Opinion ID: 1057709
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Constitutionality of the Defendant's Seizure under a Requirement of Reasonable Suspicion

Text: We turn now to the specific circumstances surrounding Officer Tarkington's stop of the defendant in this case. The undisputed facts are these: Officer Tarkington seized the defendant after being flagged down by an unknown driver who flashed her lights and waved at him and pointed to the defendant's SUV in front of her. He personally observed no suspicious or illegal conduct by the defendant. The defense argues that because Ms. Ferrell's identity was initially unknown, and the nature of her complaint uncertain, Officer Tarkington did not have specific and articulable facts to believe that the defendant had committed or was committing a criminal offense at the time he executed the traffic stop. The defendant's position is that Officer Tarkington should have talked to Ms. Ferrell to determine the specific nature of her complaint before stopping the defendant, and then only if the content of her complaint objectively raised a reasonable suspicion that the defendant had engaged, or was then engaged, in criminal conduct. The State argues that the fact that the defendant's vehicle was mobile and moving created a certain exigency. It contends that had a crime been committed or been in progress, and Officer Tarkington stopped Ms. Ferrell to get the specific nature of her complaint before attempting to stop the defendant's vehicle, the defendant would have been long gone from the scene. Officer Tarkington's only other alternative would have been to follow the defendant in hopes that he would commit a criminal offense that would justify the stop. As set forth in the defendant's brief, the gist of the question before us is whether one motorist drawing an officer's attention and pointing at another motorist, standing alone, rises to the level of reasonable suspicion, supported by specific and articulable facts, that a criminal offense has been or is about to be committed. We are constrained to answer this question in the negative. As noted, the reasonableness of a seizure turns on the facts and circumstances of each case. Pulley, 863 S.W.2d at 34. In a case involving a citizen complaint, any review necessarily involves an analysis of the credibility and basis of knowledge of the person making the report, the proximity in time of the report and the conduct complained of, any corroboration by law enforcement, and the seriousness of the threat. Id. at 31-34 (citing Jacumin, 778 S.W.2d 430). Although the State claims that it is improper to apply the two-prong standard of Jacumin to a complaining citizen informant, we still find such analysis useful. We acknowledge that information from a known citizen informant is presumed reliable and not subject to the same level of scrutiny applied to a compensated informant. State v. Cauley, 863 S.W.2d 411, 417 (Tenn. 1993); State v. Melson, 638 S.W.2d 342, 354 (Tenn.1982). Furthermore, information from a citizen informant is presumed reliable where circumstances indicate the information was gained from first-hand experience, and the motivation for communicating with law enforcement authorities is based on the the interest of society or personal safety. State v. Luke, 995 S.W.2d 630, 636 (Tenn.Crim.App.1998). In this case, however, the citizen informant was unknown to Officer Tarkington. At the point when she was flashing her lights and waving and pointing at the SUV in front of her, she was completely anonymous to him. For reliability to be presumed, information about the citizen's status or his or her relationship to the events or persons involved must be present. Id. at 637; see also Cauley, 863 S.W.2d at 417 (recognizing that, in assessing the validity of a search warrant based on information from an unnamed citizen informant, `the reliability of the source and the information must be judged from all the circumstances and from the entirety of the affidavit') (quoting Melson, 638 S.W.2d at 356). Here, Officer Tarkington had no basis upon which to evaluate Ms. Ferrell's status or her relationship to the defendant. The only information he had was the single fact that she was driving behind the defendant's SUV. [11] Under these circumstances, it was reasonable for Officer Tarkington to infer that Ms. Ferrell had witnessed the defendant do something that aroused her concern. That is, the context in which Officer Tarkington witnessed Ms. Ferrell's gestures indicated that she had some basis of knowledge for her tip. It was not reasonable, however, for Officer Tarkington to infer from Ms. Ferrell's tip that the defendant had engaged in criminal behavior. As acknowledged by the State in its brief to the Court of Criminal Appeals, any number of things could have led the informant to be concerned about the [SUV] and/or the driver. Thus, it is in Officer Tarkington's assessment of the content of Ms. Ferrell's communications that we find a constitutional deficit. See Pulley, 863 S.W.2d at 32 (recognizing that, in assessing the reasonableness of a stop, [t]he content of the tip is also a crucial factor and, in particular, the level of danger that the tip reveals). Unlike the more common circumstance of a traffic stop in which an officer personally observes suspicious or criminal behavior, here, Officer Tarkington himself observed no criminal activity by the defendant before stopping him; he relied solely on Ms. Ferrell's actions to justify the stop. Her actions, however, were ambiguous-they did not communicate any specific information and could have been just as indicative of non-criminal behavior as criminal behavior. The parties may have been involved in a domestic or a business dispute; perhaps Ms. Ferrell was suffering road-rage over some perceived slight; or perhaps her signaling was not related to the defendant at all. It was a matter of pure speculation for Officer Tarkington to guess as to the nature of her complaint. Although he may have had a hunch or guess that the driver of the SUV had committed some sort of offense, this is insufficient under the Fourth Amendment or article I, section 7, to support his seizure of the defendant. See Terry, 392 U.S. at 27, 88 S.Ct. 1868. As acknowledged by Justice Koch in his dissenting opinion, [t]he State has the burden of proof of establishing reasonable suspicion or probable cause by a preponderance of the evidence. State v. Hannah, 259 S.W.3d 716, 720 (Tenn., 2008) (citing State v. Yeargan, 958 S.W.2d 626, 629 (Tenn.1997)). Under the facts of this case, we hold that the State has failed to meet its burden of showing by a preponderance of the evidence that Officer Tarkington possessed a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the defendant of engaging in criminal activity. The officer's seizure of the defendant therefore violated the defendant's constitutional rights. [12] As to the State's position that Officer Tarkington had no other practical options, we disagree. First, if suspicious that the defendant was committing a vehicular offense, Officer Tarkington could have followed him to observe whether he showed signs of impairment or other criminal conduct. Or, Officer Tarkington could have called in another officer to assist; one officer could have interviewed Ms. Ferrell about the specifics of her complaint while the other followed the defendant. [13] Had her complaint established reasonable suspicion that a crime had been committed or was being committed, the officer following the defendant would be justified in conducting an investigatory stop. See Luke, 995 S.W.2d at 636-37 (upholding a traffic stop on the basis of information from an identified citizen informant in a telephone call to a police dispatcher that the defendant had no business driving). Alternatively, Officer Tarkington could have pulled Ms. Ferrell over long enough to learn the nature of her concern. Under the circumstances of this caseinvolving a driver on a city street rather than on an interstatesuch a delay in any apprehension of the defendant would have been brief and could have provided the necessary specific and articulable facts to justify seizing the defendant.