Court Opinion

ID: 9496872
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:37:27.52287+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:51.235060
License: Public Domain

MICHAEL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
People in West Virginia display their hunting and sporting rifles all the time. It is not against the law, as the majority acknowledges. Ante at 326. Yet under the majority’s decision, if the police get an anonymous tip that a West Virginia resident has been displaying his rifle, the police may stop his car without any real confirmation of the likelihood of criminal activity. In this case, the dispatcher at the St. Albans, West Virginia, police department received an anonymous tip that two white men were in a yard at a certain address, displaying or pointing rifles. It was a high crime area, and an officer went to the scene to investigate. The officer saw no rifles, nor anything else illegal or suspicious. The officer spotted two white men leaving in a car described by the tipster and stopped the car. The anonymous tip, taken with what the officer saw, did not provide reasonable suspicion that criminal activity was afoot. As a result, the stop violated the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable seizures. I must therefore respectfully dissent.
I.
The dispatcher at the St. Albans police department received a tip from an unidentified caller on May 5, 2002, during the evening shift. The caller said that two white men were in the front yard of 2740 Knox Avenue with rifles, pointing them in various directions. A small red car with a silver or white stripe was also mentioned. The caller admittedly “didn’t know what was going on.” J.A. 34. The dispatcher radioed this information to Officer Mark Burdette, who was on duty in his cruiser. Officer Burdette did not know who the caller was, but he “suspected” the caller was a Mrs. Hayes, who lived across the street from 2740 Knox Avenue. The officer thought of Mrs. Hayes because she had called in six to ten complaints in the past, giving reliable information. Officer Burdette is familiar with Knox Avenue; it is a residential neighborhood with children, but it is also a high crime area, known for drug trafficking. Burdette had assisted the Metro Drug Unit with four or five investigations on Knox Avenue, and he had arrested two women who lived at 2738 Knox Avenue for possession of forged prescriptions and drug paraphernalia. The residences at no. 2738 and no. 2740 (the latter is the address mentioned by the tipster) are separate halves of a duplex. When the dispatcher relayed the caller’s tip about men displaying rifles, Officer Burdette “figured that it was possibly a drug deal gone bad.” J.A. 26-27.
*329Officer Burdette drove to Knox Avenue and stopped in front of no. 2738. As he arrived, he noticed two cars in front of him. One of the cars, a small red one with a silver or white stripe, was pulling away. Officer Burdette recognized the passenger as Mark Freeman, a drug user who lived in the next block of Knox Avenue. Bur-dette radioed a fellow officer who was arriving at the same time, and both officers participated in a stop of the red car. When Officer Burdette walked up to the car, he noticed a rifle in an open case in the back seat. The driver of the car, defendant John Perkins, admitted to the officers that he was a convicted felon. Perkins consented to a search,, and two other guns and certain drug paraphernalia were discovered in the car. Perkins said he was trying to sell the guns for his wife.
Perkins was indicted for being a felon in possession of firearms. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1), 924(a)(2). Thereafter, he moved to suppress the evidence seized when his car was stopped, arguing that the stop violated the Fourth Amendment. The district court denied the motion. The court took into account Officer Burdette’s knowledge that Knox Avenue was a high drug-crime area. Further, the court “did not deem the informant, Mrs. [Hayes], to be anonymous.” J.A. 42. Officer Bur-dette, the court found, “reasonably assumed a complaint about illegal activity might come from Mrs. [Hayes],” and the officer “correctly believed it to be reliable.” Id. In sum, the district court concluded that “the initial stop was based on reasonable suspicion from a credible informant.” J.A. 43.
II.
A.
An officer may “conduct a brief, investigatory stop when [he] has a reasonable, articulable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot.” Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 123, 120 S.Ct. 673, 145 L.Ed.2d 570 (2000) (citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968)). Reasonable suspicion may be supported by second-hand information, such as a tip. Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 146, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972). Nevertheless, reasonable suspicion depends both on the content (or quantity) and the reliability (or quality) of the information possessed by the officer. Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 330, 110 S.Ct. 2412, 110 L.Ed.2d 301 (1990). Both of these factors, content and reliability, “are considered in the totality of the circumstances — the whole picture, that must be taken into account when evaluating whether there is reásonable suspicion.” Id. (quotation marks and citation omitted).
