Court Opinion

ID: 9793215
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:44:30.119569+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:03:57.257160
License: Public Domain

SCHROEDER, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
Acting upon an anonymous informant’s tip that the appellant was about to enter a bar and shoot someone, the police stationed themselves by the bar and observed the appellant’s car approach the bar and then reenter the stream of traffic. The conduct which the police officers observed was not suspicious or out of the ordinary, and would not have justified a stop. The majority nevertheless concludes that the conduct, in and of itself innocuous, when coupled with an anonymous tip, justified the stop. This is a result with which I cannot agree.
The use of informants’ tips to justify police intrusions is a subject which has received much attention and about which clear rules have been etched. Those requirements are vital to protecting citizens from police harassment based on the gossip and innuendo inherent in anonymous tips. They were recently reaffirmed by this Court in State v. White, 122 Ariz. 42, 592 P.2d 1308 (App.1979). First, the informant himself must be known by the police to be reliable, Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964). Second, the information must indicate that the informant came by his information in a reliable way. Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969).
The tip in this case did not meet either test. The police did not know the informant to be reliable; indeed they did not even know his identity. The tip itself gave no indication whatsoever that the information had been obtained in a reliable way. It is true that in some limited situations, courts have permitted a plethora of independently observed corroborating evidence to substantiate an otherwise deficient tip. Draper v. United States, 358 U.S. 307, 79 S.Ct. 329, 3 L.Ed.2d 327 (1959). However, I cannot accept the majority’s inherent assumption that the minimal “corroboration” in this case can replace both the requirements of Aguilar and Spinelli.
*394Certainly none of the cases cited by the majority support such a proposition. In Draper, not only was the corroborating detail greater than that present here, but, more important for purposes of this case, the informant was known to the police and known to have been reliable. In State v. Martinez, 26 Ariz.App. 210, 547 P.2d 62 (1976), the informant was also known and known to have been reliable. In Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972), the informant personally approached police officers, and the police identified him as a known and reliable informant before acting upon his tip to investigate the defendant parked nearby. What is more, Justice Rehnquist in Adams v. Williams, supra, carefully distinguished that case from a police action based on an anonymous phone tip. That opinion undermines the majority’s conclusion that the police may, on the basis of an anonymous tip, intrude upon the liberty of a citizen whose conduct otherwise would not warrant suspicion.
Even if the initial stop could be justified, there remains nothing in appellant’s conduct either before or after the stop which would justify the warrantless search of the vehicle. The majority suggests that the search was somehow necessary for the police officer’s protection. The suggestion is groundless. The car was searched just before appellant was placed under arrest for DWI and while he was standing with a second police officer at the rear of the vehicle. The State has understandably made no attempt to justify the search on such grounds. The trial court’s ruling in this matter was correct and should, in my opinion, be affirmed. I therefore respectfully dissent.