U.S. Supreme Court Rules on Anonymous Tip

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  • Denny347

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    What a **** poor article. The decisions are always way more complicated than that. I'll have to look it up. Stupid article didn't even site the case...ugh.
     

    db1959

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    Sure why not. We can be drug tested at work if some says they saw another doing drugs, whether its at work or not.
     

    BE Mike

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    88GT

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    Ok, found more detail at Supreme Court Gives Police New Power To Rely On Anonymous Tips : NPR

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-9490_3fb4.pdf

    Not as Earth shattering as it sounded. It's very fact specific, as typical in their rulings.

    In this case, Thomas, the author of the majority opinion, concluded that because the 911 tipster said she had been forced off the road, she was an eyewitness, and that police could infer that there was reason to believe the truck driver was drunk.

    Red text highlights the inherent problem with the majority's justification.

    None of these standards are verified facts unless and until the stop is made. The claims made by a 9-1-1 caller may be factual. But they can just as easily be completely fabricated.
     

    BehindBlueI's

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    I would have to disagree with you on this. I agree with the minority opinion. An anonymous tip is tantamount to hearsay. I believe the officers should have observed articulable facts to make the traffic stop.

    Heresay rules apply to court room testimony, not the basis for an investigatory stop, and is irrelevant to this conversation. I am not required, nor have I ever been required, to witness an event before investigating it. The only question is was there reasonable suspicion of criminal activity afoot. Can an anonymous tip lead to reasonable suspicion? Sometimes, as the opinion laid out. I also find it interesting that technology is now catching up to who's really anonymous. One of the basis of the opinion seems to be that 911 records both the caller's voice and the telephone number that the call originates from. Are you truly anonymous at that point? On major crimes we've contacted people who called and 'wished to remain anonymous' to identify witnesses. You can't do it with Crimestoppers, since no identifiers are attached to the tip, just an account number, but 911 automatically keeps it.
     

    BE Mike

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    Heresay rules apply to court room testimony, not the basis for an investigatory stop, and is irrelevant to this conversation. I am not required, nor have I ever been required, to witness an event before investigating it. The only question is was there reasonable suspicion of criminal activity afoot. Can an anonymous tip lead to reasonable suspicion? Sometimes, as the opinion laid out. I also find it interesting that technology is now catching up to who's really anonymous. One of the basis of the opinion seems to be that 911 records both the caller's voice and the telephone number that the call originates from. Are you truly anonymous at that point? On major crimes we've contacted people who called and 'wished to remain anonymous' to identify witnesses. You can't do it with Crimestoppers, since no identifiers are attached to the tip, just an account number, but 911 automatically keeps it.
    I'm not an attorney, nor did I sleep at a Holiday Inn Express, but I still have a problem with this. They aren't talking about investigating an event. They are taking about making a traffic stop based solely on an anonymous tip. If I'm not mistaken, before this ruling, an officer could only impede someone's travel after observing certain behavior or observing something else that he/ she could verbally translate to reasonable suspicion.
     

    Denny347

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    Red text highlights the inherent problem with the majority's justification.

    None of these standards are verified facts unless and until the stop is made. The claims made by a 9-1-1 caller may be factual. But they can just as easily be completely fabricated.
    So is it the "anonymous" caller or the fact that a claim in a phone call cannot be verified until the officers make the stop, even if the caller is known, that you have a problem with?
     

    88GT

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    It's not anonymous if you have a name and a recording
    Again, I could lie about my identify and the recording is worthless if it doesn't have any way of revealing my true identity.

    So is it the "anonymous" caller or the fact that a claim in a phone call cannot be verified until the officers make the stop, even if the caller is known, that you have a problem with?
    The latter. The identity of the caller doesn't suddenly create more validity to the claim. It's the fact that the claim is taken as gospel, but the facts of the claim can't be verified until after the stop has been made. (And maybe not even then. What looked like an attempt to run someone off the road might just have been a single moment of stupidity of the driver not paying attention. At any rate, a singular event cannot be corroborated after the fact unless there are other witnesses.)

    Can you enter a home on an anonymous tip of wrong-doing without any corroboration? Serious question. I don't know the limits of forced entry by LE for something they don't actively see themselves.
     

    BehindBlueI's

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    They aren't talking about investigating an event. They are taking about making a traffic stop based solely on an anonymous tip. If I'm not mistaken, before this ruling, an officer could only impede someone's travel after observing certain behavior or observing something else that he/ she could verbally translate to reasonable suspicion.


    The traffic stop IS INVESTIGATING AN EVENT. An investigatory stop is an investigatory stop if you're on foot, on a bicycle, or in a car. You are still briefly detaining someone to establish if criminal activity is afoot, in this case the ongoing crime of DUI.

    There is no requirement that the officer observe a crime. If you run out of a store and say "the guy in that truck just robbed me", did I witness the crime? Can I make an investigatory stop on that vehicle? Of course. The question is do I have reasonable suspicion if criminal activity is afoot, not did I see a crime. There's a metric butt-ton of case law out there about establishing the reliability of an informant. Known informants are automatically given more credibility than anonymous informants, but either can be used to reach the bar of reasonable suspicion if other criteria are met. Specific information, how the informant knows the information, predictive ability of the informant, etc. etc.
     

    Denny347

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    Again, I could lie about my identify and the recording is worthless if it doesn't have any way of revealing my true identity.


    The latter. The identity of the caller doesn't suddenly create more validity to the claim. It's the fact that the claim is taken as gospel, but the facts of the claim can't be verified until after the stop has been made. (And maybe not even then. What looked like an attempt to run someone off the road might just have been a single moment of stupidity of the driver not paying attention. At any rate, a singular event cannot be corroborated after the fact unless there are other witnesses.)

    Can you enter a home on an anonymous tip of wrong-doing without any corroboration? Serious question. I don't know the limits of forced entry by LE for something they don't actively see themselves.
    What BBI said.
     
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