If this opinion indicates that it is “FOR PUBLICATION,” it is subject to 

revision until final publication in the Michigan Appeals Reports.

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S T A T E O F M I C H I G A N

C O U R T O F A P P E A L S

PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

UNPUBLISHED

November 21, 2019

v No. 344788

Wayne Circuit Court

ANNE MARIE LAMBERT, LC No. 18-002872-01-AR

Defendant-Appellee.

Before: RONAYNE KRAUSE, P.J., and METER and GLEICHER, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

The prosecution appeals by leave granted1 the lower courts’ dismissal of a charge against 

defendant for operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated, MCL 257.625. We reverse and 

remand for reinstatement of the charge.

I. BACKGROUND

About 1:20 a.m. on November 13, 2017, an individual that identified himself as 

“Haddie”—a Wayne State Student who lived “at the Bunker’s apartment”—called 911 to report 

his suspicion of a drunk driver near Wayne State University in Detroit. The caller reported that 

he was following a black Lexus LS 400 with a Kentucky license plate that he had first seen while 

turning off Woodward onto Palmer. The caller reported that the Lexus had been parked on the 

side of the street when it “took off real quick,” ran a red light, and used the incorrect turnaround 

before driving the wrong way on a one way street toward the next intersection. According to the 

caller, “[H]e kind of hit his–his wheel, and the whole car moved. And he was just driving a little 

reckless at that point.” Concerned, the caller followed the suspected drunk driver, who stopped 

in front of a green light until it turned red. The caller reported that the driver’s “head was out on 

the—looks like he was trying to rest or something.”

 1 People v Lampert, unpublished order of the Court of Appeals, entered December 7, 2018 

(Docket No. 344788).
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At around 1:40 a.m., a police dispatcher radioed Wayne State Police Officer Mark 

Newton to inform him that there was a “black Lexus with Kentucky plates riding erratic” in his 

vicinity. When asked to represent the entirety of his communications with dispatch, Officer 

Newton testified: “The information that I received from dispatch was the vehicle was driving 

erratic, and going in and—in and out of traffic” as well as “updates in the [Lexus’s] direction of 

travel.” Officer Newton testified that given “all those circumstances that time of night; in my 

experience as police officer for 14 years; 9 out of 10 times it’s someone that’s under some type 

of influence.” “Immediately” upon locating the Lexus, and without observing the driver commit 

a traffic violation, Officer Newton conducted an investigatory stop. Defendant, the Lexus’s sole 

occupant, had an open beer can in plain sight in the center console.

On cross-examination, Officer Newton admitted that dispatch had not conveyed much 

detail from the 911 call. Officer Newton admitted, after listening to the 911 call for the first time 

prior to his testimony, that the message he received from dispatch was a vague and partially 

inaccurate representation of the call: “Erratic driving, swerving in and out of traffic. To the best 

of my knowledge that’s what—that’s what I believe I was told; and that’s what I put in my 

report.”

At the conclusion of an evidentiary hearing, the district court granted defendant’s motion 

to suppress evidence discovered during the investigatory stop and to dismiss the charges, 

reasoning that “[t]he arresting officer lack[ed] independent . . . personal, reasonabl[e 

observations] that the defendant was driving under the influence. The prosecution appealed to 

the circuit court, which denied the appeal, reasoning that the investigatory stop would have been 

valid if “[the officer were] given factors by the 911 operator that show[ed] an indicia of 

reliability,” but that a mere advisement of erratic driving was insufficient to create a reasonable 

suspicion of drunk driving. The circuit court opined, “I don’t know why he couldn’t have 

followed this car further to see whether or not they were engaged in that behavior.” This appeal 

followed.

II. ANALYSIS

The prosecution argues that the dispatcher’s message to Officer Newton was sufficient to 

give Officer Newton a reasonable, articulable suspicion that defendant was engaged in drunk 

driving and, consequently, to justify the investigatory stop. We review de novo the trial court’s 

ruling at a suppression hearing, but review its factual findings for clear error. People v 

Galloway, 259 Mich App 634, 638; 675 NW2d 883 (2003). “A finding is clearly erroneous if, 

after reviewing the entire record, an appellate court is left with a definite and firm conviction that 

a mistake has been made.” Id.

