Should police be able to pull you over on an anonymous tip?

Great Debates
1

I was reading this article and thought it would be interesting to discuss here.

The question for debate is do you think an anonymous tip is sufficient for police to pull you over or do they have to witness you breaking the law (or otherwise being overtly suspicious) to stop you?

Personally, while I understand the desire to get someone who may be dangerous off the road, I am bothered by the notion that someone merely accusing me of “X” would be sufficient for police to come after me. Certainly it should put them on my trail to watch closely but not enough to pull me over. Who knows who the person calling it in is? Maybe it is a disgruntled driver mad at me for not clearing the intersection fast enough. Maybe it is a pissed off boy/girlfriend. Maybe it is a prank. Of course it may be the bar tender who just served me 12 beers in three hours. Point is how are the police to know?

I also wonder if there is a slippery slope here? If they can pull you over can they come into your house on an anonymous tip? Search you on an anonymous tip?

2

AFAICT, the police can pull you over for pretty much any reason, or for no reason at all.*

But to ticket someone for a moving violation, I’d expect them to have actual evidence, whether from their own observation, or from a camera being used for traffic enforcement purposes, or whatever.

Somehow, an anonymous tip just doesn’t strike me as sufficient evidence to ticket someone.

  • One evening, the cops had set up a sobriety checkpoint on the way into a local town which had backed up traffic considerably. I pulled out of the line, turned around, and headed back home rather than wait 10 minutes for my turn at the checkpoint. A cop pulled out, followed me awhile, then pulled me over for my decision to (in his view) avoid their checkpoint. But I explained myself, and was clearly sober, so no ticket or warning was issued.
3

What will happen now is that an anonymous tip will result in the police seeing “something” about the car to justify a stop. I think the better answer is that an anonymous tip about drunk driving, a potential crime in action, should not allow evidence of other crimes turned up to be admissible.

4

No, for two reasons.

(1) if the police need some justification to pull you over/search you/whatever, that rule has no meaning if there isn’t some requirement that the facts providing that justification be reliable. To me, an anonymous tip, absent more, just isn’t reliable–or at least, there’s no way of telling if it is or not.

(2) Such a rule encourages abuse–by making it very easy to commit, and giving a reason to commit it.

Say, for example, the mayberry PD wants to search the home of X, but can’t get a warrant.

If an anonymous tip, on its own, is enough for a warrant, then (1) there will be a very strong impulse for that tip to come from the payphone outside the police station, and (2) there will be no easy way to stop such abuse–after all, the tip is anonymous.

Whether or not policemen are generally good or not ( I don’t mean to get into that debate)–I think that a rule that makes abuse easy, and under which abuse is rewarded (in that the abuser gets what he wants) is a bad rule.

This is not to say an anonymous tip can’t be relevant–or should be ignored by the police–just that it, on its own, can’t be enough. For example, anonymous tip + driving erratically ought to be plenty.

CJ roberts talks about the risk of one kind of error-not stopping a drunk driver before injury is caused.

First, I think that risk is fairly unlikely— for his risk to manifest, you need a drunk driver who is not (1) driving badly enough to be pulled over when a cop checks him out after the anonymous tip, but (2) drunk enough to cause a fatal crash. My intuition is that if you have (2), it’s very unlikely not to have (1).

I fear another kind of risk–one that I think would be much more frequent-- the risk of wrong or intentional anonymous tips leading to unnecessary stops, searches, and general harassment, or abuse of the rule being used to get around the constitutional rights.

5

A police stop should require probable cause. Real probable cause. I do not think an anonymous tip constitutes probable cause.

6

IANAL and things may be different state-to-state but doesn’t this go to probable cause? I thought police needed that before stopping you (think of issue with profiling if they could stop for any reason at all).

Besides, in this case the court tossed the conviction because of an improper stop so at least in that state apparently they cannot pull over for any reason or no reason.

7

These days with dashboard mounted cameras I am not so sure police can get away with that so simply (although I presume not all police cars have cameras).

For your second part lets take an extreme example to illustrate the point (albeit a real example that takes us to the basis for the exclusionary rule you are talking about…note the whole thing is started on an anonymous tip):

So, in your view, nevermind that the police illegally searched this house. That they found illegal materials in the house should still stand.

