Opinion ID: 1910407
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Appellant's Specific Contentions

Text: Appellant maintains that this case should not be governed by the relevant case law on citizen informants because the informant in this case (1) was anonymous, (2) was not unquestionably honest, and (3) did not provide any evidence of his basis of knowledge. We address each contention in turn.
Viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the government, as Peay dictates, 597 A.2d at 1320, we reject appellant's argument that the citizen informant in this case was not sufficiently identified. Because the informant gave his name, address, and telephone number, the trial court could and did reasonably find that the informant was anything . . . but anonymous. This court can overturn that finding only if it was clearly erroneous or unsupported by the evidence, which it plainly was not. See D.C.Code § 17-305(a) (2001). Appellant argues nevertheless that the citizen should not enjoy the presumptive reliability of an identified informant because he failed to provide enough information to make him subject to criminal liability. He contends, in particular, that the informant was anonymous because he provided a common last name (Williams), his address lacked an apartment number, and he gave two different telephone numbers (see note 3, supra ). While these assertions may be true, we are satisfied that there was enough information in the record to enable the court to conclude that the informant was adequately identified and thus should enjoy the presumptive reliability of his tip, especially when we consider that significant details were corroborated by the officer's personal observation. Appellant relies mainly on United States v. Fisher, 145 F.Supp.2d 853 (E.D.Mich. 2001), for the proposition that an identified informant does not always entitle an officer presumptively to rely on an informant's tip. In Fisher a caller, identifying himself as Mr. Johnson, reported to the police that an abducted woman was being held at a motel. The court ruled that this informant was anonymous because the tip could not be traced to the informant and came from a cell phone which could not be identified, and that its content was questionable because the officers discovered nothing to corroborate the tip. Id. at 859. In the present case, by contrast, the informant gave a name, an address, and a telephone number (indeed, the trial court specifically noted that the contact information could be traced), and the information he provided was corroborated. Fisher is thus of no help to appellant.
Appellant also argues that an identified informant's tip is not entitled to presumptive reliability if it is not unquestionably honest. [11] His analysis of the law misses the mark. In the cases he cites in his reply brief on this issue, the presumptive reliability of an identified informant failed because of possible bias or motive to falsify, not because the informant was anything other than honest. In particular, there was nothing in this case to suggest that the informant had any bias or motive to falsify information. He was not an estranged spouse, [12] an angry offspring, [13] or a concerned neighbor [14] of the defendant  specific situations that may warrant closer than usual scrutiny because of the connections between the parties and their possible desire to harm one another. Furthermore, in those cases there was no information that could be instantly corroborated, as there was here. In the case at bar, the information provided by the caller was corroborated by the police officer within a minute of the telephone call, a fact which dispels much of the doubt (if there is any) about the reliability and veracity of at least a part of the caller's tip. [15] Appellant further contends that the informant's identity should have been examined more thoroughly by the police and that the tip should have been subject to greater scrutiny before the officer conducted a stop and frisk because the dispatcher seemed incredulous and possibly thought the informant was lying when he denied having given similar information a day earlier. [16] During the 911 call, the dispatcher asked the informant several times whether he had called to report the same information the previous day, and each time he said he had not. The dispatcher finally ended the inquiry after the caller denied that he called this same thing in yesterday, but from another location. [17] Appellant suggests that this exchange should have caused the police to investigate the tip more thoroughly before acting on it. We do not agree. The dispatcher knew the caller's name, address, and telephone number; furthermore, there was a tape recording of the call. The dispatcher, therefore, would have been able to trace the citizen if his tip was found to be false. Instead, the description of the suspect was corroborated within minutes, suggesting that at least the identifying information he provided was indeed true. [18] Cf. note 15, supra.
Appellant maintains that the trial court erred in finding the tip reliable because the government failed to present any evidence of the citizen's basis of knowledge. In Gates the Supreme Court held that while basis of knowledge can be an important factor in the totality of the circumstances, a deficiency in the basis of knowledge can be compensated by a strong showing of veracity or some other indicia of reliability. Gates, 462 U.S. at 233, 103 S.Ct. 2317. This court's post- Gates decisions do not always discuss, or even mention, the source's basis of knowledge. See White, 763 A.2d at 720-722 (no explicit analysis of basis of knowledge when citizen approached officer expressing fear that individuals in a car were out to harm her nephew); Parker, 601 A.2d at 49, 53 (no analysis of basis of knowledge when identified informant reported the presence of a bag full of drugs in a nearby car). In any event, the basis of a caller's knowledge can frequently be inferred from the call itself, as was the case in Groves, in which it was apparent that he was personally observing the occurrence he was then describing. Groves, 504 A.2d at 605. The same can be said here. The caller said that 646 Newton Place was my building and that a man with a gun in his waistband was standing in front of that address. From this, one could reasonably infer that the caller was looking out the window at (or had just seen) that gunman. Moreover, he was able to answer the dispatcher's direct question about who else was outside the building with the gunman at that very moment. From this evidence [19] the trial court could permissibly infer, as it did, that the informant was an eyewitness to the reported crime.