Court Opinion

ID: 9496820
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:36:13.196817+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:49.341054
License: Public Domain

BERZON, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Faced with conflicting representations by two law enforcement officers, Hiroe Mukai did the only thing that a reason able parent could have done under the circumstances: She consented to a search for fear that the representation of one of the two officers that her young children would be taken from her if she did not consent would prove correct. The trial court recognized that when signing the consent form Mukai did “have [ ] in mind to some extent” her fear that her children would be taken from her if she refused to accede to the officers’ demand. Yet, the trial court concluded that Mukai’s consent was voluntary.
In affirming the district court’s decision, the majority ratifies at least two unacknowledged legal errors: first, the assumption that where there is a finding that impermissibly coercive statements occurred and did impact the decision to consent, as here, the decision can nonetheless be voluntary even if the reliance on the coercive statements was reasonable; and second, the conclusion that a consent can become voluntary simply because there was time to deliberate concerning whether to rely on impermissibly coercive statements.
At the outset, I note that although the ultimate question whether Mukai’s consent was voluntary is a factual one, see Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 227, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973), the trial court’s errors, described above, involved the application of the legal standards for voluntariness of consent. See Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U.S. 568, 603, 81 S.Ct. 1860, 6 L.Ed.2d 1037 (1961) (explaining that the voluntariness inquiry requires “the application ... of standards for judgment informed by the larger legal conceptions ordinarily characterized as rules of law but which, also, comprehend both induction from, and anticipation of, factual circumstances”); see also Schneckloth, 412 U.S. at 227, 93 S.Ct. 2041 (“In determining whether a defendant’s will was overborne in a particular ease,” a court must “evaluate[] the legal significance of how the accused reacted.”) (citing Culombe, 367 U.S. at 603, 81 S.Ct. 1860).
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
I.
A partial recounting of the disturbing facts of this case is necessary for a full understanding of my reasons for dissenting:
When Mukai asked the officers who first approached her in the motel lobby why it was that they wanted to search her family’s motel room, she was told, “We know what’s going on. There is stolen mail, some drug activity.” She was asked a series of questions about the occupants of the hotel room, her relationship to Herman Soriano, whether or not she was using drugs, the location of her place of work, and her occupation. Detective Manente told her that if she refused consent, the officers would obtain a search warrant. Throughout the 30 minute encounter, Mu-kai was surrounded by six to seven LAPD officers and federal agents and was continually pressed for her consent.
*510Mukai’s primary response from the outset was to express concern about her two children, who remained in the motel room. As Manente testified, “the only concerns ... she had were for her children, what was going to happen with her children.” Mukai repeated these concerns when Officer Callas arrived, as he subsequently testified.
It was against this backdrop that Shana-han’s threat took place. Mukai testified at the suppression hearing:
I was start crying and shaking and female officer beside was [saying] calm down, calm down, so took me for long time about 10, 15 minutes and then suddenly, I don’t know her name, but female officer wearing uniform [Officer Shanahan] go show up in front of me. She was so frustrated because took so long.... She said you only have two choice. If you’re going to sign this paper and help us or we going to get search warrant and kick the door, they might kick the door and you might, I might [be] arrested and my two children will be in social worker.
The district court fully credited this testimony, finding that “the LAPD officer did tell her that if she refused to sign that she might be arrested and that her children would go to social workers.” Critically— although both the trial court and the majority ignore this fact — the threat came from the only uniformed officer in the group immediately surrounding Mukai. Officer Callas was not in uniform.
Callas testified that he attempted to explain the situation accurately to Mukai, who was visibly distraught, stating:
Now, if you do get arrested your children will have to go in some type of protective services, social services or someplace. At that time we have no information you’re involved and no reason [to] arrest you at this time. I don’t want you to think about your kids ... when thinking about the consent form.
Callas reiterated that if Mukai did not consent, the officers would obtain a search warrant. During this time, Shanahan remained precisely where she had been when she spoke to Mukai — about twelve feet from where Mukai was seated. At no time did Shanahan make any effort to disavow her statement.
Faced with somewhat conflicting representations by two law enforcement officers concerning what would happen if she refused to give consent to the search, Mukai signed the form after understandable hesitation. As she explained: “Why I signed that form, I feel like I have to. I’m scared. Even small possibility that they might get my children to the social worker, I don’t want it to happen.”
