Watch the Conduct: Florida Caselaw, Week of November 6, 2026

A traffic stop in Hillsborough County for speeding. In the center console, in plain view, a two-liter Sprite bottle and a Styrofoam cup, both holding a purple liquid. The driver said it was codeine. Under the hood, inside a black sock, three bags that tested presumptively positive for fentanyl and cocaine.

He was arrested that day for the drugs in the sock. Three weeks later the State sent him a letter saying it wouldn’t file charges. The purple liquid went to the lab. Nearly nine months after the stop, the State charged him with trafficking in hydrocodone, and he moved for discharge under the speedy trial rule. The trial judge granted it.

This week the Second District reversed, and the opinion put it about as plainly as a court can: the purple liquid was there to drink on the road, and the drugs under the hood were there to be smuggled.

I’m Rory Safir, and this is Reasonably Safir.

This one is the caselaw edition: the decisions Florida’s appellate courts handed down this week, case by case, for the lawyers who’d rather hear them than read them.

Here’s the thing about this week. Over and over, the court looked at what one person actually did, and when. In one case it was what a driver did with each drug, regardless of what the police found at the same moment. In another, it was how a man on a bicycle acted before deputies decided to frisk him, as opposed to after. A judge’s words at a plea hearing explained why a sentence went up two years. And a theft case turned on what the defendant did with the property, whichever items the counts named. So that’s the theme. Watch the conduct. Let’s get into it.

The first case is the one I opened with. State against Muhammad, Second District, out of Hillsborough County, Judge Barbara Twine-Thomas below. I was a public defender in Hillsborough, so this one landed close to home. Judge Atkinson wrote it. Judges Black and Smith concurred in the result only.

One thing first. The court applied the twenty twenty-four version of rule 3.191. Under that version, the State had 175 days from arrest to bring a felony to trial, and the clock started when the person was taken into custody for the conduct or criminal episode that gave rise to the crime charged. So an uncharged crime from the same criminal episode could start running the day of the first arrest. The trial court found the hydrocodone and the sock drugs came from the same factual nexus, possession of drugs in one car, and discharged him.

The Second District disagreed. The test, it said, is whether the crimes rest on substantially the same acts, and conduct that’s merely related isn’t enough. And quoting the Fourth District’s Baynham decision, the analysis depends on the activities of the defendant, not the activities of the police. Finding two things in one traffic stop doesn’t make them one episode. Here, one drug was within reach, ready to drink while driving. The others were hidden in a sock, under the hood, where he’d have to stop and get out to reach them. The court compared it to sipping an open beer while driving, with drugs stashed in a separate compartment for transport. Two kinds of conduct, two episodes, and the speedy trial clock on the hydrocodone didn’t start until he was arrested for it, nearly nine months later.

Two practice points. First, the burden. To get discharge on an uncharged crime, the defendant has to show a nexus between the new charge and the conduct behind the first arrest. The court said that if there had been credible evidence that everything in the car was headed to one sale or one stash house, he might have met that burden. The record had nothing like it. So if your client’s case depends on one criminal episode, build that record at the discharge hearing. Second, know which rule you’re under. The Florida Supreme Court amended rule 3.191 effective July first, twenty twenty-five. Now the clock runs from the formal charge, the recapture period is a mandatory thirty days, and a discharge for missing it is without prejudice unless the court finds a constitutional speedy trial violation. The old subdivision on nolle prosequis, which this opinion quoted, is gone. So the same-episode fight in Muhammad matters for cases still under the old rule, and for everything else, the constitutional claim carries more weight than it used to. And keep in mind that two of the three judges joined only the result, so the reasoning carries Judge Atkinson’s name alone.

The next case is a jury question we’ve been tracking. Williams against the State, Second District, out of Pinellas County, Judge Julie Sercus below, per curiam from Judges Kelly, Morris and Atkinson. An unpreserved claim that a six-person jury was fundamental error. Rejected, with the same footnote we’ve heard for weeks: the U.S. Supreme Court has granted review of that exact issue in Kian. The same day, the same court rejected the same argument in a Pasco County appeal, where I practice, out of Judge Mary Handsel’s courtroom. It’s a child sex case, so I’ll leave the name out. Same lesson as recent episodes. If you’re trying a felony to six, object before jury selection and get a ruling.

Quick pause, colleague to colleague. My firm handles DUI, criminal defense, and personal injury across Tampa Bay. If a case walks through your door that you’d rather send out, call or text 727-472-8096. I gladly accept referrals.

