Case Title: Jackson (Jerald) v. Commonwealth

Citation: 

Docket Number: 031867

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 2004-04-23T00:00:00Z

Document:
Present:  All the Justices 
 
JERALD LORENZO JACKSON 
 
v. Record No. 031867  OPINION BY JUSTICE CYNTHIA D. KINSER 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   April 23, 2004 
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 
 
FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
Relying on a tip from an anonymous informant, a police 
officer conducted an investigatory stop of an automobile in 
which the defendant was a passenger.  The issue is whether 
the information from the anonymous caller, corroborated in 
part by police officers’ observations, provided reasonable 
articulable suspicion to justify the investigative traffic 
stop.  We conclude that it did not and that, therefore, 
evidence seized from the defendant during a subsequent 
search should have been suppressed by the trial court. 
PRIOR RELEVANT PROCEEDINGS 
The appellant, Jerald Lorenzo Jackson, was indicted in 
the Circuit Court for the City of Newport News for 
possession of cocaine in violation of Code § 18.2-250, and 
possession of a firearm while in possession of a controlled 
substance in violation of Code § 18.2-308.4(A).  He was 
also charged with a misdemeanor, possession of a concealed 
weapon in violation of Code § 18.2-308.1  Jackson filed a 
pretrial motion to suppress evidence, specifically a 
firearm and cocaine, seized during a warrantless search of 
his person.  He asserted that the police did not have a 
reasonable articulable suspicion justifying the 
investigative traffic stop.  The trial court denied the 
suppression motion and convicted Jackson of the charged 
offenses. 
 
Jackson appealed his convictions to the Court of 
Appeals of Virginia.  That court affirmed the convictions 
and the judgment of the circuit court.  Jackson v. 
Commonwealth, 39 Va. App. 624, 576 S.E.2d 206 (2003).  Upon 
granting Jackson’s petition for a rehearing en banc, 
Jackson v. Commonwealth, 40 Va. App. 88, 578 S.E.2d 51 
(2003), the Court of Appeals again affirmed the 
convictions, Jackson v. Commonwealth, 41 Va. App. 211, 583 
S.E.2d 780 (2003).  We awarded Jackson this appeal limited 
to the question whether the circuit court erred in denying 
Jackson’s pretrial motion to suppress. 
RELEVANT FACTS 
 
At approximately 2:10 a.m. on June 17, 2001, M. A. 
Cook, a police officer with the City of Newport News Police 
                     
1 The misdemeanor charge was on appeal to the circuit 
court.  See Code § 16.1-132. 
 
2
Department, received a dispatch, based on information from 
an anonymous caller, regarding a firearm.  According to 
Officer Cook, “[u]nits were dispatched to 34th [Street] and 
Jefferson [Avenue]. . . . in reference to three black males 
in a white Honda that were disorderly and one of the 
subjects brandished a firearm.”  There was a small bar and 
a gasoline station situated at that location.  As Officer 
Cook was approaching the specified intersection 
approximately five minutes after receiving the dispatch, he 
observed a white Honda automobile that was occupied by 
three black males.  The vehicle was leaving the gasoline 
station and “pulled out right in front of” Officer Cook, 
allowing the headlights of his vehicle to shine into the 
window of the Honda automobile.  At that point, Officer 
Cook executed a “U-turn” and proceeded to follow the Honda 
automobile until other police units arrived.  He then 
executed a traffic stop, causing the automobile to pull 
into the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant.  Officer 
Cook approached the driver of the vehicle and explained the 
reason for the traffic stop.  The defendant was sitting in 
the front passenger seat of the vehicle. 
 
Sergeant James Hogan, another police officer who 
responded to the dispatch, assisted Officer Cook in the 
traffic stop.  Sergeant Hogan approached the stopped Honda 
 