Unfortunately for Mukai, Soriano, and our system of justice, Officer Shanahan’s baseless threat worked.
II.
As the majority commendably recognizes, the central focus in determining the voluntariness of Mukai’s consent must be on Officer Shanahan’s threat. While the majority recognizes that the threat standing alone could invalidate Mukai’s consent, it concludes that the district court did not clearly err in relying on the lapse of time and clarification by Inspector Callas in concluding that Mukai’s consent was voluntary. This conclusion (1) disregards the degree of coercion created by a threat to take away a parent’s children; (2) attributes to Mukai some basis for believing Inspector Callas over Officer Shanahan, when a reasonable lay person would have no basis for such a choice; (3) emphasizes that Mukai thought hard about whether to give consent, yet her deliberation — as Mu-kai testified and as the judge expressly *511recognized — reasonably took into account the risk that the threat would be carried out, precluding a voluntary choice in the sense required by the Fourth Amendment.
First, Shanahan’s baseless threat was made in a deliberate attempt to “prey upon the maternal instinct,” United States v. Tingle, 658 F.2d 1332, 1336 (9th Cir.1981), after Mukai repeatedly expressed concern regarding her children. For a parent, there is no threat greater than the threat to take away one’s children. “The relationship between parent and child embodies a primordial and fundamental value in our society. When law enforcement officers deliberately prey upon the maternal instinct and inculcate fear in a mother that she will not see her child in order to elicit ‘cooperation,’ they exert [ ] ‘improper influence.’ ” Id.
Such psychological coercion undermines the voluntariness of consent. See id.; see also Lynumn v. State of Illinois, 372 U.S. 528, 534, 83 S.Ct. 917, 9 L.Ed.2d 922 (1963) (confession was not voluntary where a mother was encircled by three police officers and told that her children would lose their state financial aid and be taken away from her if she did not cooperate); United States v. Ivy, 165 F.3d 397, 403-04 (6th Cir.1998) (officer’s threat to arrest Ivy’s wife and take away her child were “attempts] to overcome’s Ivy’s resolution not to consent” to a search and therefore “constituted an objectively improper police action ... significantly intensifying the coercive tenor of the request for consent”). A reasonable person would have given weight, as did Mukai, to “[ejven [a] small possibility that they might get my children to the social worker.”
The district court did not disbelieve Mu-kai’s representation that she considered that risk in making her decision, but indicated that a reasonable person would not have done so, as she would have been reassured by Callas’ representations. A threat to the welfare of one’s children, however, is not easily discounted on the basis of a competing reassurance. Given the nature of the threat, a reasonable person would share Mukai’s disinclination to disregard “even a small possibility” that it would be carried out.
Second, the district court erred in concluding that a reasonable person would have determinatively credited Inspector Callas’ reassurances over Officer Shana-han’s threats. True, Callas indicated to Mukai that her arrest was unrelated to her decision regarding consent. Shanahan, however, the only officer in uniform, never recanted her threat and remained standing nearby, presumably within earshot, for the remainder of the conversation.
Callas’ attempts to reassure Mukai simply presented Mukai with a conflicting account of her prospects, without affording her any basis for deciding which of the two accounts was accurate. The result, to a reasonable person, was at least a realistic risk that it was Shanahan, the uniformed police officer, rather than Callas, the plain clothes postal inspector, who was calling the shots and was in a position to implement her threat.
Further, Callas continued to advise Mu-kai that if she were arrested, her children would indeed be taken away. Even if this contingent statement were true, a reasonable person would nonetheless have felt coerced. Cf. Tingle, 658 F.2d at 1335-36 (warnings of long prison term and separation from child were coercive even though Tingle was a suspect and information was therefore arguably accurate). Moreover, Shanahan’s and Callas’ respective statements that Mukai’s arrest would mean her children would be placed in state custody were not even accurate. See Ivy, 165 F.3d at 403 (noting that even if both parents were arrested, “there were supervision al*512ternatives to state custody, such as having the child stay with a friend or relative”). Rather than mitigate the effect of Shana-han’s threat, Callas’ continued reference to the circumstances under which her children would be placed in social services echoed the threat and thus reinforced a reasonable fear for her children’s well-being and for her own liberty. Additionally, Callas’ repeated statements that Mukai should not take her children’s fate into account in making her decision could well have been understood as a directive to make a decision without taking her children’s interests into account, rather than as an assurance that they were not at risk should she fail to consent.