The next case is Johnson against the State, Fourth District, out of Palm Beach County, Judge Scott Suskauer below. Judge Forst wrote it, Judge Conner concurred, and Judge Ciklin dissented.

About eleven at night in Belle Glade, deputies were out on a call about a man named Kevin harassing a woman at her window. On a street the deputies described as known for shootings and homicides, dimly lit, where they always went with backup. A man rode by on a bicycle with no light, towing a second bicycle. Nobody thought he was Kevin. The deputy stopped him for the light. He dropped both bikes, walked up with his ID in his hand, and pressed the left side of his body against the hood of the patrol car, leaning in a way the deputy said he’d never seen before. A second deputy walked around, saw what he believed was the imprint of a gun with an extended magazine under the shirt, and they told him they were going to pat him down. He tensed up, twisted away, and said they couldn’t search him. They ended up on the ground. It was a gun, he was a convicted felon, and the felon status came back after the frisk.

The majority affirmed the denial of suppression. It distinguished Regalado and the cases that say a concealed gun alone can’t justify a stop, because here the stop was already lawful for the bike light. Then it held that the totality of the circumstances gave reasonable suspicion that he was armed and dangerous: the time of night, the poor lighting, the street, the bulge, how close he was to the deputies, and his effort to hide the gun from them. The majority anchored that in the concealment, and said that on these facts, with a deferential standard of review, it wouldn’t require officers to expose themselves to danger by leaving a detainee armed for the length of the stop.

Judge Ciklin agreed the stop was lawful and agreed the record showed he was armed. Where he parted ways was dangerous. The man complied, produced his ID, didn’t flee, made no threat, and never reached for or adjusted the gun. He wasn’t the subject of the call. His felony status came out only after the frisk began, and his resistance happened only after the deputy announced the frisk, so neither could supply suspicion that didn’t exist when the decision was made. The deep dive at the end is about exactly that question: when is an armed person also a dangerous one. Hold that thought.

The next case is another bicycle with no lights, this time in St. Petersburg. Person against the State, Second District, out of Pinellas County, Judge Joseph Bulone below. Judge Silberman wrote it, with Judges LaRose and Guard. Midnight shift, an area the officer called high narcotics. The officer saw a bulge in the defendant’s exposed sock. Asked about it, the defendant said it was money, got nervous, and pulled his pant leg down over the sock when he stepped off the bike. The officer, based on his training, testified the outline was a crack pipe, and that its shape didn’t fit money, a tobacco pipe or a pen. He patted the leg, felt a hard cylindrical tube, and it was a crack pipe with crack in it.

On appeal the argument was that there was no reason to think the defendant was armed, so no pat-down. The court affirmed for a different reason: probable cause from plain view. The officer saw an outline he recognized as contraband before he ever touched the leg. The court relied on its Ferrell decision, that an officer doesn’t need to know for sure the item is contraband, only facts that would lead a reasonable person of caution to believe it may be. Two notes. The defendant represented himself at the suppression hearing, and the officer’s training testimony came in without objection. And the standard of review did a lot of work here: the evidence gets read in the light most favorable to the ruling. Put those two bike cases side by side and you have the two doors to a pat-down: a weapons frisk, or probable cause that the thing is contraband. They need different facts.

The next case is about a sentence that went up after a client said no. Nobles against the State, Fifth District, out of Citrus County, Judge Joel Fritton below. A woman on drug offender probation was found with methamphetamine and tested positive for it. The defense asked for community control with a suspended sentence. The Department of Corrections recommended new probation with inpatient treatment. The judge said, “No. We don’t go backwards,” and offered thirty-six months in prison if she entered a plea that day. She asked for a hearing instead. The judge tried to hold it on the spot, set it for later that week, and closed by saying the maximum possible punishment was five years. At the hearing, the judge interrupted defense counsel’s closing to say, “you can appeal if you want, but I’m going to find the State did prove its burden,” and imposed the five-year maximum.

The State conceded error. The Fifth District applied the four factors from the Florida Supreme Court’s Wilson decision, through its own Pickard opinion: whether the judge initiated plea talks, whether the judge left the neutral role by urging the plea or suggesting that a hearing would affect the sentence, the gap between the offer and the sentence, and whether anything besides the exercise of the right explains the increase. The majority said all four supported the result, reading the first as the judge actively taking part to the point of making the offer. Reversed for resentencing before a different judge. Judge Eisnaugle concurred in the result only, writing that some of the factors weren’t met, but the totality still required it. Practice point: when a judge makes the offer, make sure the offer, the judge’s words and the reason given are all on the record, because the comparison between the offer and the sentence is the heart of the claim.