3
vehicle from the rear and moved up to the front door on the 
passenger side.  He then shined his flashlight into the 
vehicle and spotted Jackson sitting in the front passenger 
seat. 
The defendant had his arms folded across his stomach, 
but Sergeant Hogan noticed a bulge in Jackson’s shirt under 
his arms just above the waistband of his pants.  According 
to Sergeant Hogan, “[the] bulge . . . obviously was not 
part of [Jackson’s] body[;] . . . it was too big” to be 
anything other than a firearm.  Sergeant Hogan asked 
Jackson if he had a firearm, and Jackson responded, “No.”  
Sergeant Hogan requested Jackson to move his hands, but 
Jackson just raised his hands and put them back on his 
stomach.  Sergeant Hogan then asked Jackson to pull his 
shirt up, but Jackson merely pulled his shirt out a few 
inches and then put it back, placing his arms back across 
his stomach. 
Due to Jackson’s unwillingness to cooperate with 
Sergeant Hogan’s requests, Sergeant Hogan pulled his 
firearm out of its holster, pointed it at Jackson, and 
directed him to get out of the vehicle.  As Jackson was 
doing so, Officer Brendan D. Bartley, who was standing 
behind Sergeant Hogan, reached around Jackson and removed a 
firearm from the waistband of Jackson’s pants.  The firearm 
 
4
was underneath Jackson’s shirt.  Officer Bartley handcuffed 
Jackson and proceeded to search him subsequent to arrest.  
During that search, Officer Bartley found four, 
individually wrapped “rocks of cocaine” in the left pocket 
of Jackson’s pants. 
 
Officer Cook acknowledged that the driver of the Honda 
automobile was not violating any traffic laws and that he 
would not have stopped the vehicle except for the dispatch.  
He also did not have any information other than what was 
contained in the original dispatch to the police officers.  
Similarly, Sergeant Hogan knew of no efforts to confirm the 
information received by the dispatcher.  Like Officer Cook, 
he saw the white Honda automobile and it matched the 
description of the vehicle for which they were looking.  
So, Sergeant Hogan turned his police vehicle around and 
followed Officer Cook, who was pursuing the white Honda 
automobile.  Likewise, Officer Bartley responded to the 
original dispatch and saw the white Honda vehicle turning 
southbound on Jefferson Avenue.  He did, however, testify 
that he had a clear vision of the entire parking lot at the 
small bar and he did not see another white Honda automobile 
there. 
ANALYSIS 
 
5
The Fourth Amendment protects “persons” from 
“unreasonable searches and seizures.”  U.S. Const. amend. 
IV.  An investigatory stop (sometimes referred to as a 
“Terry stop”), such as the traffic stop at issue in this 
case, constitutes a seizure within the meaning of the 
Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments “even though the purpose 
of the stop is limited and the resulting detention quite 
brief.”  Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 653 (1979); see 
United States v. Hassan El, 5 F.3d 726, 729 (4th Cir. 
1993). Consequently, such action by a police officer “must 
be justified by probable cause or a reasonable suspicion, 
based on specific and articulable facts, of unlawful 
conduct.”  Hassan El, 5 F.3d at 729; see Bass v. 
Commonwealth, 259 Va. 470, 475, 525 S.E.2d 921, 923-24 
(2000)(“stop of an automobile . . . is unreasonable under 
the Fourth Amendment absent a reasonable, articulable 
suspicion that the driver is unlicensed or that the 
automobile is not registered, or that either the vehicle or 
an occupant is otherwise subject to seizure for violation 
of the law”); United States v. Bell, 183 F.3d 746, 749 (8th 
Cir. 1999) (“An investigative stop does not violate the 
Fourth Amendment if the police have reasonable suspicion 
that the vehicle or its occupants are involved in criminal 
activity.”)  If evidence is seized during an illegal stop, 
 
6
it is not admissible at trial under the doctrine known as 
“the fruit of the poisonous tree.”  Hassan El, 5 F.3d at 
729; see Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (1963).  
The issue we decide in this appeal is whether the anonymous 
tip together with the police officers’ observations of the 
white Honda automobile and its occupants provided 
reasonable articulable suspicion to justify the 
investigative traffic stop. 
In deciding that issue and reviewing the trial court’s 
denial of Jackson’s motion to suppress, we consider the 
evidence and all reasonable inferences flowing from that 
evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, 
the prevailing party at trial.  Bass, 259 Va. at 475, 525 
S.E.2d at 924.  Since the constitutionality of a search and 
seizure under the Fourth Amendment involves questions of 
law and fact, we give deference to the factual findings of 
the trial court but independently decide whether, under the 
applicable law, the manner in which the challenged evidence 
was obtained satisfies constitutional requirements.  McCain 
v. Commonwealth, 261 Va. 483, 490, 545 S.E.2d 541, 545 
(2001); see Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 696-97 
(1996).  The Commonwealth carries the burden of showing 
that a warrantless search and seizure was constitutionally 
permissible.  Simmons v. Commonwealth, 238 Va. 200, 204, 
 