Third, as additional evidence of mitigation, the district court considered that Mu-kai took five to ten minutes after Shana-han’s threat to make up her mind, noting: “That was a long time.” Yet given the weight of the decision facing Mukai and the obvious stress of the situation, five to ten minutes was not long at all. On the contrary, a reasonable person might well have taken that long, weighing the representation of one officer that her children could suffer harm as a result of her decision against the hedged implication by another that her failure to consent could not itself affect her fate or that of her children. Indeed, a reasonable person might well have been confused as to the authority of the postal inspectors in relation to the police officers, as contact with postal inspectors is presumably less common for the average citizen. Given the gravity of the risk involved and the conflicting representations, a reasonable parent would take time to decide whether the prudent course was to believe the worst and act to prevent it.
In determining otherwise, the district court and the majority posit a model of voluntary decisionmaking that cannot be reconciled with the values underlying the Fourth Amendment. That Mukai “seemed to carefully think the situation through before ultimately signing the consent form,” ante at 503, or “was told that it was her decision and ... was thinking it over” for either five or ten minutes, as the district court found, has nothing to do with the voluntariness issue. Mukai forcefully testified that the decision she finally made was the result of her fear that Shanahan’s prediction concerning her children’s fate should she fail to consent could prove true. That she thought for a while before coming to that conclusion does not make her continuing fear unreasonable. Coercion need not result in a hasty, emotionally-based decision. Reasonable people can decide, based on cogitation rather than precipitous capitulation, that a possible future consequence is simply unacceptable. See Schneckloth, 412 U.S. at 224, 93 S.Ct. 2041 (“[Voluntariness] cannot be taken literally to mean a ‘knowing’ choice. Except where a person is unconscious or drugged or otherwise lacks capacity for conscious choice, all [decisions] ... are ‘voluntary’ in the sense of representing a choice of alternatives.”) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Where, as here, that threatened consequence was inaccurate— Mukai could not legally be arrested, of course, simply for refusing to consent, so her children could not be removed for that reason either — the consent was not voluntary, however well-considered.
Under the circumstances, I conclude that the district court erred in concluding that Callas’ subsequent statements were adequate to mitigate the devastating psychological effects of Shanahan’s threats. Threats to the welfare of one’s children are not easily overcome; a reasonable person would not automatically discount on the basis of competing representations threats by a uniformed officer who remained within earshot of the subsequent *513proceedings and did not disavow her statement; and a reasonable person confronted with competing representations might well give the matter some thought while in the end concluding that the risk of the threatened harm to her children’s welfare is too great to credit a second, possibly less authoritative representation disavowing that risk. In short, the district court was correct in “not suggesting for a moment that she didn’t have [the threat] in mind to some extent,” and committed legal error, in light of that finding, in coming to the conclusion that “Ms. Mukai’s consent was free and voluntary.”
III.
I would end my analysis with the foregoing and reverse the district court’s finding that the search was consensual. ' The majority, however, goes on to the five-factor analysis applicable to the consent issue in more usual circumstances. In conducting that analysis, the majority errs in two respects:
(1) Consideration of whether the person was in custody weighs against the volun-tariness of Mukai’s consent. While not in custody, Mukai was explicitly threatened with arrest. The threat of custody if consent is withheld is more coercive than the actual fact of custody, as the implication that the individual’s consent will favorably affect her fate is all the more direct. Compare United States v. Ocheltree, 622 F.2d 992, 994 (9th Cir.1980) (where there was a “threat that unreasonable detention, amounting to arrest” would result if consent was refused, consent was not voluntary) with Kaplan, 895 F.2d 618, 622 n. 3 (9th Cir.1990) (because defendant had already been arrested, threat of detention while search warrant was obtained did not render consent involuntary). Although Callas informed Mukai that she was not a suspect, Mukai had also been interrogated about potential criminal activity (drug-use), and Shanahan said she could be arrested for refusing to consent. Given the conflicting information provided by Shanahan and Callas, it was reasonable for Mukai to believe that her arrest was possible if she did not agree to the search.
