Opinion ID: 1437585
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Reasonable Suspicion Justifying a Terry Stop

Text: The question whether the officers had reasonable suspicion justifying a Terry stop is a mixed question of fact and law. On appeal, this court accepts the trial court's factual findings unless they are clearly erroneous but makes an independent legal conclusion as to whether there was reasonable suspicion for the stop. See Cauthen v. United States, 592 A.2d 1021, 1022 (D.C.1991); Brown v. United States, 590 A.2d 1008, 1020 (D.C.1991). A police officer must have a reasonable, articulable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot before that officer lawfully can stop (or seize) an individual without that person's consent. See Terry, 392 U.S. at 30, 88 S.Ct. at 1884. Reasonable suspicion, like probable cause, is dependant upon both the content of information possessed by police and its degree of reliability. Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 330, 110 S.Ct. 2412, 2416, 110 L.Ed.2d 301 (1990). Courts must consider the totality of the circumstances in assessing whether the police had sufficient justification for a Terry seizure. See id.; Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 241, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 2333-34, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983); Mayes v. United States, 653 A.2d 856, 861 (D.C. 1995). We have upheld Terry seizures in previous cases when the content of the information the police acquired was equal to, or less than, the information the officers had here. See, e.g., Turner v. United States, 623 A.2d 1170, 1172 (D.C.1993) (FBI wiretap reported that black male named Carlos, in red Nissan 300 ZX with identified license number, was planning to transfer firearm for use in killing someone; stop upheld although suspect police detained was not suspect described in radio broadcast); Offutt v. United States, 534 A.2d 936, 937-38 (D.C.1987) (police informant reported suspect was 6'3 tall, weighed 240 pounds, was wearing particular attire, was located on ninth floor of specified building, and had access to guns and drugs); Groves v. United States, 504 A.2d 602, 603-04 (D.C. 1986) (apparent eyewitness caller gave location of suspect and described green Pontiac with white vinyl top); Lawson v. United States, 360 A.2d 38, 39-40 (D.C.1976) (per curiam) (apparent eyewitness caller told police suspect was currently at phone booth on particular corner, was wearing blue jeans, and had grey beard). Appellants argue that these prior cases are distinguishable from the present case because the informants there were not anonymous; the callers either were known to be reliable because they were working with the police, or they presumably were reliable because they apparently were eyewitness callers. See Cauthen, 592 A.2d at 1023 (noting that when the citizen appears to have personally observed a crime, `the reliability of his or her information is greatly enhanced') (quoting Allen v. United States, 496 A.2d 1046, 1048 (D.C.1985)). Here, in contrast, the police had no information about the informant's reliability before using the reported descriptions as the basis for stopping appellants. This case, therefore, presents us with the kind of detailed information commonly used to justify a lawful Terry stop, but the anonymous source of the information presents a problem: whether, considering the combined content of information possessed by police and its degree of reliability, the police possessed reasonable suspicion, under the totality of the circumstances, to stop the suspects. See White, 496 U.S. at 330, 110 S.Ct. at 2416 (if a tip has a relatively low degree of reliability, more information will be required to establish the requisite quantum of suspicion than would be required if the tip were more reliable). The anonymous caller provided the police with detailed information regarding the clothing the suspects were wearing, their present location, and the model, color, and license plate number of their nearby vehicle. The caller also alerted police to the fact that the suspects had access to weapons. The anonymous caller, however, did not provide police with any prediction about the suspects' future behavior or with any other indication that the caller was privy to inside information about the suspects. Nor was there any indication that the caller reporting the suspects to the police was an eyewitness to a recent crime. In White, the Supreme Court recognized that an otherwise unreliable tip gains reliability once it is corroborated, but the Court stressed that, to demonstrate the tip's reliability, the corroborating information should be information other than easily obtained facts and conditions existing at the time of the tip. Id. at 332, 110 S.Ct. at 2417 (quoting Gates, 462 U.S. at 245, 103 S.Ct. at 2335). The Court reasoned that [a]nyone could have predicted [that a car precisely matching the caller's description was in front of the 235 building] because it was a condition presumably existing at the time of the call. Id. The anonymous caller's ability to predict future behavior, in contrast, provided reason to believe not only that the caller was honest but also that he was well informed. Id. The fact that future events unfolded as the tip had predicted corroborated the tip because the prediction's accuracy demonstrated inside information  a special familiarity with respondent's affairs. Id. The Court, however, did not adopt a categorical rule requiring the corroboration of predictive information as a precondition to reliance on anonymous tips. United States v. Clipper, 297 U.S.App.D.C. 372, 377, 973 F.2d 944, 949 (1992), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 1070, 113 S.Ct. 1025, 122 L.Ed.2d 171 (1993); see also Cauthen, 592 A.2d at 1025 ( White establishes no mandatory condition that a tip predict future activity to be reliable); United States v. (Anthony) Johnson, 64 F.3d 1120, 1125 (8th Cir.1995) ( White does not create a rule requiring that a tip predict future action); United States v. Gibson, 64 F.3d 617, 623 (11th Cir.1995) ([W]e agree ... that White does not prevent law enforcement officers from relying and acting on anonymous tips when the information to be corroborated does not refer to future actions but instead details present circumstances.); United States v. Bold, 19 F.3d 99, 104 (2d Cir.1994) (There is nothing in White that precludes police from acting on an anonymous tip when the information to be corroborated refers to present rather than future actions.). Rather, the Court continued to rely on the totality of the circumstances where the whole picture ... must be taken into account when evaluating whether there is reasonable suspicion. White, 496 U.S. at 330, 110 S.Ct. at 2416 (internal quotations and citations omitted). After White, this court in both Cauthen, 592 A.2d at 1025 n. 8, and Brown, 590 A.2d at 1023, suppressed evidence resulting from Terry stops supported solely by static information supplied by anonymous tipsters. [1] In Cauthen, the caller told police that three or four individuals were selling drugs at the corner of Fourteenth and Buchanan Streets, N.W. Cauthen, 592 A.2d at 1021. In Brown, the caller indicated that a black male, approximately 5'6 in height, wearing a white shirt with dark writing on the front and blue jeans, was selling drugs at the corner of 17th and Euclid Streets, N.W. Brown, 590 A.2d at 1010. In both cases, we held that the police lacked reasonable suspicion to stop the suspects. There are significant differences, however, between the present case and our decisions in Cauthen and Brown. In Cauthen, there was no physical description of the individuals involved, and the police did not arrive at the scene until at least fifteen minutes after the radio broadcast. See Cauthen, 592 A.2d at 1021, 1023. In Brown, the description of the suspect was so vague that it could have described many of the numerous persons in the area, and the person the police stopped differed significantly from the person described in the radio broadcast. See Brown, 590 A.2d at 1018. In fact, we noted in Brown that no meaningful similarities have been positively established except that Brown, like the seller, is a black male. Id. at 1019. [2] We further distinguish this case from Cauthen and Brown because the anonymous tip here, unlike the tips in Cauthen and in Brown, implicated a risk to public safety by alerting police that the individuals described had access to a gun. [3] Fourth Amendment Terry stop analysis balances the need to search or seize against the invasion which the search or seizure entails. Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1046, 103 S.Ct. 3469, 3479, 77 L.Ed.2d 1201 (1983) (internal brackets omitted) (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 21, 88 S.Ct. at 1879). Although this is a close case, we believe the report that an individual was armed  potentially implicating the safety of both police officers and the public  combined with the officers' corroboration of an extremely detailed description minutes after hearing the radio broadcast, justified the intrusion involved in briefly detaining and frisking appellants. [4]