Court Opinion

ID: 9494441
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:38:02.580962+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:25.034166
License: Public Domain

MESKILL, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the result:
I concur in the result reached in this case but write separately to express my view that the police officers had sufficient corroboration of the anonymous tip to justify the Terry stop of the vehicle. I would not reach the issue of government waiver.
I would vacate the suppression order on the ground that, under the circumstances of this case, the anonymous tip possessed sufficient indicia of reliability to justify a Terry stop. This is the argument that the government pressed below, the Magistrate Judge embraced and the district court rejected. I believe the district court erred.
In Florida v. J.L., 529 U.S. 266, 120 S.Ct. 1375, 146 L.Ed.2d 254 (2000), the Supreme Court faced the issue “whether an anonymous tip that a person is carrying a gun is, without more, sufficient to justify a police officer’s stop and frisk of that person.” Id. at 268, 120 S.Ct. 1375. A unanimous Court held that, under the facts presented, it was not. In that case, the police received an anonymous tip that a young, black man wearing a plaid shirt, standing at a certain bus stop, was carrying a weapon. The tipster did not provide any basis for his claim. The police did not *150trace or record the call. Upon approaching the bus stop, the police spotted three young black men, one of whom was wearing a plaid shirt. They approached the suspect, frisked him and found a handgun. Id. At trial, the defendant moved to suppress the gun on the grounds that the protective search violated the Fourth Amendment.
The Supreme Court held that “[t]he anonymous call concerning J.L. provided no predictive information and therefore left the police without means to test the informant’s knowledge or credibility.” Id. at 271, 120 S.Ct. 1375. The caller “neither explained how he knew about the gun nor supplied any basis for believing he had inside information about J.L.” Id. The Court held that where the anonymous tip is the sole basis for a Terry stop, the tip must not only be reliable in identifying the suspect, but also “in its assertion of illegality.” Id. at 272, 120 S.Ct. 1375. The Court concluded that the anonymous tip in that case did not provide sufficient indicia of reliability with respect to J.L.’s criminal activity. Id. at 271, 120 S.Ct. 1375.
I believe that Harrell is distinguishable from J.L. in at least two respects. First, the anonymous tip in this case provided indicia of reliability that the Supreme Court expressly found absent in J.L. Second, the conduct reported by the anonymous tipster in this case constituted a present danger to the caller and the community at large.
A. Indicia of Reliability
This case presents at least two indications that the anonymous tip was reliable that were not present in J.L. First, in this case, the police traced and recorded the anonymous call. The Supreme Court noted in J.L. that “[s]o far as the record reveals, there is no audio recording of the tip, and nothing is known about the informant.” 529 U.S. at 268, 120 S.Ct. 1375. In concurrence, Justice Kennedy, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist, recognized that “the ability of the police to [record telephone tips and] trace the identity of anonymous telephone informants may be a factor which lends reliability to what, years earlier, might have been considered unreliable anonymous tips.” Id. at 276, 120 S.Ct. 1375 (Kennedy, J., concurring). Although in this case, the ability of the police to record and trace the call did not result in the identification of the caller, it did reveal the location of the call (in close proximity to the alleged illegal activity and the eventual discovery of the suspects) and allow the district court to review the tone and substance of the call.
Second, in J.L., the Supreme Court expressed concern that the anonymous tipster did not “explain[ ] how he knew about the gun.” Id. at 271, 120 S.Ct. 1375. Here, the caller reported that he knew about the criminal activity because the suspects waived guns at him, were following him through the neighborhood, and had shot at him a week earlier. I believe that this is a sufficient explanation of the basis for the caller’s knowledge of criminal activity. Although police never identified the caller, an eyewitness account of ongoing criminal activity is a superior indication of reliability than a blanket allegation (as in J.L.) that someone, somewhere is carrying a concealed weapon.
B. Present Danger
In United States v. Bold, 19 F.3d 99 (2d Cir.1994), we articulated an exception to the requirement of sufficient indicia of reliability in cases where the tip involved the possession or use of guns. In distinguishing guns from drugs, we noted that:
Th[e] element of imminent danger distinguishes a gun tip from one involving possession of drugs. If there is any *151doubt about the reliability of an anonymous tip in the latter case, the police can limit their response to surveillance or engage in “controlled buys.” Where guns are involved, however, there is the risk that an attempt to “wait out” the suspect might have fatal consequences.
Id. at 104 (quoting United States v. Clipper, 973 F.2d 944, 951 (D.C.Cir.1992)) (alteration in Bold). Thus, we signed on to the so-called “firearm exception” to the reasonable suspicion requirement. See, e.g., Clipper, 973 F.2d at 949.
In J.L., the Supreme Court rejected the firearm exception, fearing that such an exception would “enable any person seeking to harass another to set in motion an intrusive, embarrassing police search of the targeted person simply by placing an anonymous call falsely reporting the target’s unlawful carriage of a gun.” 529 U.S. at 272, 120 S.Ct. 1375 (emphasis added). The Court also reasoned, rejecting the distinction advanced in Bold, that such an exception could too easily be stretched to cover narcotics suspects. J.L., therefore, expressly overrules Bold to the extent that this Court endorsed a blanket exception to the indicia of reliability requirement where the possession of firearms is alleged. The holding, however, does not abrogate Bold with respect to anonymous tips involving present activity or “imminent danger.” In J.L., the Court refused to speculate “about the circumstances under which the danger alleged in an anonymous tip might be so great as to justify a search even without a showing of reliability.” 529 U.S. at 273-74, 120 S.Ct. 1375 (using example of possession of a bomb). In cases such as these, the requirement of indicia of reliability may be reduced or eliminated in order to serve important governmental and law enforcement interests. Here, the anonymous caller reported ongoing criminal activity that threatened his life and perhaps the lives of others in the community. In my view, this fact alone distinguishes the present case from the situation in J.L. Coupled with the additional indicia of reliability discussed above, I believe the district court erred in finding that the officers did not have sufficient cause to pull over the defendants’ vehicle.
I would vacate the suppression order on that basis and not reach the closer question of government waiver.