If police find different drugs in your car during one stop, the speedy trial clock for each charge may not start at the same time. The Second District Court of Appeal addressed that on November 6, 2026, in State v. Muhammad, No. 2D2025-0756. It reversed a Hillsborough County circuit court order that had discharged a defendant from a hydrocodone trafficking charge under Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.191.
The facts. After a traffic stop on April 16, 2024, officers found liquid they believed was hydrocodone in a Sprite bottle and a cup in the center console. They also found a sock under the hood holding substances that tested presumptively positive for fentanyl and cocaine. Bobby Rocell Muhammad was arrested that day for the sock’s contents. On May 7, 2024, the State told him it would not file charges in that first case. After FDLE finished analyzing the liquid in November 2024, the State charged him with trafficking in hydrocodone, and he was arrested on January 8, 2025, the day the information was filed.
The speedy trial clock rule. A person charged with a felony must be brought to trial within 175 days of arrest. The court explained that the period can also run on an uncharged crime, but only if it is part of the same criminal episode as the crime for which the person was arrested. The court said the defense “must show more than the mere fact that the evidence leading to the subsequent charge was first discovered as a result of the original arrest and charge for the initial offense.”
Why the discharge was reversed. The trial court treated everything found in the car as one episode. The Second District disagreed. Quoting State v. Baynham, it said the analysis “depends on the activities of the defendant, not the activities of the police investigating the defendant.” The liquid was within reach in open containers, which the court read as available for drinking while driving. The other drugs were hidden under the hood, which the court read as hidden for safekeeping and transportation. These were “distinct, concurrent criminal episodes,” so the 175 days on the hydrocodone charge began on January 8, 2025.
What it leaves open. The court said it was not deciding what happens if Muhammad had been transporting all the drugs in the vehicle for one or more ultimate sales, because the record had no such evidence. Two judges concurred in result only, without an opinion, so the reasoning is one judge’s. The opinion applies the 2024 version of Rule 3.191 and is subject to revision before official publication.
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Read the opinion (PDF): Download the opinion (PDF)
Also on Florida Lawyer News: Does the Speedy Trial Clock Start at the First Arrest for Other Drugs Found in the Same Traffic Stop? The Second DCA Says Not If It Is a Separate Criminal Episode
Source: State v. Muhammad, No. 2D2025-0756 (Fla. 2d DCA Nov. 6, 2026). This article is general information, not legal advice.