Opinion ID: 2224483
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: constitutionality of stop and search

Text: Stop of Vehicle. To determine whether any physical evidence is constitutionally inadmissible in Thomas' case, we must first examine the circumstances surrounding the officers' stop of the vehicle driven by Thomas, for, if the initial stop was unconstitutional, any subsequent search and evidence obtained through that search are constitutionally inadmissible as the fruit of the poisonous tree. Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963). In Wong Sun, the U.S. Supreme Court required exclusion not only of evidence directly produced by a constitutionally invalid search but also evidence indirectly derived from the unconstitutional search. Reference to fruit of the poisonous tree in Wong Sun is a condemnation of the government's subsequent exploitation of a prior violation of a defendant's constitutional right. As expressed in Wong Sun, whether evidence is the derivative product of a constitutionally invalid search turns on the question `whether, granting establishment of the primary illegality, the evidence to which instant objection is made has been come at by exploitation of that illegality or instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint.' 371 U.S. at 488, 83 S.Ct. at 417. (Quoting from J. Maguire, Evidence of Guilt (1959).) State v. Abdouch, 230 Neb. 929, 943-44, 434 N.W.2d 317, 326 (1989). Thomas contends that the police did not have a reasonable suspicion, supported by articulable facts, that he had been, is or was about to be engaged in criminal activity. Brief for appellant at 12. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). Next, Thomas claims that his detention by police transcended the brief and limited stop and frisk encounter authorized by Terry and, instead, became a seizure, requiring probable cause rather than reasonable suspicion for an investigatory stop. In Terry v. Ohio, supra , the U.S. Supreme Court stated: It is quite plain that the Fourth Amendment governs seizures of the person which do not eventuate in a trip to the station house and prosecution for crimearrests in traditional terminology. It must be recognized that whenever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away, he has seized that person. 392 U.S. at 16, 88 S.Ct. at 1877. Additionally, a police officer may in appropriate circumstances and in an appropriate manner approach a person for purposes of investigating possible criminal behavior even though there is no probable cause to make an arrest. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. at 22, 88 S.Ct. at 1880. Thus, under Terry v. Ohio ... police can constitutionally stop and briefly detain a person for investigative purposes if the police have a reasonable suspicion, supported by articulable facts, that criminal activity exists, even if probable cause is lacking under the fourth amendment. State v. Staten, 238 Neb. 13, 18, 469 N.W.2d 112, 116 (1991). Accord State v. Twohig, 238 Neb. 92, 469 N.W.2d 344 (1991). However, Terry involved a police officer's firsthand observations of suspected criminal activity, whereas Thomas' case involves officers who saw no singularly suspicious activity before they halted Thomas' car, but stopped the car on the basis of a factual account from an informant and, further, based on the officers' experience in investigating drug activity and offenses. The U.S. Supreme Court has addressed the question whether and under what circumstances an informant's tip can justifiably provide a police officer with knowledge about specific and articulable facts which, taken together with reasonable inferences drawn from those facts, Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. at 21, 88 S.Ct. at 1880, furnish a basis for the limited intrusion embodied in an investigatory stop. In Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972), a police officer on patrol duty learned from a reliable informant that Williams, seated in a nearby parked automobile, was carrying narcotics and a weapon. In light of that information, the officer went to Williams' car and asked him to open the car's door. Williams responded instead by rolling down the car's window, at which point the police officer reached to where the informant had said the weapon would be and withdrew the gun. The officer arrested Williams for unlawful possession of a firearm. As the result of the arrest, a search revealed heroin on Williams' person and in his car. In Adams, the Court concluded that the evidence found on Williams and in his car was constitutionally admissible, and said: In Terry this Court recognized that a police officer may in appropriate circumstances and in an appropriate manner approach a person for purposes of investigating possibly criminal behavior even though there is no probable cause to make an arrest. ... The Fourth Amendment does not require a policeman who lacks the precise level of information necessary for probable cause to arrest to simply shrug his shoulders and allow a crime to occur or a criminal to escape. On the contrary, Terry recognizes that it may be the essence of good police work to adopt an intermediate response.... A brief stop of a suspicious individual, in order to determine his identity or to maintain the status quo momentarily while obtaining more information, may be most reasonable in light of the facts known to the officer at the time. 407 U.S. at 145-46, 92 S.Ct. at 1922-23. The Adams Court continued: [W]e believe that [the officer] acted justifiably in responding to his informant's tip. The informant was known to him personally and had provided him with information in the past. This is a stronger case than obtains in the case of an anonymous telephone tip. The informant here came forward personally to give information that was immediately verifiable at the scene.... Thus, while the Court's decisions indicate that this informant's unverified tip may have been insufficient for a narcotics arrest or search warrant [citations omitted], the information carried enough indicia of reliability to justify the officer's forcible stop of Williams. In reaching this conclusion, we reject respondent's argument that reasonable cause for a stop and frisk can only be based on the officer's personal observation, rather than on information supplied by another person. Informants' tips, like all other clues and evidence coming to a policeman on the scene, may vary greatly in their value and reliability. 407 U.S. at 146-47, 92 S.Ct. at 1923-24. More recently, in Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 110 S.Ct. 2412, 110 L.Ed.2d 301 (1990), the Court examined the relationship between an informant's reliability and corroboration required to justify an investigatory stop based on an informant's tip. In White, police received a call from an anonymous informant that White would soon leave an identified apartment at a particular time in a brown Plymouth station wagon and would be traveling to a named motel. The informant said that White would be in possession of cocaine. Police officers observed a woman leave the apartment identified by the informant, get into the brown Plymouth station wagon, and drive in the general direction of the motel named by the informant. At that point, the police stopped White, informed her that she had been stopped because she was suspected of carrying narcotics, and, with White's consent, searched her purse and found cocaine. The Court in White first noted that an anonymous tip, standing alone, generally is insufficient to support a stop because the tip indicates nothing about the informant's reliability or basis of knowledge. In White, 110 S.Ct. at 2416, the Court determined that the anonymous tip had been sufficiently corroborated to furnish reasonable suspicion for a Terry stop, and explained: Adams v. Williams [citation omitted] sustained a Terry stop and frisk undertaken on the basis of a tip given in person by a known informant who had provided information in the past. We concluded that, while the unverified tip may have been insufficient to support an arrest or search warrant, the information carried sufficient indicia of reliability to justify a forcible stop.