When suspicion of criminal activity begins with an anonymous tip, the tip must be assessed with extra caution because an anonymous tip by itself seldom demonstrates the tipster’s reliability and basis of knowledge. White, 496 U.S. at 329, 110 S.Ct. 2412. The anonymous tipster simply does “not place[] his credibility at risk.” Florida v. J.L., 529 U.S. 266, 275, 120 S.Ct. 1375, 146 L.Ed.2d 254 (2000) (Kennedy, J., concurring). Of course, an anonymous tip may be corroborated through independent police work. White, 496 U.S. at 330, 110 S.Ct. 2412. When “a tip has a relatively low degree of reliability,” as is often the case with an anonymous tip, “more information will be required to establish the requisite quantum of suspicion.” Id. Specifically, when a Terry stop is based on an anonymous tip, the reasonable suspicion standard “requires that [the] tip be reliable in its assertion of illegality, not just in its tendency to identify a determinate person.” J.L., 529 U.S. at 272, 120 S.Ct. 1375. Thus, if an officer merely confirms that an anonymous tip accurately describes a sub*330ject’s location and appearance, a Terry stop would be unreasonable because this minimal corroboration “does not show that the tipster has knowledge of ... criminal activity.” Id. In any case, the entire picture is the key in assessing whether the officer has reasonable suspicion of criminal activity when he makes a Terry stop. Here, when the reliability and content of Officer Burdette’s information is assessed, it is clear that he did not have reasonable suspicion that criminal activity was afoot.
B.
A key issue is whether the caller’s tip was anonymous, making it inherently less reliable. The district court found that Mrs. Hayes was a known informant because Officer Burdette reasonably assumed she was the caller. The majority also concludes that Officer Burdette reasonably assumed the tipster was Mrs. Hayes. Any finding or conclusion that Mrs. Hayes was a known tipster or informant in this instance is clearly erroneous. See United States v. Rusher, 966 F.2d 868, 873 (4th Cir.1992) (district court’s factual findings in a suppression proceeding are reviewed under the clearly erroneous standard).
First, if the caller was Mrs. Hayes, anonymity would not be expected. According to Officer Burdette, Mrs. Hayes was “normally” the person who called the St. Al-bans police with complaints from Knox Avenue. She had called in six to ten prior complaints, and Officer Burdette knew that she had been the caller on those occasions. It thus appears that it was Mrs. Hayes’s practice to identify herself. The caller in this case did not give her name, choosing not to place her credibility on the line. Second, the activity reported by the caller was occurring in the open, in a small front yard at 2740 Knox Avenue, a residential neighborhood. Mrs. Hayes lived across the street, but she was by no means the only person with a view of the front yard at no. 2740, where two men were reportedly displaying rifles. What the caller described could have been seen from inside or outside several nearby houses, so the call could have come from anyone who was in the vicinity. In sum, the evidence is too inconclusive to permit a finding that Mrs. Hayes was the actual caller or that Officer Burdette reasonably assumed she was the caller. The caller was anonymous, and this means that the tip begins with a relatively low degree of reliability.
At one point the majority suggests, for the sake of argument, that it is willing to treat the tip as anonymous. Yet when the majority' concludes that Officer Burdette had enough information to confirm the tip’s reliability, the majority relies on its (unwarranted) conclusion that “[t]he caller was not entirely unknown, as Officer Bur-dette reasonably assumed that it was Mrs. Hayes.” Ante at 323-24. If a tip is truly anonymous, as the tip here is, an officer’s ill-founded assumption that the tipster is a known informant cannot be weighed in favor of reliability.
The tip in this case suffers from a defect more fundamental than its anonymity. It is deficient in substance or content. Again, when the reasonable suspicion for a Terry stop is grounded in an anonymous tip, the “tip [must] be reliable in its assertion of illegality” or in its indication “as to the likelihood of criminal activity.” J.L., 529 U.S. at 272, 120 S.Ct. 1375. The tip here was that two men were in a particular front yard with rifles, pointing them in various directions. This was not an assertion of illegal conduct because it is not against the law in West Virginia to display or sight a rifle. Nor did the tip give any indication of the likelihood of criminal activity. The tipster, who -the majority con-*331eludes was “in close proximity .to the duplex” and had “personally ... observed the men,” ante at 322, did not say what, if anything, the men were pointing the rifles toward. The tipster did not report that the men were threatening anyone or engaging in any violence. She did not say she had observed any transaction, let alone one that appeared to have gone awry. In fact, she admitted that she “didn’t know what was going on at the time.” J.A. 34. Because of the tip’s weaknesses, specifically, its anonymity and its failure to indicate the likelihood of illegal conduct, more concrete information was “required to establish the requisite quantum of suspicion.” White, 496 U.S. at 330, 110 S.Ct. 2412.