7
380 S.E.2d 656, 659 (1989).  However, a defendant must 
show, when viewing the evidence in the light most favorable 
to the Commonwealth, that the denial of the motion to 
suppress evidence was reversible error.  McCain, 261 Va. at 
490, 545 S.E.2d at 545; Fore v. Commonwealth, 220 Va. 1007, 
1010, 265 S.E.2d 729, 731 (1980). 
The constitutionality of the traffic stop in this case 
turns on whether the anonymous tip sufficed to give rise to 
reasonable suspicion.  Reasonable suspicion is something 
“more than an ‘inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or 
“hunch” ’ of criminal activity.”  Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 
U.S. 119, 124 (2000) (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 27 
(1968)).  However, it is something less than probable 
cause.  Bass, 259 Va. at 475, 525 S.E.2d at 923.  In 
Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 330 (1990), the Supreme 
Court of the United States explained that 
 
[r]easonable suspicion is a less demanding standard 
than probable cause not only in the sense that 
reasonable suspicion can be established with 
information that is different in quantity or content 
than that required to establish probable cause, but 
also in the sense that reasonable suspicion can arise 
from information that is less reliable than that 
required to show probable cause. 
 
The “totality of the circumstances,” which includes 
“the content of information possessed by police and its 
degree of reliability,” i.e. “quantity and quality,” must 
 
8
be considered when determining whether reasonable suspicion 
exits.  Id.  “[I]f a tip has a relatively low degree of 
reliability, more information will be required to establish 
the requisite quantum of suspicion than would be required 
if the tip were more reliable.”  Id.; see also Illinois v. 
Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 233 (1983) (“a deficiency in one [the 
informant’s ‘veracity’ or ‘reliability’ and his or her 
‘basis of knowledge’] may be compensated for, in 
determining the overall reliability of a tip, by a strong 
showing as to the other, or by some other indicia of 
reliability”).  The converse is likewise true.  See State 
v. Rutzinski, 623 N.W.2d 516, 522 (Wis. 2001) (“if there 
are strong indicia of the informant’s veracity, there need 
not necessarily be any indicia of the informant’s basis of 
knowledge”). 
 
The interplay between an informant’s reliability and 
the informant’s basis of knowledge is illustrated by 
comparing the decision in Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 
with the decision in Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143 
(1972).  In the former case, the police received a 
telephone call from an anonymous informant who stated that 
the defendant would leave a particular address “at a 
particular time in a brown Plymouth station wagon with the 
right taillight lens broken,” would drive to a named motel, 
 
9
and would be in possession of cocaine inside a brown 
attaché case.  White, 496 U.S. at 327.  The police 
proceeded to the specified address where they observed both 
the automobile as described by the informant and the 
defendant as she left the building and drove away in the 
automobile.  Id.  The police followed the vehicle as it 
proceeded along the most direct route to the named motel.  
Id.  The police stopped the defendant’s vehicle shortly 
before it reached the motel and conducted a consensual 
search of the station wagon.  Id.  During the search, the 
police found the brown attaché case, which contained 
marijuana.  Id.  They also discovered cocaine in the 
defendant’s purse.  Id.  At trial, the defendant moved to 
suppress the evidence seized during the search on the basis 
that the police officers did not have a reasonable 
suspicion justifying the initial investigative stop.  Id. 
at 327-328. 
 
Although the Supreme Court described White as a 
“close” case, it concluded “that under the totality of the 
circumstances the anonymous tip, as corroborated, exhibited 
sufficient indicia of reliability to justify the 
investigatory stop” of the defendant’s vehicle.  Id. at 
332.  The Court acknowledged that the police officers had 
not verified every detail mentioned by the anonymous caller 
 
10
but that they had corroborated certain facts, including 
that a woman had left a particular building, had gotten 
into the described automobile, and had driven along the 
most direct route toward the named motel.  Id. at 331.  The 
Court stated that it was “important that . . . ‘the 
anonymous [tip] contained a range of details relating not 
just to easily obtained facts and conditions existing at 
the time of the tip, but to future actions of third parties 
ordinarily not easily predicted.’ ”  Id. at 332 (quoting 
Gates, 462 U.S. at 245).  The Court explained that the 
police officers’ finding an automobile exactly as the 
anonymous caller had described in front of a particular 
building was an example of readily obtained facts which 
anyone could have known.  Id. at 332.  However, “[w]hat was 
important was the caller’s ability to predict [the 
defendant’s] future behavior, because it demonstrated 
inside information − a special familiarity with [the 
defendant’s] affairs” that the general public would have no 
way of knowing.  Id.  Once the police verified the caller’s 
predictions, it was reasonable to conclude that the caller 
had reliable information about the defendant’s illegal 
activities.  Id.  That “basis of knowledge” provided the 
anonymous caller with sufficient indicia of reliability to 
justify the investigatory stop.  Id. at 329. 
 
