Court Opinion

ID: 9748523
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:04:29.677498+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:36.572060
License: Public Domain

Dissenting opinion by
Justice WINTERSHEIMER.
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion because the circuit judge correctly overruled the motion to suppress the evidence against the defendant based on the totality of the circumstances. The anonymous tip carried with it an indicia of reliability and the information provided to the arresting officer amounted to a reasonable suspicion that the defendant was or was about to become involved in some kind of criminal activity.
In October 1999, Collins was arrested and charged with driving under the influence, third offense, and for driving while his license was suspended. A state trooper made the arrest after stopping Collins on 1-75 in Grant County. Collins tested for an alcohol level of 0.186. The basis for the original stop was provided by a person who called police to report conduct by Collins and the direction of his travel. The record does not indicate that the call*120er was identified so the telephone call has been properly treated as anonymous. Upon stopping the vehicle, the officer detected an odor of alcohol on the person of the defendant and after a field sobriety test was given, Collins was arrested.
The unnamed witness described the conduct of Collins at the gas station in detail, claiming he was slinging what was thought to be alcohol at another vehicle. There was no bottle or can thrown from the vehicle, only the liquid. The caller advised that [he] thought it was some kind of dispute.
Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983), adopted a totality of the circumstances approach to determine whether information gained from an anonymous informant and partially verified by police, as to innocent details, amounted to probable cause for the issuance of a search warrant. In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a strict two-prong test developed in Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723 (1964) and Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637 (1969).
In Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 110 S.Ct. 2412, 110 L.Ed.2d 301 (1990), the United States Supreme Court applied the totality of circumstances approach to a stop conducted pursuant to Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). In White, supra, the court held that under the totality of the circumstances, the independent corroboration of the informant’s prediction imparted sufficient indicia of reliability.
In this case, the unusual behavior coupled with an apparently aggressive act, were both indicative of illegal activity and sufficiently predictive of future misconduct so as to warrant a Terry stop. The behavior observed and reported by the informant was predictive rather than speculative. It gave rise to a reasonable suspicion that the driver “hurling the projectile” and setting off to drive on public roadways might be a likely candidate either for a DUI offense or potentially as a perpetrator of road rage.
At a pretrial hearing, the defense moved to suppress the evidence. The argument was that the officer did not have sufficient reason to make the investigatory stop based on Florida v. J.L., 529 U.S. 266, 120 S.Ct. 1375, 146 L.Ed.2d 254 (2000). In that case, the mere act of standing on a corner was in no way violative of any law per se. The circuit judge denied the motion and later the motion for reconsideration stating that there were more facts provided in this case, such as the movement and identity of the vehicle, than were provided in J.L. Thus, the circuit judge reasoned that this situation was closer to the facts of White. The Court of Appeals affirmed and discussed J.L. and also found it distinguishable. This matter involves a decision by a panel of the Court of Appeals which is different from an earlier decision of the Court of Appeals in Commonwealth v. Priddy, 2003-SC-41-DG. Certainly, it is the responsibility of this Court to reconcile such differences. In my view, the majority of this Court has endorsed the decision in Priddy, rather than the decision in this case.
Gates, supra, J.L. and White, all involved investigations where an anonymous informant alleged that the defendant was engaged in concealed criminal activity. In none of these cases were the police aware of the veracity of the informant, and in none of the three did the informant provide information to impart the basis of his or her knowledge. In each case, the informant alleged present or future concealed criminal activity and left the police without information as to how the caller knew about the crime. The U.S. Supreme Court *121accepted this form of anonymous information as normal:
The opinion in Gates recognized that an anonymous tip alone seldom demonstrates the informant’s basis of knowledge or veracity inasmuch as ordinary citizens generally do not provide extensive recitations of the basis of their everyday observations and given that the veracity of persons supplying anonymous tips is by hypothesis largely unknown, and unknowable.
White, 496 U.S. at 329, 110 S.Ct. at 2415 citing Gates, 462 U.S. at 237, 103 S.Ct. at 2332.
Here, the anonymous informant described conduct of Collins at the gas station. The caller was able to give a precise description of the automobile, including the license number and its location and direction of travel. This was not a vague or inadequate description. Under the totality of circumstances, the information provided by the caller carried an indicia of reliability. As in every anonymous informant case, the veracity of the caller was “by hypothesis largely unknown and unknowable.” Gates. This is in contrast to those informants who are known to the police and whose veracity can be established by previous history.
