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Supreme Court OKs Stop and Search Based On Anonymous 911 Tips
An anonymous reader writes "On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police officers are legally allowed to stop and search vehicles based solely on anonymous 911 tips. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority opinion, reasoned that 'a 911 call has some features that allow for identifying and tracking callers' as well as for recording their calls, both of which he believed gave anonymous callers enough reliability for police officers to act on their tips with reasonable suspicion against the people being reported.
The specific case before them involved an anonymous woman who called 911 to report a driver who forced her off the road. She gave the driver's license plate number and the make and model of his car as well as the location of the incident in question. Police officers later found him, pulled him over, smelled marijuana, and searched his car. They found 30 pounds of weed and subsequently arrested the driver. The driver later challenged the constitutionality of the arrest, claiming that a tip from an anonymous source was unreliable and therefore failed to meet the criteria of reasonable suspicion, which would have justified the stop and search. Five of the nine justices disagreed with him." The ruling itself (PDF).
The specific case before them involved an anonymous woman who called 911 to report a driver who forced her off the road. She gave the driver's license plate number and the make and model of his car as well as the location of the incident in question. Police officers later found him, pulled him over, smelled marijuana, and searched his car. They found 30 pounds of weed and subsequently arrested the driver. The driver later challenged the constitutionality of the arrest, claiming that a tip from an anonymous source was unreliable and therefore failed to meet the criteria of reasonable suspicion, which would have justified the stop and search. Five of the nine justices disagreed with him." The ruling itself (PDF).
I've got this hankerin' to call 911.
This law could get repealed mighty quick if it's senators and congressmen getting pulled over from anonymous tips.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
If someone who doesn't like me makes an "anonymous" call to 911 to report that I'm running meth lab in my garage, does that also give the cops the right to ransack my house looking for a meth lab?
It's sad that "probable cause" has been diluted to the point that it has.
Hasn't this already been going on with "anonymous" tips from the DEA and DHS leading to traffic stops where "parallel construction" is used to fabricate grounds for probable cause after the fact? I guess this ruling removes the need to do the whole "parallel construction" thing?
but we all agree that Seven of Nine is the most gorgeous...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
This way they can just call themselves anonymously and then search any car/house they like without violating any law.
> Does this seem like yet another easily fabricated excuse the police can use to search your property?
Uh... no. No search is involved or permitted solely based on an anonymous tip... just pulling someone over. This falls under the "reasonable suspicion" standard for pulling someone over. They pulled me over for "accelerating too fast out of an intersection" at about the time the bars were closing... that was reasonable suspicion that I was drinking and driving and all they needed to pull me over even though there IS no crime for "accelerating too fast".
The "reasonable suspicion" standard is MUCH lower than "probable cause" which is required for a search. They still can't search you based on an anonymous tip... just pull you over and ask you questions, which you can of course refuse to answer.
People discussing this issue would do well to bone up on the difference between "reasonable suspicion" and "probable cause". People misuse the terms all the time... they are very different, and anyone who interacts with, or may interact with the police, should know what the terms mean.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
1) Police officer sees car he wants to search
2) Police officer calls 911 placing an anon tip
3) Police officer gets to do whatever the hell he wants.
historically, authority figures getting to do whatever the hell they want has worked out pretty well.
Just to play devil's advocate, how is this more invasive than DUI checkpoints?
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
This is a boon to "parallel construction"
I for one don't think that the accuser should ever be anonymous when it comes to court cases, since we would have a right to face them in a court of law. I think for reporting the guy down the street who keeps violating noise or lawn ordinances is a different story. As those never really go to court.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Parallel Construction. You'll pardon me if I don't believe a single word from the mouths of our American "law enforcement" and "justice" system. Amazing that he just happened to have those 30 pounds of weed.
It's like peeling a letigous onion.
The officers stopped the car under reasonable suspicion of drunk driving. The anonymous call was enough to equate to an eyewitness observation of erradict driving, according to this ruling.
In a separate issue, upon pulling the truck over the officer could recognize a potent marijuana smell, which under the Plain View Doctrine (that includes smell) allowed them to search the truck.