11
 
In contrast, the decision in Adams v. Williams turned 
on the informant’s veracity rather than the informant’s 
basis of knowledge.  There, an informant approached a 
police officer and stated that “an individual seated in a 
nearby vehicle was carrying narcotics and had a gun at his 
waist.”  407 U.S. at 144-45.  The informant was personally 
known by the police officer and had provided him with 
information in the past.  Id. at 146.  Based on the 
informant’s tip, the police officer approached the vehicle 
and, when the defendant rolled down the window, the officer 
reached into the vehicle and removed a fully loaded firearm 
from the defendant’s waistband.  Id. at 145.  The firearm 
was not visible to the police officer from outside the 
automobile, but it was located precisely where the 
informant had indicated.  Id.  During a subsequent search 
incident to arrest, police officers found heroin, a 
machete, and another firearm.  Id.
 
Emphasizing that the police officer personally knew 
the informant and had received information from him in the 
past, the Supreme Court concluded that the officer “acted 
justifiably in responding to his informant’s tip.”  Id. at 
146.  The Court stated that this case was “stronger” than 
one involving “an anonymous telephone tip” because “[t]he 
informant here came forward personally to give information 
 
12
that was immediately verifiable at the scene.”  Id.  Also 
important in the Court’s analysis was the fact that the 
informant might have been subject to immediate arrest for 
making a false complaint had the officer’s investigation 
proved the tip to be false.  Id. at 147. 
 
This analysis brings us to the Supreme Court’s most 
recent case involving an anonymous informant, Florida v. 
J. L., 529 U.S. 266 (2000).  There, an anonymous caller 
reported to the police “that a young black male standing at 
a particular bus stop and wearing a plaid shirt was 
carrying a gun.”  Id. at 268.  There was no audio recording 
of the call, and the police did not know anything about the 
caller.  Id.  Proceeding on the information provided by the 
informant, the police went to the bus stop and observed 
three black males there.  Id.  One of them, J. L., was 
wearing a plaid shirt.  Id.  Apart from the anonymous tip, 
the police did not observe any suspicious behavior, nor did 
the officers see a firearm.  Id.  Nevertheless, “[o]ne of 
the officers approached J. L., told him to put his hands up 
on the bus stop, frisked him, and seized a gun from J. L.’s 
pocket.”  Id.  J. L. was charged with carrying a concealed 
weapon without a license and possessing a firearm while 
under the age of 18.  Id. at 269.  At trial, he moved to 
suppress the introduction of the firearm that was seized 
 
13
from him on the basis that it was “the fruit of an unlawful 
search.”  Id.
 
The question presented to the Supreme Court was 
whether the anonymous tip pointing to J. L. had the 
required indicia of reliability as enunciated in Adams and 
White.  Id. at 270.  In J. L., the officers’ suspicion that 
the defendant was carrying a concealed weapon came not from 
their own observations “but solely from a call made from an 
unknown location by an unknown caller.”  Id.  Thus, the 
Court concluded that, unlike a tip such as the one in Adams 
where the informant was known and could be held responsible 
if the allegations were proven to be false, “ ‘an anonymous 
tip alone seldom demonstrates the informant’s basis of 
knowledge or veracity.’ ”  Id. (quoting White, 496 U.S. at 
329). 
The tip concerning J. L. also lacked the indicia of 
reliability present in White because the anonymous caller 
did not provide any “predictive information” which the 
police could use to test the informant’s basis of knowledge 
or credibility.  Id. at 271.  The fact that the informant 
provided an accurate description of an “observable location 
and appearance” served only to “help the police correctly 
identify the person whom the tipster [meant] to accuse.”  
Id. at 272.  The reasonable suspicion at issue in J. L. was 
 
14
whether the informant was reliable in the assertion of 
concealed criminal activity, “not just in [the tip’s] 
tendency to identify a determinate person.”  Id.  Thus, 
since all the police had in J. L. was “the bare report of 
an unknown, unaccountable informant who neither explained 
how he knew about the gun nor supplied any basis for 
believing he had inside information about J. L.,” the Court 
concluded that the investigatory stop and ensuing search 
were unconstitutional.  Id. at 271. 
 
