Opinion ID: 390190
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Unreasonable Stop

Text: 152 Even if the initial seizure in this case did not amount to an arrest, this court must nonetheless decide whether the seizure meets the standards set forth in Terry and subsequent cases. For the reasons set out below, I conclude that the police did not have sufficient legal justification for stopping the appellants and that, consequently, the police conduct violated the Fourth Amendment. Furthermore, even if some sort of stop was justified under the circumstances, the scope of the seizure in this case plainly exceeded permissible bounds. 153 The starting point for our analysis is Terry, which requires a reviewing court to balance the public interest in the investigative seizure against the resulting interference with individual liberty. A seizure falling short of an arrest is permissible under the Fourth Amendment only if (the officers) are aware of specific articulable facts, together with rational inferences from those facts, that reasonably warrant suspicion that the appellants are engaged in illegal activity. United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. at 884, 95 S.Ct. at 2581. 154 Because the police observed no suspicious activity, the only possible basis for the seizure in the present case is the anonymous tip. However, because of the informant's anonymity, the informant was unknown to the police and, so far as the officers knew, the tipster had not previously given them reliable information. Moreover, the informant did not tell the police how he or she acquired the information about the appellants. The only indication that the tip was reliable was the corroboration of entirely innocent details of the appellants' activity. 23 155 The present case contrasts sharply with the facts and the language of Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972), in which the Supreme Court held that the police acted justifiably on an informant's tip in stopping and frisking a man seated in a car. In the opinion, the Court pointed to three factors to support its holding. First, the informant was known to (the officer) personally and had provided him with information in the past. Id. at 146, 92 S.Ct. at 1923. In the present case, the anonymous tipster was, of course, unknown to the police and had not provided them with information in the past. As the Court emphasized, Adams presented a stronger case than obtains in the case of an anonymous telephone tip. Id. Thus, the Court has expressly distinguished the present case from Adams. 156 Second, the Court emphasized that the reliability of the tip in Adams was enhanced because the tipster personally approached the officer to report a possible crime; the tipster could have been arrested if he had given the officer a false report. In the present case, the informant because he was anonymous could not have been arrested or questioned closely about his information. Third, the Court considered the police action to be reasonable in part because the officer was acting alone, at night, in a high crime area, and with a suspect who was reportedly armed. 24 Almost the opposite situation existed in the present case. There was not one officer present, but two; it was not night, but dusk, and because the dome light of the car was on, the area was well lighted; there was no evidence offered at the suppression hearing to indicate that the police were in a high crime area; and there was no evidence, even from the informant, that these appellants were armed. Thus, while the tip in Adams provided reasonable suspicion, meeting the Terry standards, the anonymous tip in this case simply is not reliable enough to permit the wholesale invasions of personal liberty that occurred. 157 Moreover, the present case is quite unlike United States v. Cortez, -- U.S. --, 101 S.Ct. 690, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981). In Cortez, the Court upheld a stop made only after the police directly observed evidence of criminal activity and had circumstantial evidence linking the petitioners to that activity. The majority opinion here refers to Cortez, see ante at 45-46 n.53, but it omits entirely any reference to the second of the two tests enunciated by the Supreme Court: i. e., that police observations and analyses of available data must raise a suspicion that the particular individual being stopped is engaged in wrongdoing '(T)his demand for specificity in the information upon which police action is predicated is the central teaching of this Court's Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.'  Id. at --, 101 S.Ct. at 695, quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21 n.18, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1879 n.18, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) (emphasis in Cortez). Based upon (the totality of the circumstances) the detaining officers must have a particularized objective basis for suspecting the particular stopped of criminal activity. Id. The majority opinion's oblique reference to Cortez does not illuminate the central dispute in this case. Cortez involved neither an anonymous tip nor the use of excessive force the central issues in the present case. Instead, Cortez concerned the reasonableness of police conduct in response to their own observations of criminal activity. Moreover, even though Cortez is factually distinct from the present case, the broad legal holdings in Cortez are entirely consistent with our conclusion about the legality of the stop of White and Anderson. 