(2) Consideration of the fifth factor— whether the officers threatened to obtain a search warrant — provides further support for the conclusion that a reasonable person would have construed the combination of statements made by Shanahan, Manente, and Callas to connote that refusing consent was futile. Cf. United States v. Kim, 25 F.3d 1426, 1432 (9th Cir.1994). The majority concludes that this factor deserves little weight because the government had probable cause, so the representation was truthful. See Kaplan, 895 F.2d at 622 (where probable cause exists, consent not likely to be held invalid based on threats to obtain a search warrant). In my view, however, the informant’s self-serving statements were inherently suspect and thus insufficiently reliable to establish probable cause.
French’s arrest was for forgery. “When an informant’s criminal history includes crimes of dishonesty, additional evidence must be included in the affidavit ‘to bolster the informant’s credibility or the reliability of the tip.’ ” United States v. Elliott, 322 F.3d 710, 714, 716 (9th Cir.2003) (quoting United States v. Reeves, 210 F.3d 1041, 1045 (9th Cir.2000)). As Elliott noted, “[otherwise, ‘an informant’s criminal past involving dishonesty is fatal to the reliability of the informant’s information, and his/ her testimony cannot support probable cause.’ ” Id. (quoting Reeves, 210 F.3d at 1045).
French’s arrest for forgery was sufficient to raise doubts about his reliability, as “[a]ny crime involving dishonesty necessarily has an adverse impact on an infor*514mant’s credibility.” Id. at 716 (quoting Reeves, 210 F.3d at 1045) (emphasis added). In Elliott, as in this case, the police were aware that the informant had previously been arrested (though not convicted) for forgery on one occasion. See id. at 714. The informant in Elliott had no other arrests or convictions involving crimes of dishonesty. See id. As in Elliott, French’s arrest was sufficient to put his credibility at issue — regardless of his lack of any other criminal history. The majority is correct that “information from dishonest informants may still provide a basis for probable cause.” See ante at 507. But that is only the case where there are additional circumstances not present here, such as an informant’s history of giving reliable tips. See, e.g., Elliott, 322 F.3d at 716 (concluding that the informant’s “record of providing six reliable drug-related tips in the preceding three months was sufficient to overcome any doubts raised by his motives and prior criminal and personal behavior”); Reeves, 210 F.3d at 1044-45 (concluding that the informant’s provision of three prior reliable tips were enough to outweigh concerns raised by a criminal history of dishonesty). Here, there is no such history of reliable tips. Instead, the majority bases its conclusion that French’s information was reliable on a characterization of his statements as statements against penal interest. See ante at 505. That characterization is wrong.
As the Supreme Court cautioned in Williamson v. United States, 512 U.S. 594, 599-600, 114 S.Ct. 2431, 129 L.Ed.2d 476 (1994), the principles underlying the idea that statements against interest are uniquely trustworthy do not apply to accomplice statements that inculpate another person. “Self-exculpatory statements are exactly the ones which people are most likely to make even when they are false; and mere proximity to other, self-inculpa-tory, statements does not increase the plausibility of the self-exculpatory statements.” Id. at 600, 114 S.Ct. 2431; see also United States v. Hall, 113 F.3d 157, 159-60 (9th Cir.1997) (applying Williamson to conclude that co-participant’s statements inculpating the defendant were insufficient to establish probable cause where co-participant had criminal history of dishonesty). The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that the blame-shifting statements of an accomplice are “inherently unreliable.” Lilly v. Virginia, 527 U.S. 116, 131, 119 S.Ct. 1887, 144 L.Ed.2d 117 (1999); see also id. (“[W]e have over the years spoken with one voice in declaring presumptively unreliable accomplices’ confessions that incriminate defendants.”) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). In sum, “when one person accuses another of a crime under circumstances in which the declarant stands to gain by inculpating another, the accusation is presumptively suspect.” Lee v. Illinois, 476 U.S. 530, 541, 106 S.Ct. 2056, 90 L.Ed.2d 514 (1986).