The Court also rejected a “firearm exception” to its 
well-established reliability analysis.  Such an exception 
would allow a stop and frisk when a tip alleges an illegal 
firearm even if the tip lacked sufficient indicia of 
reliability.  Id. at 272.  But, the Court pointed out that 
it was not saying that there could never be “circumstances 
under which the danger alleged in an anonymous tip might be 
so great as to justify a search even without a showing of 
reliability,” such as information that a person is carrying 
a bomb.  Id. at 273. 
Turning now to the case before us, we agree with the 
statement that “[r]arely are the facts of two cases as 
congruent as the facts in J. L. and this case.”  Jackson, 
41 Va. App. at 240, 583 S.E.2d at 795 (Benton, J., 
dissenting).  As in J. L., Officer Cook had nothing more to 
 
15
go on than an anonymous, unaccountable informant who 
neither explained how he knew that Jackson was brandishing 
a firearm nor furnished any basis for believing that he had 
inside knowledge about Jackson.  Both the “quantity and 
quality” of the information supplied to the police here 
lacked sufficient indicia of reliability to justify the 
investigatory stop.  Nor did the police officers observe 
any suspicious behavior once they spotted the white Honda 
automobile. 
Unlike the informant in Adams, the caller in this case 
was not known to the police nor did he or she personally 
appear before an officer.  Thus, the informant was not 
subjecting himself or herself to possible arrest if the 
information provided to the dispatcher proved false.  See 
Code § 18.2-461.  In other words, the informant was not 
placing his or her credibility at risk and could “lie with 
impunity.”  J. L., 529 U.S. at 275 (Kennedy, J., 
concurring).  There also is no evidence that the caller had 
supplied information on any previous occasions.  When, as 
in this case, there are virtually no indicia of the 
informant’s veracity, more information is required in order 
“to establish the requisite quantum of suspicion than would 
be required if the tip were more reliable.”  White, 496 
U.S. at 330. 
 
16
The tip in this case, however, also lacked sufficient 
information to demonstrate the informant’s basis of 
knowledge and to establish the “requisite quantum of 
suspicion.”  Id.  The Court of Appeals correctly noted that 
Officer Cook verified six details reported by the 
informant: the make and color of the vehicle; its location; 
and the number, race, and gender of the vehicle’s 
occupants.  Jackson, 41 Va. App. at 229, 583 S.E.2d at 789.  
Based on the officer’s verification of these details, the 
Court of Appeals concluded that it was objectively 
reasonable for the officer to believe “that the remaining 
portion of the tip − that one of the suspects had brandished 
a firearm only moments before − was likewise true.”  Id.  We 
do not agree.  The tip included only “easily obtained facts 
and conditions existing at the time of the tip” which 
anyone could have known, including the allegation of 
brandishing a firearm.  White, 496 U.S. at 332.  It failed 
to include the kind of details critical to the Supreme 
Court’s analysis in White, predictions about the 
defendant’s future behavior.  Such details are important 
because they demonstrate “inside information” that would 
not be available to the public generally.  Id.
Thus, as in J. L., “[t]he anonymous call . . . 
provided no predictive information and therefore left the 
 
17
police without means to test the informant’s knowledge or 
credibility.”  529 U.S. at 271.  That the officers in fact 
found a gun when they searched Jackson does not mean that, 
prior to the search, they had a reasonable basis for 
believing that Jackson had engaged in criminal conduct.  
See id.  Even when an informant reports the commission of 
an open and obvious crime, if the tip is truly anonymous 
and provides no explanation for how the informant acquired 
the information, i.e., the informant’s basis of knowledge, 
there remains a “layer of inquiry respecting the 
reliability of the informant that cannot be pursued.”  
J. L., 529 U.S. at 275 (Kennedy, J., concurring). 
The Court of Appeals distinguished this case from 
J. L. and found the tip here 
“reliable in its assertion of illegality” because 
this tip − unlike the “carrying a gun” tip in J.L. 
− provided information permitting the officers 
reasonably to infer that it (i) came from a 
concerned citizen making a contemporaneous 
eyewitness report, (ii) involved an open and 
obvious crime rather than mere concealed 
illegality,[2] and (iii) described criminality 
posing an imminent danger to the public. 
                     