“It is well settled that both the United States Constitution and the Michigan Constitution 

guarantee the right of persons to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures.” People v 

Hellstrom, 264 Mich App 187, 192; 690 NW2d 293 (2004) (internal citation and quotation marks 

omitted). The reasonableness of a search and seizure depends upon the specific facts and 

circumstances of the case. People v Jordan, 187 Mich App 582, 586; 468 NW2d 294 (1991). 

Police officers generally must obtain a warrant before conducting a search, People v Levine, 461 

Mich 172, 178; 600 NW2d 622 (1999), and “a search conducted without a warrant is 

unreasonable unless there exists . . . exigent circumstances establishing an exception to the 
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warrant requirement,” Jordan, 187 Mich App at 586. The burden is on the prosecution to 

demonstrate that the search was justified by an exception to the warrant requirement. Galloway, 

259 Mich App at 638.

One such exception to the warrant requirement is for investigatory or “Terry” stops. See 

Terry v Ohio, 392 US 1; 88 S Ct 1868; 20 L Ed 2d 889 (1968). The investigatory-stop exception 

allows an officer to briefly detain an individual without probable cause “for the purpose of 

determining whether a crime has been committed.” People v Custer, 465 Mich 319, 327; 630 

NW2d 870 (2001). In order to conduct an investigatory stop, the officer must have “reasonable 

suspicion that crime is afoot.” Id. (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). Reasonable 

suspicion is an objective standard. Terry, 392 US at 21-22. The officer “must be able to point to 

specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts,” 

would “warrant a [person] of reasonable caution in the belief” that a crime was afoot. Id.

(internal citation and quotation marks omitted).

The United States Supreme Court has “firmly rejected the argument that reasonable cause 

for an investigative stop can only be based on the officer’s personal observation, rather than on 

information supplied by another person.” Navarette v California, 572 US 393, 397; 134 S Ct 

1683; 188 L Ed 2d 680 (2014) (internal citation, quotation marks, and brackets omitted). When 

a suspicion of wrongdoing arises from a citizen informant’s tip rather than an officer’s firsthand 

observations, the tip must be undergirded by “sufficient indicia of reliability” for a court to deem 

the suspicion reasonable. Id. (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). Three factors must 

be considered when “determining whether the information from the citizen-informant carried 

enough indicia of reliability: (1) the reliability of the particular informant, (2) the nature of the 

particular information given to the police, and (3) the reasonability of the suspicion in light of the 

above factors.” People v Tooks, 403 Mich 568, 577; 271 NW2d 503 (1978) (internal citation and 

quotation marks omitted). More recently, this Court has emphasized that, due to the state’s 

strong interest in ensuring safe roadways, “less information is required from citizen informants 

reporting contemporaneous incidents of erratic or potentially dangerous driving to justify an 

investigated stop than a strict application of Tooks would suggest.” People v Barbarich, 291 

Mich App 468, 479; 807 NW2d 56 (2011).

Defendant argues that this case is controlled by Florida v JL, 529 US 266; 120 S Ct 1375; 

146 L Ed 2d 254 (2000), in which the United States Supreme Court held that officers lacked 

reasonable suspicion to conduct an investigatory stop based solely upon an anonymous tipster’s 

description of the defendant’s clothing and location, and an allegation that the defendant was 

carrying a gun. The Court noted that “[a]ll the police had to go on in this case 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.” Id. at 271. In 

other words, the caller, for all police knew, could have looked out his window and decided he did 

not like the look of JL. The Court emphasized that reasonable suspicion “requires that a tip be 

reliable in its assertion of illegality, not just in its tendency to identify a determinate person.” Id.

at 272.

We acknowledge JL’s precedential value but disagree that JL directs that we affirm the 

suppression. In Navarette, 572 US at 395, the United States Supreme Court distinguished JL to 

hold that officers had the reasonable suspicion necessary to justify a traffic stop based on the 
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following information relayed by a dispatcher: “Showing southbound Highway 1 at mile marker 

88, Silver Ford 150 pickup. Plate of 8–David–94925. Ran the reporting party off the roadway 

and was last seen approximately five [minutes] ago.” The Navarette Court noted that the JL

informant “did not explain how he knew about the gun, nor did he suggest that he had any 

special familiarity with the young man’s affairs,” whereas the Navarette informant, “[b]y 

reporting that she had been run off the road by a specific vehicle—a silver Ford F–150 pickup, 

license plate 8D94925— . . . necessarily claimed eyewitness knowledge of the alleged dangerous 

driving.” Id. at 398-399. The Court also noted that the caller’s report was nearly 

contemporaneous with the alleged traffic violation and reasoned that substantially 

contemporaneous reports “[have] long been treated as especially reliable.” Id. at 399. Finally, 

the Court reasoned that the Navarette informant’s use of the 911 system, which employs 

protocols that can trace the identity of callers, added another layer of reliability. Id. at 400-401.