A close examination of Keenan San Yung French’s statements illustrates why they were not, counter to the majority’s conclusion, statements against his penal interest. Shanahan’s police report described the information about Soriano that French provided upon his arrest:
While handcuffing the suspfect], susp[ect] began telling me about how he wasn’t the only one.... Susp[ect] stated that some short time ago, he met a guy named Herman through a mutual friend. Herman became aware of susp[ect]’s financial dire straits and offered to assist him with his outstanding bills if he would help him. Herman explained to suspfect] that all he had to do was open bank accounts and deposit checks for him. Susp[eet] complied and deposited several for him until Herman cleaned out one of the accounts and left the *515susp[ect] with no money.... Susp[ect] continued that Herman is involved with check stealing and forging very deep and has numerous stolen checks in his hotel room at the Travel Inn located at 8525 Sepulveda Blvd. He also stated that Herman has approximately] 6 stolen cellular phones in his room and possibly narcotics.
While the majority is correct that the portions of French’s statement indicating that he opened bank accounts and deposited checks may have exposed him to additional criminal liability and thus constitute statements against his penal interest, the same is not true of the parts of French’s statements with regard to Soriano’s participation. At issue here is not the reliability of the portion of French’s statements about his own criminal activity, but the portion of his statements implicating Sori-ano. As Williamson instructed, Williamson, 512 U.S. at 599-600, 114 S.Ct. 2431.
The fact that a person is making a broadly self-inculpatory confession does not make more credible the confession’s non-self-inculpatory parts. One of the most effective ways to lie is to mix falsehood with truth, especially truth that seems particularly persuasive because of its self-inculpatory nature.
Justice O’Connor’s observation in her plurality opinion in Williamson is particularly apt here: Statements inculpating other individuals “did little to subject [the declarant] to criminal liability.... Small fish in a big conspiracy often get shorter sentences than people who are running the whole show, especially if the small físh are willing to help the authorities catch the big ones.” Williamson, 512 U.S. at 604, 114 S.Ct. 2431 (plurality) (with Scalia, J.) (internal citation omitted); see also id. at 607-09, 114 S.Ct. 2431 (Ginsburg, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment) (declarant’s statements were not statements against interest because they painted defendant as “the ‘big fish’ ”). French’s statements implicating Soriano focused primarily on shifting blame to So-riano, whom- he portrayed as the mastermind behind the check-forging scheme. As a result, the statements about Soriano cannot properly be considered declarations against penal interest and do not carry with them the indicia of reliability normally attendant to self-inculpatory statements.1
*516This conclusion is even more apparent when we consider that French provided these self-serving statements after his arrest, knowing that the police had information supporting his criminal liability. By the time French implicated Soriano, the police had found a check in French’s pocket which was made out in French’s name, and, according to the police report, was “obviously altered.” The police had also retrieved from French’s pocket a key to his hotel room, where, as French was aware, there was extensive evidence of French’s check-forging and mail-theft scheme. French had also heard a Washington Mutual Bank representative, who had arrived at the scene of his arrest, relate to the police the circumstances of French’s failed attempt to cash a forged check. “Once a person believes that the police have sufficient evidence to convict him, his statement that another person is more important to his criminal enterprise than he gains little credibility from its inculpatory aspect.” Hall, 113 F.3d at 159.
I agree with the majority that “admissions of crime” may be sufficiently reliable to support probable cause. United States v. Harris, 403 U.S. 573, 583, 91 S.Ct. 2075, 29 L.Ed.2d 723 (1971). I am also well aware that probable cause determinations “do[ ] not demand the certainty we associate with formal trials.” Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 246, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983). Nonetheless, Williamson reflects the general need to carefully distinguish statements which are “inherently unreliable,” Lilly, 527 U.S. at 131, 119 S.Ct. 1887, from those which are truly “against interest.” French’s self-serving statements concerning Soriano were not statements against his penal interest and cannot be deemed reliable on that basis.