158 In Cortez the police were able to point to specific factual observations indicating both that criminal activity had taken place and that the petitioners were implicated. In the present case, by contrast, the police observed no suspicious activity and relied solely on an anonymous tip. It is precisely because the officers had no particularized basis for suspecting White and Anderson of criminal activity that I differ with the majority. Quite unlike the Border officers in Cortez, the police in this case had observed nothing to believe that criminal activity was afoot, let alone that the appellants were involved. Instead, they acted solely on an anonymous tip which was vague as to critical details concerning the crime itself. There was simply no particularized, objective basis to suspect the appellants were violating the law. 159 Several circuit courts that have had to decide whether a tip can meet the Terry standards for a stop have attached great weight to the difference in reliability presented by an anonymous tip versus one given face-to-face to police. In United States v. Sierra-Hernandez, 581 F.2d 760 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 936, 99 S.Ct. 333, 58 L.Ed.2d 333 (1978), an unknown, untested tipster told police of a truck carrying drugs at a specific place. The police stopped the truck and after a consent search found the drugs. The court upheld the appellant's conviction, finding the tip to be reliable enough to justify a stop: the place identified by the tipster was in the past a known point for smuggling drugs, the tip was detailed and the tipster could have been made available for further questioning if the officer had judged it necessary. 160 The court in Sierra-Hernandez noted that: Unlike a person who makes an anonymous telephone call, this informant confronted the agent directly The informant was in a position to be held accountable for his intervention. Id. at 763. See United States v. Gorin, 564 F.2d 159, 160 (4th Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1080, 98 S.Ct. 1276, 55 L.Ed.2d 788 (1978) (although the original tip was anonymous, the police later spoke face-to-face with the tipster before stopping the appellant. The detectives could have identified the informant for further questioning or testimony at trial); United States v. Unverzagt, 424 F.2d 396 (8th Cir. 1970) (upheld a stop based on a tip given by known informants); United States v. Perez-Esparza, 609 F.2d 1284 (9th Cir. 1979) (upheld stop based on known, reliable informant); United States v. Jones, 599 F.2d 1058 (9th Cir. 1979) (stop upheld because appellants had been convicted of a similar theft, and police received a tip from an identified citizen informant, as well as from an anonymous source); United States v. Andrews, 600 F.2d 563 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 878, 100 S.Ct. 166, 62 L.Ed.2d 108 (1979) (although the stop was based on an anonymous tip, it involved some indicia of criminal activity verifiable by the police: the informant stated that the drugs were to be delivered to an individual the police recognized as a known drug dealer). 161 In a case that strongly parallels our own, United States v. McLeroy, 584 F.2d 746 (5th Cir. 1978), police stopped and later arrested the appellant based on an anonymous tip that he might have a stolen car and a sawed-off shotgun. The informant gave the appellant's name, the license tags of the car, and the address where it was parked. The court found the stop unreasonable since the record contains nothing about the informant's identity or reliability. Nor does it shed any light on the informant's basis for asserting that the information contained in the tip was accurate. Id. at 748. The court found the corroboration to be so slight that it created no justification for believing that the informant was 'relying on something more substantial than a casual rumor.' Reasonable suspicion requires more than this minimal corroboration of innocent details. Id. (citation omitted). 162 The point, of course, is not that all courts have adopted a per se rule prohibiting police from acting on anonymous tips. Rather, the concern here is that under the majority's holding the police are now free to detain forcibly at gunpoint individuals on the basis of an anonymous tip and without observing any suspicious activity, for crimes that do not involve an immediate danger to the public-at-large or police officers. 163 As Professor Wayne LaFave has aptly stated: 164 (T)he anonymous information ordinarily raises a possibility, but not a substantial possibility, of criminal conduct. But, in this context the word substantial takes on special importance; whether the possibility is great enough to justify stopping the suspect who appeared as predicted may well depend upon the nature of the crime Action on the basis of anonymous information, then, should be allowed only in cases involving the risk of serious personal injury or grave irreparable property damage 165 LaFave, Street Encounters and the Constitution: Terry, Sibron, Peters, and Beyond, 67 Mich.L.Rev. 39, 78 (1968). As LaFave noted, the police need not ignore the information they should begin surveillance. But there is no basis for a seizure. 166 It is also necessary to step back from the majority's detailed case analysis which the majority virtually admits is inconclusive to gain some perspective on the consequences of its holding. Even if a stop were justified under these circumstances, the majority's opinion has drained all meaning from the command in Terry that an investigative seizure be reasonably related in scope to the justification for (its) initiation. 392 U.S. at 29, 88 S.Ct. at 1884. For now, absent any suspicious circumstances observed by the police, and based entirely on an anonymous tip, the police can at gunpoint drag someone from his car and forcibly place him on the hood of the car all of this to ascertain his identity and maintain the status quo momentarily. Recall that in the present case the appellants did not attempt to flee, nor did they attempt to resist the officers or refuse to answer any questions. 25 Moreover, the defendants were not suspected of committing a violent crime. I respectfully submit that to allow this result is to indulge a strained and perverse reading of Terry. 167 Rather than making a limited intrusion, the police officers in this case immediately and forcibly detained the appellants, distorting the concept of a Terry stop beyond recognition. If a stop was justified, the police could have approached the car, and asked for identification and for other details. Had the appellants attempted to leave, force may have been justified. Under the circumstances, however, the seizure was not reasonably related in scope to its justification. The wholesale invasion of the appellants' personal security exceeded the permissible bounds of a stop based on these facts.