The majority argues that Officer Bur-dette was able to “confirm[ ] the tip’s reliability with his own knowledge of the area and with his own observations upon arriving .at the scene.” Ante at 324. I respectfully disagree. I discuss first Officer Bur-dette’s knowledge of the area. The officer knew there was drug trafficking on Knox Avenue: he had assisted the Metro Drug Unit in several investigations there, and he had .arrested two women who lived at no. 2738, a “drug house” that was still being watched by the special unit. With this information and the tip that two men with rifles were in a yard next door to no. 2738, Officer Burdette “figured that it was possibly a drug deal gone bad.” J.A. 26-27. A fouled up drug deal was a possibility, I suppose, but a rifle would be an unusual weapon for a drug trafficker to take to a deal in the close confines of a city. Moreover, it appears that Officer Burdette did not seriously consider the tip to be a complaint about drug dealing. When Officer Burdette “got a drug complaint ... anywhere on Knox Avenue,” his usual practice was to contact a fellow officer assigned to the Metro Drug Unit. J.A. 25. This practice allowed the officer with the drug unit to determine the appropriate response, and it prevented ongoing drug investigations from being “mess[ed] up.” J.A. 25-26. Officer Burdette did not contact the drug unit in this instance.
In any event, if we treated a neighborhood’s high rate of drug crime as an independent factor that bolstered the reliability of a tip, “we would be, in effect, holding a suspect accountable for factors wholly outside of his control.” United States v. Perrin, 45 F.3d 869, 873 (4th Cir.1995). The fact that a suspect is spotted “in a high crime area does not, in and of itself, provide .[an] officer[ ] with sufficient indicia of reliability to justify a Terry [stop].” Id. Along this line, it should be noted that the men reportedly spotted were not in the yard at the drug house; rather, they were in the yard next door, at 2740 Knox Avenue. There is no evidence that anyone at no. 2740 was involved with drugs. I recognize, of course, that Knox Avenue’s reputation as an area of high crime and drug trafficking is relevant to explain why Officer Burdette believed it was necessary to go to the scene and investigate. However, the status of the neighborhood does not bolster the reliability of the anonymous tip and adds little, if any-thing, to the measure of reasonable suspicion.
Finally, there is what Officer Burdette observed. When the officer arrived at the scene, he saw two white men in a red car with a silver or white stripe departing from 2740 Knox Avenue. The tip was therefore reliable in its description of the two men and their vehicle. However, reasonable suspicion “requires that a tip be reliable in its assertion of illegality, not just in its tendency to identify a determinate person.” J.L., 529 U.S. at 272, 120 S.Ct. 1375. Officer Burdette did not see any illegal or suspicious activity as he arrived, nor did he see any firearms. Although the red car was pulling out as the officer drove up, there is no evidence that *332the occupants of the red car saw the officer arriving, and there is no evidence that their departure was in any way suspicious.
As the red car left no. 2740, Officer Burdette noticed that the passenger was Mark Freeman, a known drug taker, who lived in the very next block. Perhaps Freeman had a criminal record. But a prior “record is not, standing alone, sufficient to create reasonable suspicion.” United States v. Sprinkle, 106 F.3d 613, 617 (4th Cir.1997) (internal quotation marks omitted). “Nevertheless, an officer can couple knowledge of prior criminal involvement with more concrete factors in reaching a reasonable suspicion of current criminal activity.” Id. There were no concrete indications that Freeman was involved in criminal activity on the day in question. Freeman’s presence in his own neighborhood was not a suspicious event. Moreover, there was no evidence that he was known to be armed or dangerous, factors that might have corroborated the tip’s report of rifle possession.
When the whole picture is assessed, the tip is still not infused with sufficient reliability. The tip did not suggest illegal activity. Officer Burdette did confirm that the tip was accurate in describing the location of the men (2740 Knox Avenue), their appearance (white), and their ear (small and red). This information, however, did not confirm that the tipster had information about the likelihood of criminal activity. Officer Burdette saw nothing illegal or suspicious when he arrived at the scene. Finally, the thinness of the tip is not redeemed in this case by the character of the neighborhood or by the fact that one of the men was a drug user. Because Officer Burdette lacked reasonable suspicion, his stop of Perkins’s car violated the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable seizures. The incriminating evidence found in the car should have been suppressed, and the district court’s order should be reversed.
C.
The majority responds to my dissent by conceding that displaying a hunting or sporting rifle in West Virginia is an “innocent” and “worthwhile activity.” Ante at 327. The majority adds that it “emphatically do[es] not ... endorse investigative stops whenever police get an anonymous tip that a West Virginia resident has been displaying his rifle.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). However, because of what the majority actually holds, these statements are of no comfort to the rifle owning West Virginian who happens to live in a high-crime or drug-ridden neighborhood. When an anonymous caller tells the police — without making any suggestion of illegality — that a person in a high-crime area has been displaying or pointing his rifle, the majority subjects him to a car stop, even though the police see nothing suspicious when they arrive at the scene. Thus, under the majority’s analysis, the bad reputation of the neighborhood (and here, a house next door) carries far too much of the weight in justifying reasonable suspicion. As a result, today’s decision exposes too many innocent people in rough neighborhoods to unreasonable stops by the police.