In concluding that French’s information was sufficiently reliable to support probable cause, the majority also considers that the officers had corroborated the information regarding Soriano’s motel and room number. But the corroboration of one innocent and easily discoverable fact, the location of Soriano’s residence, does not establish reliability. See United States v. Mendonsa, 989 F.2d 366, 369 (9th Cir.1993) (distinguishing a “mere confirmation of innocent static details” from “prediction of significant future activity to carry out particular criminal activity”); compare Florida v. J.L., 529 U.S. 266, 272, 120 S.Ct. 1375, 146 L.Ed.2d 254 (2000) (an accurate description of a subject’s readily observable location does not show knowledge of concealed criminal activity), with Gates, 462 U.S. at 245, 103 S.Ct. 2317 (information reliable where it contains “a range of details relating not just to easily obtained facts and conditions existing at the time of the tip, but to future actions of third parties ordinarily not easily predicted”). Particularly where, as here, the informant has a criminal history involving dishonesty, the corroboration of a few innocent details is inadequate to demonstrate that the information is worthy of belief. See Hall, 113 F.3d at 159 (“The innocent details do even less to corroborate a tip from a man known to have made a false report to the police” than they do to corroborate an anonymous tip.); id. (corroboration of the color of suspect’s vehicle and the location of his trailer was inadequate to establish reliability of co-participant’s information).2
Under the totality of the circumstances, French’s inherently unreliable statements, corroborated only by one easily discover*517able and innocuous fact, were insufficient to establish probable cause. Cf. Hall, 113 F.3d at 159 (“How could the trooper tell whether [the informant] was leading them to his supplier, a competitor, or to an innocent man?”). The officers’ repeated statements that they would obtain a search warrant if Mukai refused therefore provide strong support for the conclusion that Mu-kai’s consent was involuntary.
* * * NS
For half an hour, Mukai was ringed by six to seven law enforcement officers pressuring her to give consent to a search of her hotel room. While Mukai was told by a postal inspector that her giving or failure to give consent would not affect her children, she was also .told by a uniformed member of the LAPD that her refusal to consent could lead to arrest and separation from her children. The uniformed officer stood nearby for the next five to ten minutes during which Mukai made her decision and never recanted the threat. During this time, Mukai was reminded that if she was arrested, her children would indeed be taken away. She was told several times that if she refused, the officers would obtain a search warrant, even though probable cause was lacking. A reasonable person — a reasonable parent— faced with this situation would not have felt at liberty to refuse consent.
It is the government that “bears the heavy burden of demonstrating that consent was freely and voluntarily given.” United States v. Chan-Jimenez, 125 F.3d 1324, 1327 (9th Cir.1997) (citing Schneckloth, 412 U.S. at 222, 93 S.Ct. 2041). The government is unable to meet this burden, and the district court erred in concluding otherwise. I respectfully dissent.

. The majority attempts to distinguish Williamson, Lilly, and Lee, by mischaracterizing them as cases in which "the suspects did not incriminate themselves as to anything more than the officers already had.” Ante at 506.
In Williamson, in the course of his confession the informant admitted to his knowledge that there was cocaine in the briefcase he was transporting, "essentially forfeiting] his only possible defense to a charge of cocaine possession, lack of knowledge.” See 512 U.S. at 603, 114 S.Ct. 2431 (O'Connor, J.). The informant also potentially implicated himself in a conspiracy with Williamson to possess or distribute cocaine. See Williamson, 512 U.S. at 597, 114 S.Ct. 2431.
In Lilly, the informant confessed to participating in burglary and robbery, and admitted that he was present during a homicide. See 527 U.S. at 121, 119 S.Ct. 1887.
In Lee, the co-defendant had confessed that he and Lee premeditated the murders in question, whereas the only other evidence available to police was that the murders were committed after provocation on the spur of the moment. See Lee, 476 U.S. 530, 534-35, 106 S.Ct. 2056, 90 L.Ed.2d 514.
The majority correctly notes that the inormant in Hall did not provide much incul-patory information beyond what the police already knew. See ante at 505-06. But Williamson, Lilly, and Lee demonstrate that, contrary to the majority's contention, mere proximity to non-cumulative self-inculpatory statements does not change the fact that French’s self-exculpatory statements concerning Soriano do not qualify as statements against interest.

. The majority distinguishes cases requiring corroboration of anonymous tips. See ante at 505-06 fn. 2. However, as Hall illustrates, the statements of an informant with a criminal hislory of dishonesty may present reliability problems greater than those presented by an anonymous tipster. See 113 F.3d at 159.