Court Opinion

ID: 9632400
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:13:27.821265+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:15.297898
License: Public Domain

Kurtz, J.
(dissenting) — Officer Clark Kraemer’s actions were appropriate. He had a tip that a possible drunk driver was approaching an intersection with busy pedestrian traffic. In light of those circumstances, he stopped the driver. The applicable legal principle is aptly stated in State v. Lesnick, 84 Wn.2d 940, 944, 530 P.2d 243 (1975):
[N]o single rule can be fashioned to meet every conceivable confrontation between the police and citizen. Evaluating the reasonableness of the police action and the extent of the intrusion, each case must be considered in light of the particular circumstances facing the law enforcement officer.
The majority relies upon Sieler, but the facts of this case are closer to the facts in Anderson. State v. Sieler, 95 Wn.2d 43, 621 P.2d 1272 (1980); State v. Anderson, 51 Wn. App. 775, 755 P.2d 191 (1988). Although the police officer did not personally know the truck driver, he saw the name of the truck owner painted on the truck’s side, understood he was a witness to the weaving, and recognized the driver for what he was: a citizen rendering a public service. Under the circumstances, investigation of the informant’s reliability was impractical. His reliability inhered in the *803very nature of the information conveyed and the surrounding circumstances. When an average citizen who witnesses possible criminal behavior relays that observation to the police, the police should be permitted to assume they are dealing with a credible person who is communicating a reliable observation. State v. Ortiz, 52 Wn. App. 523, 527-28, 762 P.2d 12 (1988).
In Ortiz, a police officer, investigating a fight at a bar, saw a patron point to a woman and say she had just pulled a knife on someone. The officer stopped the woman and an altercation occurred. The court found the officer made a valid investigatory stop of the woman based on the "citizen” informant’s tip because the required showing of reliability is relaxed in situations involving "citizens” rather than professional informants. The court stated:
Veracity analysis is of diminished importance because the witness-victim, unlike the typical informant, has but one opportunity to supply information to the police and thus lacks a "track record.” Nor is corroboration of information supplied by a witness-victim always essential. Such an informant, absent circumstances to the contrary, is generally presumed to be reliable.
Ortiz, 52 Wn. App. at 527-28 (citations omitted). In addition, a witness-victim, as in the instant case, often provides information under circumstances in which an investigation of the informant’s reliability is impracticable:
Frequently, police officers, upon arriving at the scene of a crime, are hurriedly given valuable information by an eyewitness. Based upon this information, hot pursuit results. Later, when the officers return to the scene, the eyewitness who gave the information may have long since departed. To require in these tumultuous circumstances that the officers stop and ascertain the name, address, and full identification of the informant is totally unreasonable. To do so would frequently negate the value of the information imparted to the officers.
State v. Williams, 638 S.W.2d 417, 420 (Tenn. Crim. App. *8041982). When evaluating the reasonableness of police action and the extent of the intrusion, each case must be considered in light of the particular circumstances facing the law enforcement officer. Viewed under the totality of the circumstances, Officer Kraemer’s actions were appropriate. I would affirm the trial court’s denial of the motion to dismiss.
Review denied at 133 Wn.2d 1012 (1997).