 843.02 only covers an officer “in the lawful execution of any legal duty,” and that’s an element the State has to prove. If the stop or the detention was not lawful, the State cannot prove the charge as written. That’s a question for your lawyer and the court, though, never for an argument on the roadside. The place to fight an unlawful stop is in the case, after the fact.

What is a No Information in Florida?

It’s the State Attorney’s filing that says the office won’t prosecute the charge. Florida prosecutors formally charge a case by filing a charging document, and a No Information means none was filed. It is not an acquittal, and the wording usually says the facts don’t warrant prosecution “at this time.” There’s no plea and no conviction, but the arrest itself can still show up on a background check, so ask your lawyer about sealing or expunging it.

Is it illegal to have tint on your windshield in Florida?

Not all of it. Section 316.2952(2)(b) allows transparent sunscreening material along a strip at the top of the windshield, as long as it stays above the AS-1 line and out of the driver’s direct forward view. A violation of that section is a noncriminal traffic infraction under subsection (7).

Can my lawyer talk to the prosecutor before charges are filed?

Yes. Between the arrest and the filing decision, a defense lawyer can write to the prosecutor assigned to decide, lay out the problems with the case, and ask the office to review specific evidence before it files. There’s no discovery yet at that stage, so the letter usually works from the arrest affidavit and whatever the client can document.

Further Reading

1. Fla. Stat. 843.02, resisting officer without violence, Online Sunshine
2. Fla. Stat. 316.2952, windshields and sunscreening material, Online Sunshine, with the top-of-windshield strip at subsection (2)(b) and the infraction at subsection (7)
3. Fla. Stat. 318.14, noncriminal traffic infractions, Online Sunshine, with the deemed admission at subsection (4)(b)
4. Fla. Stat. 775.082, penalties, Online Sunshine, with the first-degree misdemeanor term at subsection (4)(a)

This is one case with its own facts. The State does not give its reasons in a No Information, and nothing here says why it decided as it did. Past results do not guarantee or predict the outcome of any other case, and nothing here is legal advice. The offense is section 843.02, Florida Statutes; the penalties are sections 775.082(4)(a) and 775.083(1)(d); windshield sunscreening is section 316.2952; the deemed admission on a paid citation is section 318.14(4)(b).