Opinion ID: 2390645
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Sufficiency of the Prosecution's Evidence.

Text: We now apply the principles described above to the record before us. Although the parties have concentrated their attention largely on the question of probable cause, we first assess the evidence to determine whether the facts before Officer Walker formed the basis for a reasonable suspicion justifying his initial stop of Brown. We proceed in this order because, under our analysis, if there was no articulable suspicion, then a fortiori, in the light of our discussion at pages 1012-1014, supra, there was no probable cause. During the pendency of this appeal, the Supreme Court has considered in Alabama v. White, supra , the question whether reasonable suspicion can be based on an anonymous tip. In that case, police received an anonymous telephone tip advising them that Vanessa White would be leaving a certain apartment at a particular time in a brown Plymouth station wagon with the right taillight broken, that she would be proceeding to Dobey's Motel, and that she would be in possession of an ounce of cocaine in a brown attache case. The officers staked out the parking lot in front of the building in question and observed a brown Plymouth station wagon with a broken right taillight. A woman who later proved to be Vanessa White came out of the building at a time which the Supreme Court estimated to be within the time frame predicted by the caller. [20] She was carrying nothing in her hand. Ms. White entered the station wagon and drove the most direct route toward Dobey's Motel. This route included several turns. Officers stopped the vehicle when Ms. White was on the road on which Dobey's is located, but before she reached the motel. With Ms. White's consent, they searched her attache case. Finding marijuana inside, they placed her under arrest. A search incident to her arrest resulted in the discovery of cocaine in Ms. White's purse. Reversing the contrary holding of the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, [21] the Supreme Court held, three justices dissenting, that the stop was lawful and that the evidence was sufficient to support a reasonable suspicion that Ms. White was in possession of contraband. The Court noted that reasonable suspicion is a substantially less demanding standard than probable cause, and that a Terry stop may therefore be based on information that is less reliable than that required to show probable cause. 110 S.Ct. at 2416. The Court held that, although not every detail mentioned by the tipster had been verified, the anonymous tip had been sufficiently corroborated to furnish reasonable suspicion that respondent was engaged in criminal activity and that the investigative stop therefore did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Id. Summarizing its holding, the Court stated that [a]lthough it is a close case, we conclude that under the totality of the circumstances the anonymous tip, as corroborated, exhibited sufficient indicia of reliability to justify the investigatory stop of respondent's car. Id. at 2417 (emphasis added). In reaching its decision, the Supreme Court effectively distinguished the situation in White from cases such as this one and made it plain that its holding depended on the presence of factors wholly lacking here. The Court emphasized that an uncorroborated anonymous tip, standing alone, would not warrant a [person] of reasonable caution in the belief that a stop was appropriate. 110 S.Ct. at 2416 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). The Court therefore required more than the tip itself, id., and looked to the totality of the circumstances, id., to determine whether the anonymous tip had been sufficiently corroborated to furnish reasonable suspicion that respondent was engaged in criminal activity and that the investigative stop therefore did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Id. The Court found the required corroboration in the tipster's predictions of future activity which the police couldand didverify. [22] The Court credited the proposition that because an informant is shown to be right about some things, he is probably right about other facts that he has alleged, including the claim that the object of the tip is engaged in criminal activity. 110 S.Ct. at 2417. Critical to the determination that reasonable suspicion was established, therefore, was the anonymous tipster's reference to future, not merely completed, activity. As the Court said in White, [w]e think it also important that, as in Gates, the anonymous [tip] contained a range of details relating not just to easily obtained facts and conditions existing at the time of the tip, but to future actions of third parties ordinarily not easily predicted. Gates, 462 U.S. at 245 [103 S.Ct. at 2335-36]. The fact that the officers found a car precisely matching the caller's description in front of the 235 building is an example of the former. Anyone could have predicted that fact because it was a condition presumably existing at the time of the call. What was important was the caller's ability to predict respondent's future behavior, because it demonstrated inside informationa special familiarity with respondent's affairs. The general public would have had no way of knowing that respondent would shortly leave the building, get in the described car, and drive the most direct route to Dobey's Motel. Because only a small number of people are generally privy to an individual's itinerary, it is reasonable for police to believe that a person with access to such information is likely also to have access to reliable information about that individual's illegal activities. See Gates, supra, at 245 [103 S.Ct. at 2335]. When significant aspects of the caller's predictions were verified, there was reason to believe not only that the caller was honest but also that he was well informed, at least well enough to justify the stop. Id. (emphasis in original). In the present case, at least prior to the seizure, the police acted only on static informationthe tipster's description of the sellerwhich afforded no basis in itself for a reasonable suspicion that Brown was selling drugs. The stop was thus based on the portion of the tipappellant's description which gave easily obtained facts ... existing at the time of the tip. Id. Anyone could have observed the corner of 17th and Euclid, N.W., and phoned in appellant's description. The tipster did not predict that the alleged seller would do anything except, perhaps implicitly, that he might still be selling drugs when police arrived, and there was no evidence that he was doing that. In the absence of any accurate prediction of future conduct, there is no reason to believe that the tipster had the sort of special familiarity with [Brown's] affairs which the Court in White evidently viewed as essential to its conclusion that the anonymous tip, as corroborated, exhibited sufficient indicia of reliability to justify the investigatory stop.... Id. [23] We do not suggest that accurate prediction of future events has some talismanic quality or outweighs other constituent parts of the totality of the circumstances. The police might have had facts sufficient for reasonable suspicion if the tipster had not been anonymous, Adams, supra, 407 U.S. at 146, 92 S.Ct. at 1923 (tipster known to police officer), Groves v. United States, 504 A.2d 602, 605 (D.C.1986) (tip reliable because informant called twice and identified himself), or if the informant had provided reliable information in the past, Adams, supra, 407 U.S. at 146, 92 S.Ct. at 1923; Allen v. United States, 496 A.2d 1046, 1049 (D.C.1985) (tipster known to police and previous calls led to seizures of narcotics), or if the tip had accurately demonstrated some special familiarity with Brown's affairs, see White, supra, 110 S.Ct. at 2417, or if the officer's own observations before the stop had supported a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, see Lawson v. United States, 360 A.2d 38, 39, 40 (D.C.1976) (suspect's noticeable effort to hide something as police arrived was consistent with possessing a concealed weapon), or if the tipster had reported that the suspect had a pistol, see Johnson, supra, 540 A.2d at 1091-92 (emphasizing need for prompt police investigation of tips involving firearms), but none of these factors was present here. White stands for the proposition that, without more, an uncorroborated anonymous tip that a correctly described individual is engaged in narcotics activity falls short of providing the minimal level of objective justification, 110 S.Ct. at 2416, which is required for a Terry stop. In the present case, there was no corroboration of any prediction of future conduct; moreover, the description of the seller was scanty and the match-up between that description and Brown's appearance was in some measure flawed. If White was a close case, as the Supreme Court said it was, then the government's evidence here was surely insufficient as a matter of law to show the existence of articulable suspicion. If there was no articulable suspicion, then necessarily there was no probable cause. [24]