COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Judges Elder, Fitzpatrick and Annunziata 

Argued at Richmond, Virginia 

GUY C. AMBURGEY, JR. 

 MEMORANDUM OPINION* BY 

v. Record No. 2503-96-2 JUDGE JOHANNA L. FITZPATRICK 

 SEPTEMBER 23, 1997 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF SPOTSYLVANIA COUNTY 

William H. Ledbetter, Jr., Judge 

 Muriel-Theresa Pitney, Senior Assistant 

Public Defender, for appellant. 

 Eugene Murphy, Assistant Attorney General 

(James S. Gilmore, III, Attorney General, on 

brief), for appellee. 

 On September 30, 1996, Guy C. Amburgey, Jr. (appellant) was 

convicted of operating a motor vehicle after having been declared 

an habitual offender in a manner such as to endanger life, limb 

or property (second offense) in violation of Code § 46.2-357. On 

appeal, he argues that the trial court erred in finding the stop 

of his car reasonable based upon information provided to the 

police by an unnamed citizen. For the reasons that follow, we 

reverse the decision of the trial court. 

 I. 

 The facts of this case are not in dispute. At about 

1:00 a.m. on November 29, 1995, Deputy Sheriff Larry Lambrose 

(Lambrose) of the Spotsylvania Sheriff's Department was on duty 

in a marked police car. A woman in a vehicle stopped him by 

 

 *Pursuant to Code § 17-116.010 this opinion is not 

designated for publication. 
 2 

flashing her lights and honking her horn at him. Lambrose had 

never seen or met this woman prior to this time. The informant 

told Lambrose that she had been at a local bar with her boyfriend 

until they argued and she left the bar. Additionally, she told 

Lambrose that her boyfriend and another man had been drinking, 

would be in a black, two-door Ford, and would be traveling east 

on Route 3 toward Fredericksburg. The informant indicated that 

the man who owned the vehicle and who would be driving had a 

suspended license, and that the passenger would be her boyfriend. 

 Although she gave the tag number of the car, Lambrose did not 

attempt to independently determine whether the owner of the car 

had a suspended license. 

 The informant provided no names or physical descriptions of 

the people in the car, nor did she say how she knew the driver 

was suspended. Lambrose testified at the suppression hearing 

that "[s]he didn't give me any description at all. She just 

advised there would be two fellows in the car and that the owner 

of the vehicle should be driving the car." The woman did not 

state how much or for how long these men had been drinking or 

whether they were intoxicated. A car matching the description 

passed, and she identified it as the car she described 

previously. Lambrose followed the car for approximately four 

minutes. He observed no erratic driving behavior and nothing 

illegal or defective about the car, its tags, stickers, or 

equipment. He stopped the car, and the driver admitted he was an 
 3 

habitual offender. 

 Prior to trial, appellant moved the court to suppress the 

information obtained as a result of Lambrose's stop. The court 

denied the motion. 

 II. 

 Appellant argues that the officer did not have a reasonable 

articulable suspicion that the driver of the car was committing 

any offense. We agree. 

 "[T]o justify an investigatory stop of a vehicle, 

the officer must have some reasonable, 

articulable suspicion that the vehicle or its 

occupants are involved in, or have recently 

been involved in, some form of criminal 

activity." Logan v. Commonwealth, 19 Va. 

App. 437, 441, 452 S.E.2d 364, 367 (1994). 

"[R]easonable suspicion depends upon the 

content of information [obtained by the 

police] as well as its reliability." Gregory 

v. Commonwealth, 22 Va. App. 100, 107, 468 

S.E.2d 117, 121 (1996) (citing Alabama v. 

White, 496 U.S. 325, 330, 110 S. Ct. 2412, 

2416 (1990)). "In determining whether an 

'articulable and reasonable suspicion' 

justifying an investigatory stop of the 

vehicle exists, courts must consider 'the 
 4 

totality of the circumstances -- the whole 

picture.'" Murphy v. Commonwealth, 9 Va. 

App. 139, 144, 384 S.E.2d 125, 128 (1989) 

(quoting United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 

1, 8, 109 S. Ct. 1581, 1585 (1989)). "The 

circumstances we may consider include the 

characteristics of the area where the stop 

occurs, the time of the stop, whether late at 

night or not, as well as any suspicious 

conduct of the person accosted such as an 

obvious attempt to avoid officers or any 

nervous conduct on the discovery of their 

presence." 

Gregory, 22 Va. App. at 107, 468 S.E.2d at 121 (quoting Smith v. 

Commonwealth, 12 Va. App. 1100, 1103, 407 S.E.2d 49, 51-52 (1991) 

(citations omitted)). 

 The instant case is controlled by the rationale of Beckner 

v. Commonwealth, 15 Va. App. 533, 425 S.E.2d 530 (1993). In 

Beckner, an unidentified driver pulled his car behind a police 

cruiser and flashed his lights to get the officer's attention. 

The officer pulled over, and the other driver pulled alongside. 

The driver indicated that "there was a white female, who did not 

have a driver's license, at a nearby gas station . . . pumping 

gas into a 1966 Chevrolet." Id. at 534, 425 S.E.2d at 531. 

Based on this information, the officer located and approached the 
 5 

defendant, and requested her license. First, we determined that, 

under the circumstances of that case, the face-to-face 

confrontation between the informant and the police officer 

provided some indicia of reliability. See id. at 535, 425 S.E.2d 

at 532. However, "[d]espite some indicia of the informant's 

reliability, the basis of knowledge of the informant's tip

. . . is still questionable." Id. at 536, 425 S.E.2d at 532. 

"If no basis of knowledge is stated in the [informant's] report, 

it is unreliable and cannot be used to support an investigatory 

stop." Id. Thus, we held that in a case where the proof of 

criminal conduct required the informant to know the status of the 

defendant's driver's license, "[t]he informant must provide some 

basis for his knowledge before the police officer relies upon it 

as being reliable enough to support an investigatory stop." Id.

at 537, 425 S.E.2d at 533. 

 The instant case reveals the same flaw as in Beckner: the 

officer had no knowledge of the basis of the informant's tip. 

While the informant predicted that a black Ford would be driving 

past and would be occupied by two men, her tip was insufficient 

to establish the reliability of the underlying information that 

the driver was suspended. See Hardy v. Commonwealth, 11 Va. App. 

433, 435, 399 S.E.2d 27, 28 (1990). The informant neglected to 

tell Lambrose how she knew the driver had a suspended license. 

The statement alone was not sufficiently reliable to justify 

Lambrose's actions. 
 6 

 Alternatively, the reliability of an informant's tip may be 

established if "[s]ignificant aspects" of the information are 

"independently corroborated." Bulatko v. Commonwealth, 16 Va. 

App. 135, 137, 428 S.E.2d 306, 307 (1993). Here, however, 

Lambrose did not independently corroborate the driver's status. 

Without independent corroboration or knowledge of the basis for 

the tip, the information was not sufficiently reliable to support 

an investigatory stop. 

 Thus, we hold that the officer lacked a reasonable 

articulable suspicion to effectuate this stop. Although 

face-to-face, the informant was anonymous, the details were 

"innocent," and the uncorroborated tip failed to indicate a 
 7 

foundation for the knowledge that the driver was suspended. 

Accordingly, we reverse the decision of the trial court. 

 Reversed.