Consistent with the precedent set in Navarette, we conclude that the dispatcher’s

information was sufficient to justify the investigatory stop. Initially, we note that, as in 

Navarette, the informant called in the tip to the 911 system, which adds a layer of reliability to 

his report. Moreover, consistent with the purpose of the 911 system, the informant reported his 

contemporaneous observations of suspected drunk driving and Officer Newton was dispatched 

shortly thereafter. Regarding the quality of the information given to Officer Newton from the 

dispatcher, we agree with defendant that the dispatcher’s indication that defendant was swerving 

in and out of traffic may have been inaccurate. However, the dispatcher’s report that defendant 

was driving “erratically” is the exact type of description that justifies an investigatory traffic 

stop. See Barbarich, 291 Mich App at 481; People v Christie (On Remand), 206 Mich App 304, 

309; 520 NW2d 647 (1994); see also Navarette, 572 US at 402 (contrasting “erratic” behaviors 

such as “weaving back and forth” and “driving in the median” with “driving without a seatbelt or 

slightly over the speed limit”) (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). Defendant argues 

that Navarette is inapposite because the caller in that case reported a serious rather than a minor 

traffic violation, and the dispatcher in Navarette accurately relayed details of the offense to the 

officers. Contrary to defendant’s contention, however, the dispatcher’s message in Navarette

(that defendant “[r]an reporting party off the road”) did not contain any more information about 

the nature of the suspected offense than the dispatcher’s message to Officer Newton in this case 

(that defendant drove “erratic going in and out of traffic”). While more specific information 

regarding defendant’s driving would have been helpful, “erratic” is an accurate characterization 

of defendant’s driving on that night. Indeed, the informant described defendant’s driving as 

“reckless,” and indicated that defendant drove the wrong way down one-way streets, ran red 

lights, “took off real quick” from a stop, and caused the car’s wheel to hit something.

Again, “the amount of information necessary to justify an investigative stop based on an 

anonymous tipster’s report of erratic driving is less than that required for other types of criminal 

activity that pose less immediate danger.” Barbarich, 291 Mich App at 475 (discussing the 

holding in United States v Wheat, 278 F3d 722, 729-730 (CA 8, 2001)). “[W]hile the quantity of 

the tip’s information must be sufficient to identify the vehicle and to support an inference of a 

traffic violation, less is required with regard to a tip’s reliability; as to the latter, it will suffice if 

law enforcement corroborates the tip’s innocent details.” Id. at 479-480. Here, Officer Newton 

located defendant’s vehicle based on the tipster’s description in the area of the reported reckless 

driving, thereby corroborating the innocent details of the dispatch. On the basis of his 14 years 
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of police experience, Officer Newton testified that, at that time of night, a car driving erratically 

is usually indicative of a driver under the influence of some substance. Given the totality of the 

circumstances preceding the stop, we conclude that a reasonable person in Officer Newton’s 

position would believe that the driver of the Lexus was committing a substance-related vehicular 

crime. Officer Newton was not required, as defendant and the lower courts suggest, to 

personally observe defendant driving erratically before he could conduct the investigatory stop. 

Such a standard would necessarily contradict our holding in Barbarich by potentially needlessly 

endangering the public when a brief stop could confirm or deny any criminal operation of the 

vehicle.

Accordingly, we conclude that Officer Newton had reasonable suspicion to conduct an 

investigatory stop of defendant’s vehicle. Therefore, we reverse the lower courts’ suppression of 

the evidence discovered during the stop and remand for reinstatement of the charge against 

defendant. We do not retain jurisdiction.

/s/ Amy Ronayne Krause

/s/ Patrick M. Meter

/s/ Elizabeth L. Gleicher