On this basis police should be able to just search houses at will. If they find bad stuff you’re busted. If not, oh well…at least it is a safer world.

8

But ‘crime stopper’ numbers are advertised and anonymity is assured and occasionally the TV news reports that a criminal has been arrested as a result of information reported anonymously. So at least the PSA segment of local news wants you to think that the police act on anonymous tips.

9

And the police should. I have zero problem with police following up on an anonymous tip to see if anything is amiss. However, absent any more evidence than the tip itself the police should not act.

Otherwise, all it would take is for me to call in an anonymous tip that janeslogin has a meth lab and the police will gleefully kick in your door to check it out.

Methinks you would not be ok with that.

10

I’m battling swine flu, so pardon me if I’m less than coherent.

Pulling over a vehicle is called a stop. This is a distinct action from the thing we call an arrest. The level of suspicion necessary for a stop is not probable cause, it is lower. We call the level reasonable suspicion. Reasonable suspicion basically just requires that a person has been, is, or is about to be engaged in criminal activity based on specific and articulable facts and inferences.

What this means is that the officer can allege that you swerved out of the lane, exceeded the speed limit, or even something lesser, like meet a certain profile of a person in a “high crime neighborhood” (e.g. inner city neighborhood).

Thus, in my view, the standard is already so ridiculously diluted that one cannot really worry about anonymous tips. Indeed, as a matter of law, it is hard to reconcile not allowing anonymous tips with allowing stops for much more subjective measures. Sure, they’re easy to fake. But so is alleging a car swerved a bit or that a guy walked away from you on your approach to his stoop. If an officer is going to rely on a seemingly unreliable tip, he’s probably going to invent reasonable suspicion anyway. On the other hand, a honest officer might legitimately be able to use a reliable-seeming tip.

In short, this is the kind of rule that, for the most part, doesn’t stop dishonest police, but does stop honest ones. That said, there are more important cases to take cert. on.

11

I don’t have a problem with police pulling you over for an anonymous tip. I find being pulled over to be non-invasive. In my mind the tip is reason enough to pull you over and run you license and registration. If upon pulling you over they find evidence you have been drinking they can go from there. The tip does not justify a breathalyzer or a search of your car however, I feel the police need actual reasonable suspicion for those things.

To the meth lab analogy if someone anonymously tips the police I have a meth lab in my basement I have no issues with the police knocking on my door and inquiring. I wouldn’t let them in and my conversation would be very brief. If they want to kick in my door they better have a search warrant and I’d hope our judicial system demanded more then an anonymous tip to grant it.

12

Nothing to add to this post - it sums up the response I was crafting in my own head…

13

No, an anonymous tip alone should not suffice. The supreme court has ruled an anonymous tip alone does not warrant probable cause. That’s the whole focus of the Kopbusters bust where they setup a fake weed growing operation in a house and the police subsequently raided it on a supposed anonymous tip and the cops’ illegal usage of infrared cameras to detect the grow lights: http://www.nevergetbusted.com/kopbusters/about.php

14

All anonymous tips are not created equal.

“Boytyperanma has a meth lab in the basement,” is not the same as “I was over at Boytyperanma’s house yesterday and saw that he has six gallons of pseudoephedrine in three two-gallon white containers behind a false wall next to the stairs in the basement, and he told me he is going to be cooking down all weekend.”

Illinois v. Gates is the seminal case for establishing whether an anonymous tip can create probable cause. It can, the court found, if the tip shows generally support for the informant’s “veracity,” “reliability,” and “basis of knowledge.”

15

So what? None of those considerations are applicable to an *anonymous *tipster. Even if they were, the tipster would be reporting his opinion rather than fact, anyway.

If a cop follows a driver who is really impaired for a little while, he’ll directly see enough probable cause for a stop. If he doesn’t, then that evidence is that the driver isn’t really impaired, right?

Roberts is severely wrong here - he’d be opening the door to anyone being able to harass anyone else via the police, without the accused having the constitutional protection of being able to confront the accuser.