No beer and no TV make Homer something something
This. The NPR article seems misleading. They stopped him based on the 911 call. Which seems reasonable to me. If some moron is driving like a fool I'd really like to cops to stop him. The probable cause for the SEARCH was due to the marijuana smell. I don't think this ruling is a broad as it's being made out to be.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
As to the inference that the truck's driver was drunk, Scalia pointed out that the police officers here followed the pickup for over five minutes — and "five minutes is a long time" — without any indication of drunken driving or even bad driving. "After today's opinion," said Scalia, "all of us on the road, and not just drug dealers, are at risk ... "
Actually sounds Scalia was the dissenting opinion, period. I tend to agree with the quoted point of view of Scalia...an anonymous 911 call prompts police to target this driver, the driver gives NO indication of dui/reckless/endangering driving, yet the cops STILL pull the guy over, and win in court because of a "technicality". Scalia is right, we are all at risk for abuse of power by cops (not only that, but the justice system ruling in favor of the loss of our freedoms that are OWED to us by the Constitution).
While it may have worked out ok in this situation it is a very bad president. I do not want to be pulled over for no fucking reason.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Funny how their sense of smell works. They can recognize a potent marijuana smell in a vehicle that has never contained marijuana if the occupants look like they smell like marijuana.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
While it may have worked out ok in this situation it is a very bad president.
It might be better than last few presidents we've had.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
They got a call, including plate number and location, that a car had run someone off the road.
What they did not have was any evidence that someone was actually run off the road.
Nor did they have any evidence that the driver of the suspect vehicle was in any way impaired (they followed him for five minutes without seeing any erratic driving).
For all we know, the "anonymous caller" could have been his ex trying to get him in trouble, or a member of a rival drug gang trying to get his payload confiscated....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Why would the driver have to consent? The drive for "public security" has already diminished our rights to the point that as soon as the officer states he 'smelled weed', he has all the consent he needs. Maybe you need to take a look at reality and hopefully begin to understand the severe slope we're already sliding down. What's next? Paying kids with new uniforms to turn in their parents for cussing?
Senior NCO in the fight against entropy. I've seen things, man. Things no one should have to see.....
While it may have worked out ok in this situation it is a very bad president.
It might be better than last few presidents we've had.
Well, the last couple of presidents have been guiding us on a downward course where surveillance is everything and you are guilty until proven innocent. All the way back to "get-the-government-off-the-backs-of-the-people-Reagan", who thoughtfully provided us with the "you're a drug-addled illegal alien and you can't be hired until you demonstrate otherwise" model for business.
At the rate we're going, a rock would make a better president.
Or more likely, a government agent with information obtained illegally.
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As much as I hate to find myself anywhere near Scalia (through he's joined here by Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan), police can legitimately act on a tip only after proving that a tipster is *likely* to be telling the truth. In this case, after following the car for five minutes and not seeing anything that gave them suspicion that the driver was drunk, there's no way that they could have reasonable suspicion this guy was a drunk driver. Given the documented existence of SWATing, anonymous tips cannot be considered credible grounds for intrusion into a person's liberty.
Interestingly, in this case the tip was not anonymous, but that fact wasn't brought up in the original prosecution and so the tip is dealt with as anonymous.
Really? You believe that most progressives believe that in 1857, no person of African descent could be a citizen of a state, despite zero evidence for this decision in the text of the Constitution? And that in 1896, states could comply with the equal protection clause via "separate but equal" bullshit? Well, it does seem that "progressive" has been defined downwards since Obama came into office.
Human rights, democracy, the rule of law, and SCOTUS decisions, are areas that overlap sometimes but not always. Genuine progressives put human rights before the others.
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You cannot wash away blood with blood
> For all we know, the "anonymous caller" could have been his ex trying to get him in trouble, or a member of a
> rival drug gang trying to get his payload confiscated....
