Court Opinion

ID: 9859545
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 21:59:07.278846+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:52:22.340111
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Justice,
dissenting.
When the police turned on their overhead lights and pulled Johnson over, it is clear that a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment took place. United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 226, 105 S.Ct. 675, 678-79, 88 L.Ed.2d 604 (1985). But "[nlot all seizures of the person must be justified by probable cause to arrest for a crime." Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 498, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 1324, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983) (plurality opinion). Justice White for the Royer plurality went on to say:
Prior to Terry v. Ohio, ... any restraint on the person amounting to a seizure for the purposes of the Fourth Amendment was invalid unless justified by probable cause. Terry created a limited exception to this general rule: certain seizures are justifiable under the Fourth Amendment if there is articulable suspicion that a person has committed or is about to commit a crime. In that case, a stop and frisk for weapons were found unexceptionable. Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143 [92 S.Ct. 1921], 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972), applied the same approach in the context of an informant's report that an unnamed individual in a nearby vehicle was carrying narcotics and a gun. Although not expressly authorized in Terry, United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 US 873 [95 S.Ct. 2574, 45 L.Ed.2d 607] (1975) was unequivocal in saying that a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity warrants a temporary seizure for the purpose of questioning limited to the purpose of the stop.
Id. at 498, 103 S.Ct. at 1324.
The theory employed by the Court of Appeals in affirming the trial court's denial of Johnson's motion to suppress was that even if probable cause did not exist at the time the police stopped Johnson, there was reasonable suspicion under Terry v. Ohio to make the stop; then, during their encounter with Johnson, the officers corroborated aspects of the informant's tip and probable cause arose to search Johnson and his car.
I find the following facts of particular relevance: First, during the period leading up to the events at issue in this case, Officer Zirklebach, a twenty year employee of the Evansville Police Department and six year veteran of its narcotics division, had been receiving information periodically from Detective Tony Carden, a detective in the Vanderburgh County Sheriffs Department Narcotics Unit. While working off-duty, Detective Carden had seen Johnson with a brown Jaguar at a certain gas station and garage on several occasions. According to the detective, as described in the testimony of Officer Zirklebach, Johnson had told people at the gas station that he was making long trips and that he was worried about the condition of his car. He had also displayed large sums of money when paying for having his car serviced. Officer Zirkle-bach testified at a pre-trial suppression *121hearing that he and Detective Carden had concluded that Johnson and his activities fit those of a "profile" of a "narcotics trafficker" which Detective Carden had developed.
Second, early in the evening of Johnson's arrest, and independent of the information he had been receiving periodically from Detective Carden, Officer Zirklebach received a tip from a confidential informant that Johnson would be carrying cocaine in his brown Jaguar. The informant also said that if Johnson did not have cocaine in his car, the police should check his underwear or the waistband of his pants. Officer Zirklebach testified at the suppression hearing that this confidential informant was registered as such with the Evansville Police Department and that he had spoken with this informant dozens of times over five years. "[Slome of those instances resulted in arrest and some didn't," Officer Zirklebach said.
Here two experienced investigators had concluded that Johnson met the profile of a drug courier and an independent tip from a registered drug informant confirmed that view. Conceding that these two sets of facts alone, and assuming that both of them together, did not provide the police with probable cause to make an arrest, I nevertheless think that United States Supreme Court precedents make clear that either alone likely, and both together clearly, provide the articu-lable facts necessary to establish reasonable suspicion justifying a Terry-stop.
In United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 104 L.Ed.2d 1 (1989), the Supreme Court addressed the question of whether drug courier profile evidence was enough to establish reasonable suspicion for an investigatory stop. Defendant had appealed his drug conviction on grounds of an illegal stop. The Supreme Court recited that, at the time of the stop, the DEA agents knew that the defendant paid for two airplane tickets from a roll of $20 bills, that he was traveling under a name that did not match the name under which his telephone number was listed, that his destination was Miami, that he stayed in Miami for only 48 hours before returning to Honolulu, that he appeared nervous during his trip, and that he did not check any luggage. Chief Justice Rehnquist concluded that, while "[aIny one of these factors is not by itself proof of any illegal conduct and is quite consistent with innocent travell,] ... taken together they amount to reasonable suspicion." Sokolow, 490 U.S. at 9, 109 S.Ct. at 1586.
In Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972), the Supreme Court was faced with an unverified tip from a known informant who had provided information in the past. Conceding that the unverified tip may have been insufficient to support an arrest or search warrant, the Supreme Court nevertheless concluded that the information carried sufficient "indicia of reliability" to justify a Terry-stop. Adams, 407 U.S. at 147, 92 S.Ct. at 1923-24.
And in Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 110 S.Ct. 2412, 110 L.Ed.2d 301 (1990), the Supreme Court sustained (in what it de-seribed as a "close case") an anonymous tip, corroborated by the defendant acting in conformity with the tip, as "exhibiting sufficient indicia of reliability to Justify the investigatory stop." 496 U.S. at 332, 110 S.Ct. at 2417. The following guidance from Alabama v. White is, I think, helpful here:
Reasonable suspicion is a less demanding standard than probable cause not only in the sense that reasonable suspicion can be established with information that is different in quantity or content than that required to establish probable cause, but also in the sense that reasonable suspicion can arise from information that is less reliable than that required to show probable cause.... Reasonable suspicion ... 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 cireumstances-the whole picture," United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417 [101 S.Ct. 690, 695, 66 L.Ed.2d 621] (1981), that must be taken into account when evaluating whether there is reasonable suspiclon. 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.
*122Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. at 330, 110 S.Ct. at 2416.
I find the tip in the present case to be of at least moderate reliability-though not verified, it did come from a registered police informant who had provided the police with reliable information in the past. To the extent the tip alone was not a sufficient articu-lable fact to establish reasonable suspicion, surely it, in combination with Detective Car-den's and Officer Zirklebach's analysis of Johnson's suspicious behavior, established the requisite quantum of suspicion to justify the stop. I therefore agree with the Court of Appeals that the police had a reasonable suspicion based on articulable facts to justify an investigatory stop of Johnson under Terry v. Ohio. I further agree with the Court of Appeals that Johnson's question, "Are you going to look in my pants?," substantially corroborated the informant's tip and gave rise to probable cause to search Johnson and his car.
I would affirm the trial court.