Holliday v. State of Florida · No. 5D2024-1865 (Fla. 5th DCA) · Decided October 2, 2026
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A man who matched a 911 caller’s description of a possible burglar — and who had two large snakes draped around his shoulders when police found him — could not be convicted of resisting an officer without violence, the Fifth District Court of Appeal has held. Because the officers had corroborated nothing more than his appearance, they had no reasonable suspicion to detain him, and so they were not engaged in the lawful execution of a legal duty when he resisted.
What Happened
Just before 5:00 a.m. one morning in August 2023, a Clay County apartment resident called 911 to report that someone had tried to turn the knob on her apartment door. She described a Black male with dreads, wearing a black t-shirt and red pants, and said she was watching him on her Ring doorbell camera. One officer later confirmed that was the full extent of the description.
Officers responding to what dispatch called a burglary in progress encountered Robert William Holliday about five minutes after the call. His dreads and clothing matched the description. He walked toward the officers, was not running, breathing hard, or sweating, and carried no burglary tools. He did have a boa constrictor and a ball python draped around his neck and shoulders — a detail the caller had not mentioned. Holliday, who had lived in the complex for about seven years, told the officers he was walking his snakes to a pond on the grounds.
Three or four officers circled Holliday and told him he matched the description and was not free to leave. He responded with profanity and tried to walk away. Officers testified he tried to push past a deputy, who grabbed him; Holliday kept walking, and the deputy tased him. The encounter lasted about five and a half minutes.
Holliday was never charged with burglary. Partial Ring video the caller later provided did not show him touching the doorknob, though a detective testified the clips were cropped. Holliday was charged with two counts of resisting an officer without violence and one count of loitering or prowling; the State did not proceed on the loitering charge. After a bench trial, the county court found that the encounter was an investigatory stop but that it was well-founded, denied Holliday’s motion for judgment of acquittal, and found him guilty of both resisting counts.
What the Court Held
To convict someone of resisting without violence under section 843.02, the State must prove the officer was engaged in the lawful execution of a legal duty. An investigatory stop made without reasonable suspicion does not meet that element.
The Fifth District found no reasonable suspicion here. By one officer’s own account, the officers had “no other information” beyond the dispatched description. They did no fact-finding before detaining Holliday, and nothing about him suggested he had just attempted a burglary. “Under these circumstances,” the court wrote, “the 911 call—on its own—did not form a reasonable suspicion to detain Holliday.”
The court relied on R.E. v. State, 536 So. 2d 1125 (Fla. 1st DCA 1988), which held that corroborating “nothing more than innocent details of identification” does not “create or support a suspicion that crime is afoot.” Here, the court said, the officers “corroborated nothing more than the innocent details of identification that matched Holliday’s appearance.”
“The officers were entitled to attempt to question Holliday, but not to detain or physically seize him,” the court concluded. “Absent corroborating evidence of criminality, the caller’s information amounted to a ‘mere hunch,’ which is not sufficient to justify even a brief detention.” It reversed both resisting convictions and remanded for entry of a judgment of acquittal.
In a footnote, the court also questioned how far the rule that citizen informants are more reliable than anonymous tipsters extends to a caller. That rule rests in part on the “face-to-face” nature of an in-person report, which, the court observed, “is defeated when a citizen calls rather than approaches police.”
Why It Matters
A resisting-without-violence charge depends on the lawfulness of the officer’s underlying action. When that action is an investigatory stop, the charge stands or falls on whether the officer had reasonable suspicion — and under Holliday, a caller’s description matched only by a person’s appearance, without anything corroborating that a crime was afoot, is not enough.
The Opinion
Download the full opinion (PDF)
| Court | Fifth District Court of Appeal |
| Case No. | 5D2024-1865 |
| Lower Court | County Court, Clay County (Judge Raymond Edward Forbess, Jr.) |
| Opinion by | Judge Makar (Judges Wallis and Edwards concurring) |
| Decided | October 2, 2026 |
| Result | Reversed and remanded for entry of judgment of acquittal |