MATTHEW A. TOBIN,

Appellant,

v.

STATE OF FLORIDA,

Appellee.

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL

FIRST DISTRICT, STATE OF FLORIDA

NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO 

FILE MOTION FOR REHEARING AND 

DISPOSITION THEREOF IF FILED

CASE NO. 1D13-2293

_____________________________/

Opinion filed September 10, 2014.

An appeal from the Circuit Court for Okaloosa County.

Michael A. Flowers, Judge.

Bert Moore, Crestview, for Appellant.

Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General, and Kristen Bonjour and Trisha Meggs Pate, 

Assistant Attorneys General, Tallahassee, for Appellee.

MARSTILLER, J.

We have for review the trial court’s denial of Appellant’s dispositive motion 

to suppress evidence he was driving with a suspended or revoked license,1 which 

1 Reviewing a motion to suppress presents a mixed question; findings are 

reviewed for sufficient evidence, and the application of the law to those findings is 

reviewed de novo. See Berry v. State, 86 So. 3d 595, 598 (Fla. 1st DCA 2012).

 
led the court to find Appellant in violation of community control. Because the 

deputy sheriff who stopped Appellant’s vehicle lacked the reasonable, articulable 

suspicion of criminal activity necessary to justify what the court determined—and 

the State conceded—was an investigatory stop, we conclude the court erred in 

denying the motion to suppress.

Appellant was on two years’ community control, followed by two years’ 

probation, for committing battery on a law enforcement officer and resisting an 

officer with violence. On the night in question, the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s 

Office received two anonymous calls complaining of a disturbance at a particular

residence or business located at the end of a privately-maintained road. The 

Sheriff’s Office had received complaints in the past about disturbances at the 

property; some complaints were founded, some were not. The first anonymous

call that night indicated firearms may be involved. When deputies investigated,

they found no disturbance. Sometime later, a second call came in reporting a 

disturbance at the property, this time alleging someone on the property was 

overheard shouting “Shoot me now!” Two deputies responded, each in his own 

cruiser. The first deputy to arrive saw a vehicle leaving the property as he 

approached, and radioed to the second deputy, who was nearer to the intersection 

of the private road and the public street, to stop the vehicle. The second deputy, 

seeing the vehicle coming directly toward him, activated the blue lights on his 

2
cruiser, causing the then-unknown driver to stop his vehicle “beak to beak” with 

the cruiser. When Appellant began to get out of the vehicle, the deputy directed 

him to stay put. The deputy testified at the suppression hearing he did so because 

of concerns, based on the anonymous call, that a firearm may be present. Upon 

approaching the vehicle, however, the deputy recognized Appellant, knew he was 

on community control, and knew his driver’s license was suspended. At that point, 

he arrested Appellant for driving with a suspended license. The deputy also 

smelled alcohol on Appellant’s breath and found a cup containing an alcoholic 

beverage in the passenger or back seat of Appellant’s vehicle.

The State later filed an affidavit of violation of community control based on 

the new law violation and failure to abstain from using alcohol. Upon denying 

Appellant’s motion to suppress, the trial court found only the new law violation

proven, revoked Appellant’s community control on that basis, and entered 

judgment sentencing him to 36 months in prison.

It is well settled that, to effect a constitutionally-permissible investigatory 

stop, a law enforcement officer must have a well-founded, articulable suspicion 

that the person stopped has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a 

crime. § 901.151, Fla. Stat. (2012), Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968); Popple v. 

State, 626 So. 2d 185, 186 (Fla. 1993); Berry v. State, 86 So. 3d 595, 598 (Fla. 1st 

3
DCA 2012). “Mere suspicion is not enough to support a [Terry] stop.” Popple, 

626 So. 2d at 186.

The parties assert that whether the deputy who stopped Appellant’s vehicle 

had the requisite well-founded suspicion of criminal activity turns on how the 

anonymous calls are characterized. See State v. Maynard, 783 So. 2d 226, 228, 

(Fla. 2001). Appellant argues the calls were merely anonymous tips that, absent 

additional information obtained by the deputies, were not sufficiently reliable to 

justify the detention that occurred here. The State counters that the callers can be 

reasonably characterized as citizen informants whose calls are presumed reliable 

and generally are sufficient to support an investigatory detention without further 

corroboration.

“Reasonable suspicion . . . is dependent upon both the content of information 

possessed by police and its degree of reliability. Both factors—quantity and 

quality—are considered in the ‘totality of circumstances—the whole picture,” that 

must be taken into account when evaluating whether there is reasonable 

suspicion.” Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 330 (1990) (quoting United States v. 

Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417 (1981)). “‘In analyzing whether third-party information 

can provide the requisite reasonable suspicion, courts have looked to the reliability 

of the informant as well as the reliability of the information provided.’” Berry, 86 

So. 3d at 598 (quoting D.P. v. State, 65 So. 3d 123, 127 (Fla. 3d DCA 2011)). The 

4
less reliable the tip, the more independent corroboration will be required to 

establish reasonable suspicion. White, 496 U.S. at 330. On the “spectrum of 

reliability,” an anonymous tip has “relatively low” reliability. Berry at 598; see

also State v. DeLuca, 40 So. 3d 120, 124 (Fla. 1st DCA 2010). This is because “an 

anonymous tip alone seldom demonstrates the informant’s basis of knowledge or 

veracity as ordinary citizens generally do not provide extensive recitations of the 

basis of their everyday observations and given that the veracity of persons 

supplying [such] tips” cannot be determined. White at 329. Thus, “[a]n 

anonymous tip requires that the information be ‘sufficiently corroborated’ by the 

officer to constitute reasonable suspicion[.]” Berry at 598 (citing State v. Evans, 

692 So. 2d 216, 218 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997)). A citizen informant, on the other hand, 

is presumed highly reliable because his or her “motivation in reporting illegality is 

the promotion of justice and public safety,” and because the informant gives his or 

her name to police and “can be held accountable for the accuracy of the 

information given.” DeLuca, 40 So. 3d at 124. Therefore, “[a] tip from a citizen 

informant is sufficient by itself to provide law enforcement with reasonable 

suspicion to conduct a Terry stop.” Berry at 599 (citing State v. Maynard, 783 So. 

2d 226, 228 (Fla. 2001)).

Applying these principles to the facts in the instant case, we conclude the 

deputy who stopped Appellant’s car did not have a well-founded suspicion of 

5
criminal activity needed to effect a lawful Terry stop. The disturbance calls that 

sent the deputies to the property on the night question were anonymous tips bereft 

of any details indicating the information given was reliable. Indeed, the first call 

proved to be unfounded after deputies investigated. The second call, alleging 

someone was overheard yelling “Shoot me now,” still did not provide any specific, 

articulable facts indicating that Appellant (or any other identifiable person, for that 

matter) was engaged in criminal activity. Thus, even if, as the State argues, we 

could characterize the callers as citizen informants, there still was insufficient 

information given to support a reasonable, articulable suspicion that a crime had 

been, or was being, committed. See Florida v. J.L., 529 U.S. 266 (2000) (holding 

anonymous tip claiming person was carrying a gun insufficient, without more, to 

justify stop and frisk of the person); Baptiste v. State, 995 So. 2d 285 (Fla. 2008) 

(holding anonymous 911 call describing person and alleging person had waved 

firearm in public not sufficiently reliable to provide reasonable suspicion for 

investigative stop of person matching the description).

Because the anonymous calls provided neither the quantity nor the quality of 

information necessary to create reasonable suspicion, the deputies needed 

additional, independently-obtained information. They had none, for they had not 

yet begun to investigate the alleged disturbance when Appellant’s car was stopped. 

Nor did they observe any behavior by Appellant to generate reasonable suspicion 

6
he was or had been engaged in criminal activity involving a firearm. Compare 

Hudson v. State, 41 So. 3d 948 (Fla. 2d DCA 2010) (finding reasonable suspicion 

where officers received anonymous call that a man was burglarizing cars in 

stadium parking lot, and observed person matching “vague description” carrying 

two duffel bags and hurriedly walking away from stadium) and J.H. v. State, 106 

So. 3d 1001 (Fla. 3d DCA 2013) (finding no reasonable suspicion where officer 

responded to scene of fight reported by anonymous caller and observed no fight, 

but saw and stopped a youth matching description who was merely sweating and

out of breath and appeared nervous).

If the second deputy’s action could be characterized as attempting a 

consensual encounter with Appellant, see generally Popple, 626 So. 2d at 186, we 

could affirm the trial court’s denial of Appellant’s motion to suppress. But the 

deputy effected the stop of Appellant’s car by activating the blue lights on his 

cruiser, positioning the cruiser on the road such that Appellant had to stop directly 

opposite, and ordering Appellant to remain in the car when he attempted to step 

out. “Although there is no litmus-paper test for distinguishing a consensual 

encounter from a seizure, a significant identifying characteristic of a consensual 

encounter is that the officer cannot hinder or restrict the person’s freedom to leave 

or freedom to refuse to answer inquiries[.]” Id. at 187. On the other hand, “a 

person is seized if, under the circumstances, a reasonable person would conclude 

7
that he or she is not free to end the encounter and depart.” Id. at 188. What 

occurred in this case was a seizure—an investigatory stop for which a reasonable, 

articulable suspicion of criminal activity by Appellant was required. Because the 

anonymous calls failed to provide deputies with the requisite level of suspicion, the 

stop of Appellant’s car was unlawful, and the trial court should have granted the 

motion to suppress. Accordingly, we reverse the order of revocation of community 

control and the subsequent judgment and sentence, and direct the trial court to 

reinstate Appellant’s community control.

REVERSED and REMANDED with directions.

ROWE and RAY, JJ., CONCUR.

8