Court Opinion

ID: 9685523
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:45:38.378717+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:07.355416
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(concurring).
An appellate court should recognize that a false step, ofttimes, is never retrieved. Thus, its opinions should be tempered with caution on extensions of judge-made law which erode the Bill of Rights.
In joining Justice Wuest’s writing, it is my intent to augment it, not quarrel with the cases cited nor its rationale.
Czmowski and Kissner, cited by the majority, are decisions, which like a child unto its mother, are unto Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 110 S.Ct. 2412, 110 L.Ed.2d 301 (1990). In White, the United States Supreme Court considered the validity of an anonymous tip. This is what we have before us — an anonymous tip. Therein, criteria was established for the validity of an anonymous tip:
Reasonable suspicion, like probable cause, is dependent upon both the content of information possessed by police and its degree of reliability. Both factors — quantity and quality — are considered in the ‘totality of the circumstances — the whole picture,’ (Citation omitted) that must be taken into account when evaluating whether there is reasonable suspicion. Thus, if a tip has a relatively low degree of reliability, more information will be required to establish the requisite quantum of suspicion than would be required if the tip were more reliable, (emphasis added).
Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. at 330, 110 S.Ct. at 2416.
As Justice Wuest has pointed out, there is a low degree of reliability of the anonymous tip in the case at hand.
Low degree of reliability? Why? Consider Czmowski. There the tipster followed the vehicle down the interstate and observed specific driving conduct which warranted a conclusion. In Kissner, the tipster could verify and did verify the Arizona license plates, expressed that the vehicle contained two males and was stopped at a certain gas station in the capital city of Pierre, and explained that the Chevrolet stationwagon was being operated in an intoxicated manner, whereupon the police officer located the vehicle containing two occupants. We must remember that the U.S. Supreme Court case of Alabama v. White was decided approximately four years after Czmowski and Kissner. Conclusory expressions do not feed the bulldog under the state of the law and rationale as expressed in Czmowski1, Kissner2, and State v. Anderson, 331 N.W.2d 568 (S.D. 1983). Conclusions are not facts. And they are certainly not “articulable facts.” In this case, we have a general conclusion, if not an equivocal conclusion. Here, the officer did not verify the tip by trying to find the vehicle on 10th Street, rather the police went to Grafs home and arrested him there. This occurred after (approximately) a one-half hour “stakeout.” The arresting officer had absolutely no articulable facts that Graf was intoxicated or that Graf had ever been driving a vehicle on 10th Street. Also, the caller expressed it was a possible under the influence driver.
This scenario may be crystallized into an anonymous tip employing a 911 telephone number, a wait at the defendant’s home, an arrest, and a violation of the Fourth Amendment’s mandate against unreasonable intrusions. People have the constitutional right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects. In point of fact, the officer admitted he saw no erratic driving and entered Grafs home (with permission of Grafs *5mother); the officer went so far as to block these citizens’ private driveway.
When Anderson was decided, this author’s special writing feared the adoption of a Minnesota case cited therein. If, indeed, articulable facts are required, conclusions do not satisfy such a rule. Anderson, decided in' 1984, went too far. Were we to follow the dissent of Justice Sabers, this case, a progenitor of Anderson, would extend our holding in Anderson beyond all fair inference.
It is true that an informant’s tip may vary, by measure, in value and reliability. Each case must be decided for reliability upon its own set of facts. See Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972). In South Dakota, we should not countenance an anonymous tip on the 911 line, without articulable facts, as a basis for a reasonable suspicion for a stop. Neither the tipster nor the officer expressed there was erratic driving or a traffic violation. “Was westbound on 10th street,” “in a large brown automobile,” “license plate 1E3312” are statements which are factually oriented; but none of them relate to weaving, crossing the center line, erratic driving, illegal driving, or conduct upon which to base a reasonable suspicion to justify a stop. “A possible under, the influence driver” (emphasis supplied mine) is a conclusion and is not factually oriented. If we embark upon arrests and seizures, based upon anonymous tips of “a possible under the influence driver,” without factual support of a misdeed violation, every citizen is subject to immediate stop — at the whim of any officer. We would become a police state, no different than many foreign countries. Our Constitution must not become illusory or rendered meaningless. The Fourth Amendment commands: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures ...” This provision of our Constitution brought into existence public acknowledgment of a free soei-ety regarding persons, houses, papers, and effects,3 In effect, four freedoms, all contained within the Fourth Amendment. If language in that amendment of freedom is to mirror reality, an amendment paid for with the blood of our forefathers, let us instill integrity within its spirit and not make it fragile.

. Defendant, said tipster, was weaving all over the highway.

. Defendant, said tipster, appeared to be driving in an intoxicated manner. Compare that factual statement to a conclusion (in this case) of a "possible under the influence driver"; officer went to service station, saw defendant drive and then arrested him. There was an immediate verification. Here, the verification was slightly over one-half hour after the call-in tip.

. We should not adopt the State's position, for to do so would be to endanger the freedoms found within the Fourth Amendment. History teaches us that the Tories would go to the homes of people at night and search their houses. Often, this was accompanied by force. Fear would abide. Based upon an anonymous tip, were we to adopt the State's position, a simple phone call to 911 could be filed and, based upon knowledge that this person was driving home, an officer could wait near the person’s home and effectuate a stop. It could well be a party bearing a grudge. Then, as here, the driveway could be blocked and an elderly person could be routed out of bed thereby allowing the police to gain entrance into a home.