2 The Court of Appeals stated that “[w]hen an anonymous 
caller reports an open and obvious crime . . . , the Fourth 
Amendment may require no showing that the caller have 
inside information about the suspect capable of predicting 
his future conduct.”  Jackson, 41 Va. App. at 227, 583 
S.E.2d at 788.  In support of that assertion, the court, in 
a footnote, cited its decision in Beckner v. Commonwealth, 
15 Va. App. 533, 535, 425 S.E.2d 530, 531 (1993).  However, 
in Beckner, it was not necessary for the informant to have 
 
18
 
Jackson, 41 Va. App. at 235, 583 S.E.2d at 792 (quoting 
J. L., 529 U.S. at 272) (internal citation omitted).  
However, the first factual predicate is not supported by 
the record, the second factor does not distinguish this 
case from J. L., and the third element was rejected by the 
Supreme Court in J. L.
As to the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that this tip 
came from a concerned citizen making an eyewitness report, 
the record contains the testimony of two police officers 
concerning the dispatch that directed them to proceed to 
34th Street and Jefferson Avenue.  Officer Cook stated that 
“[w]e were dispatched in reference to three black males in 
a white Honda [who] were disorderly and one of the subjects 
brandished a firearm.”  Sergeant Hogan testified that he 
was backing up Officer Cook “on a call that someone was 
brandishing a firearm and that they were getting, he and 
two other guys were getting into a car and leaving.”  This 
testimony is the police officers’ recitation of the 
information reported to them by the police dispatcher.  The 
dispatcher did not testify nor is there any evidence that 
                                                             
predicted future action by the defendant because the 
informant had “a face-to-face confrontation with the police 
officer.”  Id., 425 S.E.2d at 532.  Thus, the informant had 
subjected himself to possible prosecution if he gave false 
information. 
 
19
the informant’s call was audio-recorded or its content 
preserved in some other manner. 
Thus, even when viewing the police officers’ testimony 
in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth and 
imputing the dispatcher’s knowledge to the officers, see 
Feathers v. Aey, 319 F.3d 843, 849 (6th Cir. 2003), there 
simply is no evidence from which a reasonable inference can 
be drawn that the informant in this case was a concerned 
citizen making an eyewitness report as a crime was being 
committed as opposed to a prankster or someone with a 
grudge against Jackson.  The informant provided no details 
about himself or herself, cf. State v. Williams, 623 N.W.2d 
106, 114 (Wis. 2001) (informant provided “self-identifying 
information”); no descriptive facts showing that he or she 
personally observed the firearm instead of having received 
information from another person; and no time frame for when 
the illegal activity was observed, cf. United States v. 
Thompson, 234 F.3d 725, 727 (D.C. Cir. 2000) (tipster 
stated that he “just saw” the defendant with a gun).3  In 
other words, the anonymous informant here provided no basis 
for his or her knowledge. 
                     
3  The evidence showed only that Officer Cook arrived 
at the scene approximately five minutes after receiving the 
dispatch. 
 
20
Implicit in the second factor central to the Court of 
Appeals’ holding is its statement that one fact alone 
distinguishes this case from J. L., that the informant here 
asserted specific illegal activity while the informant in 
J. L. made no assertion of illegality.  However, as the 
dissent noted, “[i]f . . . the issue in J. L. concerned the 
failure of the informant’s tip to convey evidence of 
criminal conduct, the resolution of that case would not 
have required any discussion about the informant’s 
reliability.”  Jackson, 41 Va. App. at 242, 583 S.E.2d at 
796 (Benton, J., dissenting).  Moreover, the Supreme Court 
rejected any suggestion that a report of illegal conduct 
justifies a stop and frisk: “[t]he mere fact that a tip, if 
true, would describe illegal activity does not mean that 
the police may make a Terry stop without meeting the 
reliability requirement.”  529 U.S. at 273 n. *.  The Court 
made no distinction between concealed criminal conduct and 
open, obvious criminal activity. 
Additionally, as already discussed, the police here 
had no way to test the anonymous informant’s basis of 
knowledge and to determine his or her reliability.  The 
informant did not provide, contrary to the Court of 
Appeals’ conclusion, any “first-person, present-tense” 
details of the alleged illegal conduct.  Jackson, 41 Va. 
 