The next case is from the Florida Supreme Court. Guzman against the State, a death penalty appeal out of Volusia County, Judge Dawn Nichols below, affirmed. Justice Grosshans wrote it, and Justice Labarga concurred in the result. I want to give you one piece of it, the disqualification motion, because it applies in every courtroom.

In the middle of jury selection for the fourth penalty phase, the defendant’s lawyer from his first appeal, back in 1994, emailed the trial judge. The judge had worked at that lawyer’s firm, starting three weeks before oral argument in that appeal, and never worked on the case or on any criminal matter. The judge disclosed it. The defense moved to disqualify, saying the defendant feared he wouldn’t get a fair trial because of the judge’s affiliation with that firm, and faulting the judge for not disclosing sooner. Denied as legally insufficient, and the Supreme Court agreed. A motion has to allege specific facts, and the fear has to be objectively reasonable. The Court noted that its disqualification cases involved judges who had worked against the defendant, like a judge who supervised the prosecutors on the case. Here the judge’s old firm had represented him, and won him a new trial. And the Court declined to create a duty for judges to scour the record for conflicts on assignment, while noting that a judge who knew of a ground and sat on it could be a different story.

Two practice points. First, write the facts into the affidavit. The Court called the theory that the judge might have learned something at the firm untimely and speculative, because no specific facts in the motion backed it up, and refused to consider a categorical ground under the judicial administration rule, 2.330, that wasn’t raised below. Second, a footnote the Court made a point of: despite the claimed fear, the defense never sought a writ of prohibition. If you believe the judge can’t be fair, seek review right away.

The next case is short and practical. Jackson against the State, Fourth District, out of Broward County, Judge Martin Fein below, per curiam from Judges Gross, Levine and Shaw. Section 812.025 bars adjudicating someone guilty of both theft and dealing in stolen property in connection with one scheme or course of conduct. The postconviction court denied an ineffective assistance claim on that statute because the two counts involved different property. Reversed on that claim, and sent back to apply the right test. Different items don’t end the question. The test is whether there was one scheme or course of conduct, and the court cited a First District case where the defendant stole saw blades from his employer one day and sold them the next. One scheme. If you see both counts on a single information, ask what the client actually did, and when, before you look at which items got assigned to which count.

One more from outside the district courts, because it’s a DUI ruling and it’s local. The October thirtieth Florida Law Weekly Supplement carries a county court order out of Hillsborough, State against Rodriguez, Judge Christopher Brown. It’s a trial-level ruling, so it’s persuasive only, but it’s the kind of motion in limine every DUI lawyer files. The stop was for a dark tag light. The deputy described slurred speech, glassy eyes, an odor of alcohol and trouble on the field exercises, all on body camera. His two breath samples came back at point zero four two and point zero four one, which under section 316.1934 raises a presumption that he wasn’t impaired by alcohol. The urine showed cocaine, cocaethylene and benzoylecgonine. The defense moved to keep out the urine results.

The State called the FDLE toxicologist, and her testimony split the ruling. According to her, cocaine in urine can reflect use from thirty minutes to twenty-four hours before the sample. Cocaethylene, she explained, forms only when someone has alcohol and cocaine in the blood at the same time. And benzoylecgonine, a cocaine metabolite, has no effect on impairment, in her words. So the judge excluded the benzoylecgonine, and let the cocaine and cocaethylene in, relying on the First District’s Weitz decision, where a low breath result didn’t match the driver’s apparent impairment and the drug results were admitted.

Two things for your files. First, ask the State’s analyst the question directly: does this substance cause impairment? Here the answer kept out the metabolite. Second, the low breath number cut both ways. It gave the defense the statutory presumption, and it gave the court a reason to treat the drug results as probative. Know which way that tension will run before you file the motion. This is toxicology, which is the science behind the forensic lawyer-scientist designation I hold.

Now the injury side.

The first case is Haddad against Lyft, Fourth District, out of Broward County, Judge David Haimes below. This is a new opinion on rehearing. Judge Lott wrote it, with Judges Klingensmith and Shaw, and the Florida Justice Association came in as amicus on the rehearing motion. The plaintiff says her Lyft driver assaulted her during a ride. She sued Lyft for negligent and fraudulent misrepresentation, alleging she relied on the safety promises on its website: background checks, annual rescreening and continuous monitoring. Lyft moved to dismiss under section 627.748(18), the rideshare statute’s immunity, and the trial court dismissed with prejudice.