It is of interest to note that a published Court of Appeals opinion, Stewart v. Commonwealth, Ky.App., 44 S.W.3d 376 (2000), in which this Court denied discretionary review, approved of a stop because the information from an informant contained some “predictive” information about the movements of a suspect which could be verified on observation. In Stewart, supra, a panel of the Court of Appeals determined that an anonymous tip that a couple had just purchased crack cocaine and were traveling in a described vehicle on a particular route had, when the travel was corroborated by police, an indicia of reliability. It can be said that the level of corroboration accepted by this Court when it denied discretionary review of Stewart was sufficient here.
United States v. Wheat, 278 F.3d 722 (8th Cir.2001), provides an excellent discussion of the difference between anonymous tips relating to “clandestine crimes such as possessory offenses,” and those relating to erratic driving in which the basis of the informant’s knowledge is likely to be apparent. It is recognized that there is no erratic driving involved in this case.
This Court has applied the totality of circumstances approach in Lovett v. Commonwealth, Ky., 103 S.W.3d 72 (2003), wherein an informant provided police with a detailed description of the defendant’s methamphetamine laboratory and manufacturing operation. The Court noted that the level of detail provided and the fact that the informant’s knowledge was based on his own observation, lent significant reliability to the information. Lovett, supra, involved a confidential informant rather than an anonymous caller.
One of the most recent decisions in regard to the application of the Fourth Amendment is Maryland v. Pringle, 540 U.S. 366, 124 S.Ct. 795, 157 L.Ed.2d 769 (2003), decided by the United States Supreme Court on December 15, 2003. In that case, a jury convicted the defendant of possession with intent to distribute cocaine and possession of cocaine. The drugs were recovered from a backseat armrest and Pringle, who was a front seat passenger, was arrested along with the driver/owner of the car who had been stopped for speeding and a third occupant who was in the back seat. The three occupants denied that the drugs or the large sum of cash recovered from the glove box was theirs. The U.S. Supreme Court held that the police officer had probable cause to believe that the defendant committed the *122crime of possession of cocaine and that his arrest did not contravene the Fourth or Fourteenth Amendment.
The court observed that the long prevailing standard of probable cause protects citizens from unreasonable interferences with privacy and from unfounded charges of crime, while at the same time, giving fair leeway to the enforcement of the law in the protection of the community. Id. at 799. The probable cause standard is a practical, nontechnical concept that deals with the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, may act. Id. The court noted that probable cause is a fluid concept, turning on the assessment of probabilities in a particular factual context, not readily or even usefully reduced to any neat set of legal rules. Id. at 800. The probable cause standard is incapable of precise definition or quantification into percentages because it deals with probabilities and depends on the totality of the circumstances. Id. In order to determine whether an officer had probable cause to arrest an individual, a court will examine the events leading up to the arrest and then decide whether these historical facts, viewed from the standpoint of an objectively reasonable police officer, amount to probable cause. Id.
Also very instructive is an article in the Texas Law Review, which discusses in great detail the reasonableness of probable cause, tracing it from a historical point of view to the present day application of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Craig S. Lerner, The Reasonableness of Probable Cause, 81 Tex.L.Rev, 951 (2003). The law review article concludes that the Fourth Amendment imposes limits on the power of the state to search private citizens, and yet those limits are not absolute.
The first clause of the Fourth Amendment forecloses only unreasonable searches and the second clause proscribes the issuance of warrants without probable cause. Id. at 1025. The probable cause standard is a flexible one. The author indicates that recasting probable cause within a reasonableness framework can open the way for more creative thinking about accommodating law enforcement priorities and observing civil liberties. Id. at 1029. As the article indicates, certainly there is a need for a sensible discussion of the importance of criminal procedural rules in striking an appropriate balance between the protection of the public from violence and a protection of its civil liberties.
The legal sanctity accorded to the Fourth Amendment is not offended by the actions of the police in this case. Unfortunately and perhaps, an unintended consequence of this decision will be to put a chill on citizen reports to police of suspicious behavior. The all-too-common phrase, “Why get involved?” is often invoked. The Fourth Amendment was not compromised by the decisions of this Court in Crayton v. Commonwealth, Ky., 846 S.W.2d 684 (1992), which adopted the good faith exception of United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984) and Commonwealth v. Litke, Ky., 873 S.W.2d 198 (1994). Both cases involved different circumstances both legally and factually.
The facts and law of this decision have demonstrated a legitimate difference of legal opinions as reflected in the varying decisions of the Court of Appeals. In this case, we were fortunate to have a very capable circuit judge and a very prudent prosecutor. The people of Grant County, as well as all travelers on 1-75, deserve protection against drunk drivers. The Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure is not *123present here because the stop, search and arrest were based on rehable information as transmitted to the police dispatcher which produced the stop of the driver. There was no Fourth Amendment violation. The cause of justice was truly served. The judgment of conviction should be affirmed.
GRAVES, J., joins this dissent and also writes separately.