Opinion ID: 2068746
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: ALABAMA v WHITE

Text: On April 22, 1987, Corporal Davis of the Montgomery Police Department received an anonymous phone call informing him that Vanessa White would be leaving apartment 235-C of the Lynwood Terrace Apartments at a particular time later in the day. The caller also described White's vehicle as a brown Chrysler station wagon with a broken right taillight lens. According to the caller, White was going to Dobey's Motel with a brown attache case containing about an ounce of cocaine. Corporal Davis staked out the apartment complex, where he and his partner saw the vehicle described by the anonymous informant. The officers also saw White enter the station wagon and proceed toward Dobey's Motel. Davis radioed ahead for a patrol unit to pull White over. White was asked to step to the rear of the vehicle and informed that she had been stopped for suspected possession of narcotics. When asked if she would permit a search of the vehicle, White consented. White also gave the officers the combination to a locked brown attache case found in the vehicle. The attache case contained marijuana. White was charged with possession of marijuana and cocaine. [13] The Montgomery County Court denied a motion to suppress the narcotics evidence. On appeal, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals reversed on the ground that the officers did not have a reasonable suspicion to conduct an investigative stop. The Alabama Supreme Court denied the state's writ for certiorari. The United States Supreme Court granted the state's petition for certiorari [14] to reconcile the differing views of state and federal courts regarding the issue whether an anonymous tip could furnish reasonable suspicion for an investigative stop. White, supra at 332. The Supreme Court began its analysis by recalling its decision in Adams v Williams, supra . In Adams, the majority concluded that the information provided by a known informant, though unverified, carried with it sufficient indicia of reliability to justify an investigative stop and weapons search. White, supra at 328. Next, the White majority revisited the Gates decision in which the Court rejected the Aguilar-Spinelli two-pronged test for the reliability of anonymous tips in favor of the totality of the circumstances test. [15] The Adams and Gates precedents formed the basis for the White Court's test for assessing whether an anonymous tip furnishes the reasonable suspicion necessary to make an investigative stop. [16] The Court concluded that independent police corroboration of the informant's predictions imparted some degree of reliability to the other allegations made by the caller. Id. at 332. Moreover, the caller's ability to predict White's future behavior demonstrated a special familiarity with White's affairs. Id. This special familiarity distinguished the caller's information from that observable by the general public, which in turn supported a reasonable belief that the caller had access to reliable information regarding White's illegal activity. Id. In effect, the White majority used the independent corroboration to satisfy the veracity factor and the special familiarity to satisfy the basis of knowledge factor. [17] Once these factors were assessed under the totality of the circumstances test, the majority concluded that the Montgomery police had reasonable suspicion to make an investigative stop that originated from the anonymous phone call.