NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

 v. 

JAMES EARL TALLEY, 

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 23-10019 

D.C. No. 3:22-cr-00028-SI-1 

MEMORANDUM*

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of California

Susan Illston, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted March 28, 2024

San Francisco, California

Before: PAEZ, NGUYEN, and BUMATAY, Circuit Judges.

Dissent by Judge PAEZ, Circuit Judge.

James Talley appeals the district court’s order denying his motion to 

suppress. Talley entered a conditional guilty plea to being a felon in possession of 

a firearm under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), reserving the right to appeal the suppression 

ruling. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C § 1291. We review a district court’s 

denial of a motion to suppress de novo, and any factual findings for clear error. 

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent 

except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

FILED

APR 23 2024

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
2 

United States v. Vandergroen, 964 F.3d 876, 879 (9th Cir. 2020). We affirm.

Talley argues that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress 

the firearm because the anonymous 911 call from the Civic Center Inn lacked 

sufficient indicia of reliability, and even if the call was sufficiently reliable, any 

reasonable suspicion dissipated when other potential suspects at the hotel matched 

the caller’s description better than Talley.

To establish reasonable suspicion to stop and frisk, an emergency call must, 

under the totality of the circumstances, (1) “exhibit sufficient indicia of reliability”

and (2) “provide information on potential illegal activity serious enough to justify a 

stop.” Id. We consider a number of factors when determining the reliability of a 

tip, including whether the caller is anonymous, whether the basis of knowledge for 

the tip is revealed, whether the caller uses a 911 number or non-emergency tip line, 

and whether the caller is relaying second-hand knowledge or eyewitness 

knowledge. Id. at 879-80.

Here, considering the totality of the circumstances, there was reasonable 

suspicion to stop and frisk Talley. First, the caller placed the call through an 

emergency 911 line, “which allows calls to be recorded and traced, increas[ing] his 

credibility.” Id. at 880. As the district court found, the call was not completely 

anonymous, because the caller stated he was calling from the front desk of 790 

Ellis and referred to “our staff” and “housekeeping here” being nervous about the 
3 

person with the gun. The information was also not “stale,” but fresh, eyewitness 

knowledge from someone still at the inn, as the caller was reporting what 

housekeeping had seen that morning. Furthermore, while on the phone with 911, 

the caller could be heard conversing with someone in the background and revising 

his description. Additionally, once the officers arrived on the scene, a housekeeper

pointed the officers to the back of the hotel, saying “he’s in the parking lot in the 

back,” where Talley was found. Talley also matched most of the description the 

caller gave of the suspect.1 We agree with the district court that the circumstances 

here are similar to those in Vandergroen, which held that the 911 call was reliable 

when the caller, an employee at a bar, was relaying first-hand information from 

patrons who had seen a man with a gun. 964 F.3d at 881.

Talley argues that reasonable suspicion was dissipated because of other 

suspects on the scene, and the fact that Talley was not found on the second floor, 

as the report stated. The officers encountered multiple people who matched some 

aspects of the tip, and they frisked another man on the second floor whom they 

1 Based on the tip, dispatch reported a description to the officers: “WML [white 

male Latino], 5’9 SLM BLD, BEANIE, BLK JKT, BLK SHIRT, BLK JEANS, 

WHI SHOES W/BLK NIKE LOGO.” Talley was wearing white Reebok shoes 

with red and black, a black hoodie, black pants, black gloves, and a balaclava. 

Although the race did not match Talley, he was wearing a balaclava, making his 

race difficult to determine. See Vandergroen, 964 F.3d at 878 n.3 (finding that 

reasonable suspicion was established given “features that mostly matched” despite 

the suspect being a different race than reported by the caller).
4 

thought matched the description, but the others on the scene did not match the tip 

better than Talley. The witnesses watched Talley walking around the second floor 

on security cameras before officers arrived, and because it was relatively easy to 

move from the back second-floor balcony to the parking lot, it was not 

unreasonable to surmise that the suspect had moved. Finally, the housekeeper 

directed the officers to the back parking lot, where Talley was the only suspect in 

the area matching the description at the time officers encountered him. 

AFFIRMED.
23–10019, USA v. James Talley

PAEZ, Circuit Judge, dissenting:

The majority concludes that an anonymous 911 call that offered no firsthand 

or predictive information nevertheless exhibited sufficient indicia of reliability. In 

my view, neither the record evidence nor our case law supports such a conclusion. 

Because I would reverse the district court’s denial of Talley’s suppression motion, 

I respectfully dissent.

Our court’s case law makes clear that “an anonymous tip that identifies an 

individual but lacks ‘moderate indicia of reliability’ provides little support for a 

finding of reasonable suspicion.” United States v. Brown, 925 F.3d 1150, 1153 (9th 

Cir. 2019) (citing Florida v. J.L., 529 U.S. 266, 270–71 (2000)). The majority

concludes that the 911 call “was not completely anonymous” because the caller 

stated that he wanted to remain anonymous but was calling from the front desk of 

the hotel. But the caller did not actually work at the hotel, nor was he located at

the front desk when he called. Notably, when the 911 operator requested that hotel 

staff assist the police in identifying the suspect, the caller refused, stating that they 

would not assist responding officers, and adding, “Ok, fuck it, then don’t do 

nothing then, thank you.” The call was then disconnected. The 911 call transcript 

suggests that the call ended because of the operator’s request that staff assist the 

police, which is further evidence of the caller’s intent to remain anonymous. It is 

FILED

APR 23 2024

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
well-established that a caller’s anonymity makes any information from him less 

reliable than from a known caller, whose reputation can be assessed and who can 

be held accountable for misrepresentations. J.L., 529 U.S. at 270. The majority’s 

conclusion that the caller was not completely anonymous because he falsely 

referred to himself as calling from the front desk finds no support in our case law.

Nor did the tip provide “any predictive information that might have served 

as indicia of reliability.” Brown, 925 F.3d at 1153 (citing Alabama v. White, 496 

U.S. 325, 332 (1990)). The Supreme Court has found a virtually identical 

anonymous tip insufficiently reliable to create reasonable suspicion. J.L., 529 U.S. 

at 268, 270–72 (holding an anonymous tip that a young black man in a plaid shirt 

was carrying a gun did not establish reasonable suspicion to stop and frisk him). 

Even assuming that the tip exhibited sufficient indicia of reliability, Talley 

did not match the description of the suspect. Talley, a black man located in the rear 

parking lot on the hotel’s ground floor, shared little in common with the police 

dispatcher’s description of a white Latino man located on the second floor. Thus, 

even if the anonymous tip exhibited sufficient indicia of reliability, the officers

lacked reasonable suspicion to detain and frisk Talley.

Because the anonymous tip in this case lacked sufficient indicia of 

reliability, and because Talley did not match the suspect’s description even if the 
tip was reliable, I respectfully dissent. I would reverse the district court’s ruling, 

vacate Talley’s conviction, and remand.