Exactly, and you know....I know people with exes who would pull shit like that. I mean for fucks sake, when my friend's wife went down to report his ex-wife punching her, she found the ex-wife was already down there filing a report saying that she was the one punched. Now, after years of back and forth battles (custody would you believe) in and out of court, including false charges of various kinds,
More than that though.... if there is no need to go back and verify the original tip, if it can be anonymous....then the police can phone in their own tips! This is yet more parallell construction bullshit. How do we even know there was such a woman? For all we really know it was a cop, or the wife of a cop, making a call to cover up the real source of the information....ie a criminal conspiracy to deny the driver the right to a fair trial.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
> ...even though there IS no crime for "accelerating too fast".
There are such laws, usually prohibiting "exhibition of speed", "speed contests", and similar acts. In California, it is VEHICLE CODE 23109:
Speed Contests
23109. (a) A person shall not engage in a motor vehicle speed contest on a highway. As used in this section, a motor vehicle speed contest includes a motor vehicle race against another vehicle, a clock, or other timing device. For purposes of this section, an event in which the time to cover a prescribed route of more than 20 miles is measured, but where the vehicle does not exceed the speed limits, is not a speed contest.
(b) A person shall not aid or abet in any motor vehicle speed contest on any highway.
(c) A person shall not engage in a motor vehicle exhibition of speed on a highway, and a person shall not aid or abet in a motor vehicle exhibition of speed on any highway. ...etc...
Bad driving *does* give reasonable suspicion of impairment, and even an anonymous report is certainly sufficient cause to stop the vehicle and briefly question the driver... which in general would amount to them just saying that they received a report about the vehicle... Since they had not personally witnessed the erratic driving, they would have had no basis to even ask him to get outside of his vehicle, but would have just questioned him through an open window, After quickly checking to see if there were any other reports about the vehicle, they would have asked the driver if they had anything to drink that evening. If the answer was no, and they had no reason to suspect the person was lying (ie, he was not visibly impaired), then they would have just let the person go.
It was only after they had stopped the vehicle and actually questioned the guy that gave them further reasonable suspicion to search his vehicle, and find that he was guilty of another crime.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Dude, with 30lbs of marijuana in the car even a coke fiend with a head cold could have smelled the stuff and become suspicious that the car contained illegal contraband. I personally am in favor of legalization, but as long as it's illegal I fully acknowledge that someone carrying that amount of stuff is going to give enough signals to the police to easily justify a search, just like grow houses that the cops can smell from public places. The problem is drugs being against the law, not that police officers confronted with obvious signs of illegal behavior are conducting searches based on reasonable suspicion. The question at hand was whether an anonymous call to 911 could justify pulling over a vehicle, not whether a cop who smells a vehicle reeking of drugs has a reasonable enough suspicion to conduct a search.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
"reasonable" is a very, very difficult word for humans. They like much more the "all or nothing" concept.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
My issue in this case is assume he didn't have weed in his car, what exactly were they going to do to him? They track him down, pull him over and then what do they do? They have an anonymous call saying he forced someone off the road, but no evidence of it. They have no video, no witnesses, not even a real person willing to say they were run off the road. So they pull him over and ask him if he ran someone off the road? And when he obviously says no they just let him go? There was nothing they could do to him unless there is some other secondary issue like in this case.
I can see now a lot of anonymous tips coming in from pay phones near where cops are hanging out. They suspect someone has drugs in their car, they just make an anonymous tip about the car doing something bad and then they have a reason to pull them over.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
A couple of times while on a bicycle I've stopped police cars to give them descriptions of vehicles that were driving dangerously: in one case a gravel truck that almost ran us over on a narrow road and in another case a sports car coming up a winding mountain road with all 4 wheels on the wrong side of the yellow line around a blind corner. In both cases they lit up and set out after them without worrying about whether they could find me again. In both cases I could describe the vehicle, recent location, and direction, but no plate. They certainly would pull them over based on those tips, and I agree that they'd need to find some other PC to justify a search beyond what's in plain sight.
Scalia never met a search he considers unreasonable ...
Except for this one? Did you miss that Scalia wrote the dissent while Thomas wrote the majority opinion?
My God, it's Full of Source!