Affirmed. The subsection is titled vicarious liability, but the court held that a title can’t limit the text, and the text is broader. A rideshare company isn’t liable under general law, by reason of operating its network or being affiliated with the driver, for harm arising out of the use, operation or possession of a vehicle while the driver is logged on, so long as there’s no negligence under this section or criminal wrongdoing by the company, it has met its obligations under the statute, and it isn’t the owner or bailee of the car. Negligence under this section means a negligent failure to meet the statute’s own requirements. And the court treated the immunity as a rule the complaint has to plead around, not an affirmative defense the company has to prove. It also noted the structure tracks the federal Graves Amendment for rental cars.

Two practice points. The plaintiff didn’t argue in her briefs that an assault by the driver doesn’t arise out of the use or operation of the vehicle, and the court expressly left that question for another day. So if you have one of these cases, that’s the argument to make, and make it in the trial court. And plead the exceptions: facts showing the company failed one of the statute’s specific requirements, with as much detail as you can get before discovery.

The second injury case is workers’ compensation, and it’s for anyone who represents firefighters. Durden against St. Johns County Fire Rescue, First District, from the Judge of Compensation Claims. Judge Ray wrote it, with Judges Roberts and Treadwell. Florida’s heart-lung statute, section 112.18, gives firefighters a rebuttable presumption that disabling heart disease came from the job, as long as the physical they took when they started showed no sign of it. The judge of compensation claims read the court’s Harlem decision to limit heart disease to conditions that weaken the heart through degraded vessels or valves, and denied a firefighter with atrial fibrillation. Set aside in part, and sent back for the remaining benefit issues. Looking at what heart disease meant when the statute passed in 1965, the court relied on medical dictionaries and classifications from the nineteen fifties and sixties that included functional disorders of the heart, fibrillation among them. Harlem’s definition, the court said, fit the aneurysm in that case and doesn’t exclude disorders of the heart’s electrical system. Both cardiologists called it heart disease, the carrier had withdrawn its rebuttal defense, and the AFib is compensable.

One more thing before I let you go, because ten minutes of holdings is a digest, and this show doesn’t do digests. Every Friday this segment takes the one doctrine the week actually turned on and gets into the deep end. This week it’s the frisk, and the question that split the Johnson panel: when is a person who’s armed also dangerous?

Start with Terry against Ohio, in nineteen sixty-eight. The Supreme Court allowed a carefully limited pat-down of the outer clothing when an officer reasonably concludes that the person may be armed and presently dangerous, and it confined the search to what’s needed to find weapons. The test has two parts, armed and dangerous, and they’re joined by an and.

Nine years later, in Pennsylvania against Mimms, an officer on a traffic stop ordered the driver out, saw a large bulge under his jacket, and frisked him. The Court said the bulge permitted the officer to conclude that Mimms was armed and thus posed a serious and present danger. That one word, thus, meaning therefore, is the whole fight. Mimms came up in episode eleven, when we covered the Florida Supreme Court’s Creller decision on ordering a driver out of the car. That was the exit order. This is the frisk. The Johnson majority leaned on Mimms. Judge Ciklin wrote that Mimms didn’t create a rule that every gun-shaped bulge establishes dangerousness, and didn’t address a world where carrying the gun may itself be lawful.

Then Arizona against Johnson, in two thousand nine. A lawful traffic stop satisfies the first half of Terry, but to frisk a driver or a passenger the officer still has to reasonably suspect the person is armed and dangerous. Be careful with that case. The Court didn’t decide whether the passenger there was dangerous. It sent that question back.

Florida has its own version, the Stop and Frisk Law, section 901.151. Subsection five lets an officer search a detainee for weapons on probable cause to believe the person is armed with a dangerous weapon and therefore offers a threat to the safety of the officer or anyone else. Two notes on that text. The Florida Supreme Court has said in a footnote in Mackey that a frisk needs only reasonable suspicion, even though the statute says probable cause. One limit: the statute speaks to detentions for criminal violations, Johnson’s stop was for a noncriminal bike infraction, and the opinion didn’t rely on the statute. And the words armed and therefore a threat sound a lot like the Fourth Circuit’s en banc decision in United States against Robinson, in twenty seventeen, which held that a lawfully stopped person reasonably suspected of being armed is dangerous as a matter of law, armed and therefore dangerous. Four judges dissented there. That’s the split, and Johnson put it inside one Florida panel.