21
App. at 233, 583 S.E.2d at 791.  See, e.g. Rutzinski, 623 
N.W.2d at 519 (unidentified motorist reported, by cellular 
phone, erratic driving by another motorist and that he or 
she was in the vehicle in front of the swerving pickup).  
Nor did the informant provide any information about the 
defendant’s future behavior.  We do not suggest that every 
anonymous tip must include predictive information, see 
United States v. Wheat, 278 F.3d 722, 734 (8th Cir. 2001) 
(“the predictive aspects of an anonymous tip may be less 
applicable to tips purporting to describe contemporaneous, 
readily observable criminal actions as in the case of 
erratic driving witnessed by another motorist”); but, even 
when an informant reports open and obvious criminal 
conduct, sufficient indicia of reliability must be present 
before a stop and frisk is justified. 
Finally, with regard to the Court of Appeals’ reliance 
on the imminent danger to the public, the Supreme Court 
declined to carve out a “firearm exception” to its 
established reliability requirements for anonymous tips.  
J. L. 529 U.S. at 272.  The Court stated that “an automatic 
firearm exception . . . would rove too far” because it 
“would enable any person seeking to harass another to set 
in motion an intrusive, embarrassing police search of the 
targeted person simply by placing an anonymous call falsely 
 
22
reporting the target’s unlawful carriage of a gun.”  Id.  
See also Harris v. Commonwealth, 262 Va. 407, 416, 551 
S.E.2d 606, 611 (2001) (a police officer’s “hunch” that the 
defendant was trespassing could not be raised to the level 
of reasonable suspicion based on an anonymous informant’s 
assertion that the defendant was armed; the Commonwealth 
could not “bootstrap[] the legitimate concern for law 
enforcement officers’ safety, which permits a protective 
search of a legally detained suspect, to serve as the basis 
for detaining the suspect”). 
Nor are we persuaded by the cases relied on by the 
Commonwealth and the Court of Appeals.  Those cases are 
either inapposite or involved tips that contained indicia 
of reliability not present here.  For example, Wheat, 278 
F.3d 722; State v. Walshire, 634 N.W.2d 625 (Iowa 2001); 
Rutzinski, 623 N.W.2d 516; and State v. Boyea, 765 A.2d 862 
(Vt. 2000), all addressed the reliability of anonymous 
reports of erratic or drunk drivers.  That circumstance and 
the imminent public danger associated with it are not 
factors in this case.  As the court in Boyea recognized, “a 
drunk driver is not at all unlike a ‘bomb,’ and a mobile 
one at that.”  765 A.2d at 867.  We agree that “[i]n 
contrast to the report of an individual in possession of a 
gun, an anonymous report of an erratic or drunk driver on 
 
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the highway presents a qualitatively different level of 
danger, and concomitantly greater urgency for prompt 
action.”  Id.
Continuing, in Williams, 623 N.W.2d 106, the informant 
was not truly anonymous.  There, the caller identified her 
location; indeed, she referred to it as “my house.”  Id. at 
114.  The court concluded that the informant had provided 
“self-identifying information” and therefore put her 
“anonymity at risk.”  Id.  “Risking one’s identification 
intimates that, more likely than not, the informant is a 
genuinely concerned citizen as opposed to a fallacious 
prankster.”  Id. at 114-15.  Similarly, the informant in 
Rutzinski “exposed him − or herself to being identified” 
because the informant told the police “that he or she was 
in the vehicle in front of Rutzinski’s pickup.”  623 N.W.2d 
at 525. 
CONCLUSION 
Under the totality of the circumstances presented 
here, the anonymous tip lacked sufficient indicia of 
reliability to justify the investigatory stop of the 
vehicle in which Jackson was a passenger.  Thus, the stop 
was illegal as well as the subsequent search of Jackson’s 
person.  Therefore, we hold that the trial court erred in 
refusing to grant Jackson’s pre-trial motion to suppress 
 
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the evidence seized from him.  Accordingly, we will reverse 
the judgment of the Court of Appeals and dismiss the 
indictments against Jackson. 
Reversed and dismissed. 
 
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