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DON'T BE A DICK ON THE HIGHWAY! Drive conservatively, dress conservatively, and be completely (able to pass a blood test) sober.
Most importantly: Don't draw attention to yourself.
Who did what now?
The Supreme court ruled the officer had reasonable suspicion that the drive was intoxicate and driving under the influence. The did not rule on the acceptance of the anonymous phone call or that it was acceptable against the 4th amendment. Only that a reasonable suspicion of driving while intoxicated can be investigated from a tipster.
Which just shows that the "anonymous" call was actually placed by the DEA or NSA or whoever had some illegally gotten information. Remember how they like to perform what they call "Parallel Construction". And now the supreme court has ruled that OK.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
My issue in this case is assume he didn't have weed in his car, what exactly were they going to do to him? They track him down, pull him over and then what do they do? They have an anonymous call saying he forced someone off the road, but no evidence of it. They have no video, no witnesses, not even a real person willing to say they were run off the road. So they pull him over and ask him if he ran someone off the road? And when he obviously says no they just let him go? There was nothing they could do to him unless there is some other secondary issue like in this case.
I can see now a lot of anonymous tips coming in from pay phones near where cops are hanging out. They suspect someone has drugs in their car, they just make an anonymous tip about the car doing something bad and then they have a reason to pull them over.
I would expect the officer to pull him over, make sure he's licensed and insured, and then explain that there was a complaint that he was driving recklessly. Just as I would expect the police to come and knock on my neighbor's door for if someone called and claimed they heard someone being beaten inside. They don't have to issue a citation, or search the person's property. Just the act of stopping the person can dissuade them from continuing their behavior. The moral of the story is to not drive like a total jackass when you have 30 pounds of marijuana in your car.
I'm perfectly fine with the police acting on tips from citizens. Where this becomes a problem is when the "anonymous tipster" is actually a government agent. If you allow this sort of tip to be used, it can definitely be abused by the government.
I'm sure if I followed an important public figure around for a while I could catch him rolling a stop sign or two.
It's called stalking.
If you are spotted, expect your high profile target or his warders to call for back-up.
Scalia w/ the liberal females in dissent and Breyer in the majority w/Thomas, Roberts, Alito and Kennedy? On *this* issue Breyer sides w/Thomas et al?
I don't even....
Dude with 30lbs of marijuana in an uncovered truck bed.
I hate the War on Drugs as much as the next /.er, but seriously, if you have that much weed you can probably afford a hard-top or a van or something.
it is a very bad president
Come on, now. This is Obama's fault, too?
I've read lots of your comments here, and you keep beating the same drum.
The police are allowed to pull someone over on an anonymous tip. They didn't even have to trail the person for 15 minutes to try to find other evidence of impairment. Just because they did that does not mean that they are no longer allowed to pull them over.
Just in the same way that pulling them over and then asking, "Are you impaired?" and getting a "no" answer does not mean that they are not allowed to ask further questions.
The search was conducted because of the smell of marijuana, which neither you nor I nor anyone else can prove was present, so continuing to question it is just pointless for the purposes of this discussion. However, there is the indisputable fact that marijuana *was* present, 30 freaking pounds of it, so I don't know how anyone could suggest that it was more likely that the cops made up the fact that they smelled it, than that they actually smelled it.
The bizarreness of Thomas' justification is pretty over-the-top. He's saying that an anonymous call creates probable cause because its not anonymous? The progression of that argument would be the government can authorize itself to search anything. A cop could just call 911, non-anonymously and even give his name, to create the tip that authorizes himself to search. Wouldn't that trigger the newly-created exception and make it legal?
Maybe there's some way that 911 calls could circumvent the 4th, but a not-really-anonymous anonymous call angle? WTF.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Right there in the word "Anonymous tip.
Quite simply the tip itself is part of the tree. At the very least, that tip is the trunk of the tree. Without it, he would not have been given extra scrutiny beyond what anyone else would get. If that trunk is not part of the evidence presented, then how do we know if it is the trunk or just another branch; being presented as such.
Parallel construction is fraud, and this is little more than the courts giving a full green light to the production of false evidence trails.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
IANAL.