Now the stop side of the line. In Florida against J.L., in two thousand, which we spent time on in episode twelve, the deep dive on 911 calls, the Supreme Court refused to create a firearm exception that would let an anonymous tip about a gun justify a stop and frisk. The Fourth District’s Regalado decision, in two thousand nine, held that the mere possession of a weapon, without more, can’t justify a Terry stop. One footnote to history: Judge Ciklin dissented in Regalado, on the State’s side. And in September the Eleventh Circuit, in United States against Joseph, held that carrying a concealed gun in Florida, by itself, gives no reasonable suspicion of a concealed-carry crime. But Joseph is a stop case, and Johnson distinguished it on exactly that ground. The man in Johnson was already lawfully stopped for the bike light.

Here’s what has changed. Since July first, twenty twenty-three, a person who meets the eligibility criteria in section 790.06 can carry a concealed firearm in Florida without a license, and under section 790.01 the State has to prove, as an element, that someone wasn’t licensed and wasn’t eligible. The Johnson opinions cited the twenty twenty-two statutes and didn’t discuss the twenty twenty-three change. Joseph limited itself to the earlier version too. So neither Johnson nor Joseph answers how the twenty twenty-three change affects a frisk, in a state where many folks can lawfully carry a gun with no permit at all. Judge Ciklin put it in five words: armed does not mean dangerous.

So here’s the working playbook.

First, separate the stop from the frisk, and make the State prove both halves of the frisk, armed and dangerous. Ask the court for a finding on each. In Johnson, even the dissent agreed he was armed. The case turned on dangerous.

Second, freeze the clock at the moment the officer decided to frisk, and use the body camera to find that moment. What the officers learned afterward, a felony record or resistance after the frisk was announced, can’t supply suspicion that didn’t exist yet. Judge Ciklin built his dissent on that timeline.

Third, put the compliance facts on the record, one by one. Your client produced ID, followed commands, didn’t flee, didn’t reach for or touch the gun, made no threats, and wasn’t the person the officers came to find. Johnson’s trial lawyer argued exactly that, and it’s why there was a dissent to write.

Fourth, don’t concede the setting. Johnson’s trial counsel conceded it was a high crime area. The hour, the darkness and the neighborhood describe where the stop happened. Judge Ciklin said they justify heightened vigilance, which isn’t the same thing as reasonable suspicion that this person is dangerous. Make the officer give you specifics, or don’t give them the label. And expect the State to cite the Third District’s Cruse decision, where a defendant manipulating his waistband and hiking up his pants, along with the time of day, the lighting and a high crime area, supported a pat-down. Your answer is the individualized conduct: what did your client do with his hands, and when.

Fifth, keep the doors separate when the State pivots to contraband. Person was plain view: the officer saw an outline and claimed probable cause before touching anything. Minnesota against Dickerson is plain feel: during a lawful weapons frisk, an officer may seize something only if its identity is immediately apparent, and squeezing and manipulating a pocket after ruling out a weapon goes too far. Either way, object to training and experience testimony that isn’t tied to the specific shape, and cross on what else that shape could be.

And the limit. Johnson is a two to one affirmance, the trial judge’s factual and credibility findings got deference, and they stood. J.L. itself says it doesn’t diminish an officer’s power to frisk someone already lawfully stopped, and the majority’s reading has support. A dissent isn’t law. The majority upheld the frisk on all the circumstances, including the concealment. The dissent gives you an argument for distinguishing it, and the record you make on the timeline and the compliance facts is what gives you a chance to use it.

If you want the set, Terry, Mimms, Arizona against Johnson, J.L., Dickerson, Regalado, Robinson, and Johnson with Judge Ciklin’s dissent, plus a one-page frisk timeline worksheet built on those five points, email me and I’ll send them over.

So that’s the week. A speedy trial discharge reversed because a cup within reach and a sock under the hood were two different episodes. Two bicycle-light stops, one a weapons frisk upheld over a dissent, the other a crack pipe seized on plain view. A five-year sentence thrown out as vindictive after the judge’s own three-year offer was turned down. A disqualification motion that lost for want of facts. And the one-scheme test for theft and dealing. On the injury side, broad immunity for rideshare companies with one door left open, and atrial fibrillation counted as heart disease for firefighters.

The pattern, if you want one: in nearly every case, the answer turned on what a person actually did, and when they did it.

One caveat, colleague to colleague. These are summaries, most of these decisions aren’t final until the rehearing time runs and any timely motion is decided, and nothing in this episode is legal advice. Pull the opinion before you rely on a word of it.

If you want any of this week’s opinions, or the frisk timeline worksheet from the deep dive, email me at Rory at the Safir lawyer dot com and I’ll send them over.

Take care of yourself, and take care of your clients.