16

By the way, Illinois v. Gates, which involved an anonymous tipster, upheld the ultimate search, because the anonymous tip gave enough specific predictive information that could be verified in advance of the search to establish the tip’s reliability. Florida v. J.L. dealt with the question of whether an anonymous tip could establish reasonable suspicion for a stop and frisk. It can, said the court, but again only if the tip provides enough predictive information to establish reliability. The court rejected the tip in J.L. because the only predictive information the tip contained was to entirely legal and unsuspicious behavior.

17

So, in the case cited in the OP your analysis (guessing…correct me if I am wrong) would be:

Call 1: “I was sitting with person-A in a bar for the last three hours and he knocked back 10 beers with me then drove away. I’d rather he was arrested than kill himself in a drunk driving accident so please get him.”

Call 2" “Person-A is driving drunk. You’d better pull him over.”

So, Call 1 is ok and call 2 is not for the police to act?

If so why did Robert’s want to review this?

18

Kinda sorta.

Remember I said:

The key element here is the predictive information that can be established in advance of the search to establish the tip’s reliability.

In the hypo you present, the police can’t simply pull over the car based on the tip and nothing else. They would need to do something to independently establish the tip’s reliability – either check with the bartender or waiter that served the drinks, or follow the car and observe evidence of intoxication (which would be sufficient anyway, regardless of the tip).

Roberts was apparently arguing for a “DUI exception,” interestingly enough, since the case that he wanted to hear was a 2008 Virginia DUI case, Harris v. Commonwealth.

In Harris, a police officer received a dispatch call advising him that there was an intoxicated driver in the 3400 block of Meadowbridge Road, named Joseph Harris, wearing a striped shirt, driving a green Altima, headed south, partial license plate “Y8066.” The disptacher did not convey any information about the person who had reported Harris or when or how that person came to know of Harris’ intoxication.

The officer went to Meadowbridge Road and found a green Altima with license plate YAR-8046. The car did not swerve or otherwise violate any traffic laws while the officer observed it. After the officer followed the car for a short distance, the driver pulled to the side of the road of his own accord. The officer pulled in behind him and turned on his light bar, beginning a traffic stop. The driver, who was in fact named Joseph Harris, had a strong odor of alcohol on his breath, watery eyes, and slurred speech. Harris was arrested for the crime of feloniously operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated after being previously convicted of two like offenses.

The Virginia Supreme Court ultimate found that the anonymous tip and the officer’s observations were not sufficient to create the reasonable suspicion necessary to justify the stop of Harris’ car. While there was plenty of specific information, it didn’t offer an observer any independent ability to assess illegal conduct.

Roberts apparently thoght that the bar for DUI, specifically, should be lower.

19

The case required a totality of evidence to establish probable cause. They stated the anonymous tip alone was not sufficient. As the police were able to confirm points made in the letter the supreme court let it stand for the purposes of establishing probable cause.

From the drunk driving angle it would be akin to the tipster calling and telling the police BoyTypeRanma drank 8 screwdrivers at Bob’s bar and got into his Ford ranger and is now driving down Rt2 westbound. An officer then sees a red Ford Ranger driving westbound on Rt2 runs the plates confirms its owned by BoyTypeRanma and requires no further evidence to pull me over and give a breathalyzer. The police where able to confirm through other means the merit of the tip.

I still dissagree with the decision.

I feel in interest of protecting everyone’s rights the tipster can’t be anonymous if it is to be deemed suitable to establish probable cause… The police should be able to question the veracity reliability and basis of the tipster as well. Allowing invasion of another persons privacy should not be dependent on the quality of lie an anonymous tipper could make.

My arch enemy Ryoga should not be able to anonymously convince the police its OK to invade my rights because he knows I will be driving my Ford Ranger down RT2 at a specific time and has the cunning to make up a believable story. If he is willing to name himself as a complaining witness and can then suffer consequences of providing false information I’d have no issues even if he turned out to be truthful. He is my arch enemy after all I shouldn’t have put myself in the position to get caught.

20

*bolding mine

Why wasn’t more made of this in the case? I would feel that seeing a driver pull off the side of the road without being signaled would be a reason to approach him. Maybe he has mechanical troubles, or a health problem that needs addressed?