Opinion ID: 164535
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Tip

Text: 20 The district court first addressed whether the anonymous call alone was sufficient to give Officer Middleton reasonable suspicion. The court relied heavily on Florida v. J.L., 529 U.S. 266, 120 S.Ct. 1375, 146 L.Ed.2d 254 (2000), in deciding it was not. In J.L., an anonymous caller told police that a young black male wearing a plaid shirt at a particular bus stop was carrying a gun. Officers responded to the bus stop, where they found three young black men, including J.L., who was wearing a plaid shirt. They frisked J.L. and found a gun. The Supreme Court pointed out that apart from the tip, the officers had no reason to suspect any of the three of illegal conduct. Id. at 268, 120 S.Ct. 1375. The Court then held that even though J.L. matched the tip's physical description, without any other evidence of criminal conduct the tip did not have sufficient indicia of reliability to give rise to reasonable suspicion. Id. at 271-72, 120 S.Ct. 1375 (citing Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 110 S.Ct. 2412, 110 L.Ed.2d 301 (1990)). 21 The purpose of the Fourth Amendment and the associated exclusionary rule is not to grant certain guilty defendants a windfall by letting them go free — though it sometimes does do that. See Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 217, 80 S.Ct. 1437, 4 L.Ed.2d 1669 (1960) (quoting then-Judge Cardozo in People v. Defore, 242 N.Y. 13, 150 N.E. 585, 587 (1926): The criminal is to go free because the constable has blundered.). The objective is rather to protect all citizens, particularly the innocent, by deterring overzealous police behavior. See Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 656, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961) ([T]he purpose of the exclusionary rule `is to deter ....') (quoting Elkins, 364 U.S. at 217, 80 S.Ct. 1437); Arizona v. Evans, 514 U.S. 1, 10, 115 S.Ct. 1185, 131 L.Ed.2d 34 (1995) (The exclusionary rule operates as a judicially created remedy designed to safeguard against future violations of Fourth Amendment rights through the rule's general deterrent effect.). See also Potter Stewart, The Road to Mapp v. Ohio and Beyond, 83 Colum. L.Rev. 1365, 1368 (1983) (arguing that the exclusionary rule is needed to reduce frequent infringements motivated by commendable zeal, not condemnable malice). 2 22 With that in mind, we can better understand why anonymous tips trouble the courts and sometimes lead to the suppression of otherwise reliable evidence. The first concern relates to the motives of the tipster. A tipster who refuses to identify himself may simply be making up the story, perhaps trying to use the police to harass another citizen. This is why the Supreme Court, in White and J.L., has required that anonymous tips be accompanied by corroboration and other indicia of reliability. See J.L. 529 U.S. at 271-72, 120 S.Ct. 1375 (citing White, 496 U.S. 325, 110 S.Ct. 2412, 110 L.Ed.2d 301 (1990)). 23 A second concern relates not to a tip's anonymity but to its level of specificity. Overly generic tips, even if made in good faith, could give police excessive discretion to stop and search large numbers of citizens. This too was underlying the J.L. decision, where the Court emphasized the lack of detail in the tip, which only pointed to a young black man wearing a plaid shirt at a certain bus stop. See 529 U.S. at 272, 120 S.Ct. 1375. Such a tip could, obviously, give police an excuse to stop and search a large number of young men. The Court's insistence on additional detail from the tipster and corroborating observation by the police helps ensure that police do not use vague tips to violate the Fourth Amendment rights of innocent citizens. See White, 496 U.S. at 330, 110 S.Ct. 2412 ([I]f a tip has a low degree of reliability, more information will be required to establish the required quantum of suspicion than would be required if the tip were more reliable.). 24 Though we are mindful of the concerns expressed in J.L., they are mitigated by other facts here. First, although the dispatcher did not ask the caller's name or address, he did give police his cell phone number. See United States v. Jenkins, 313 F.3d 549, 554 (10th Cir.2002) (ability of police to determine tipster's identity provides a disincentive for making false allegations, which courts should take into account). He also stayed on the line for approximately eight minutes describing what he was seeing, and his descriptions of Johnson's and Samantha's appearance and location, if not the threatening behavior, were confirmed by Officer Middleton's observations. See id. at 554-55 (firsthand knowledge entitles the tip to greater weight); United States v. Tuter, 240 F.3d 1292, 1297-98 (10th Cir.2001) (substantiated firsthand observations can support a finding of reliability). These facts diminish the likelihood that the caller was fabricating his story. Secondly, the description's considerable detail significantly circumscribed the number of people police could have stopped in reliance on it. 3 25 Because the initial stop and conversation between Johnson and Officer Middleton was consensual, however, we need not decide whether the tip alone was sufficient under White and J.L. to provide reasonable suspicion for a search. We simply hold that the tip and the accompanying information relayed to Officer Middleton, which included the dispatch's priority level and a description of the people and situation, are sufficiently reliable to be analyzed as part of the totality of the circumstances.