TOPEKA POLICE DEPARTMENT
 Number: LB 00-2
LEGAL BULLETIN
SUBJECT: ANONYMOUS TIPS AND TERRY FRISKS
AMENDS: 
STATUTE REFERENCES:
ISSUING AUTHORITY: John Knoll, City Attorney DATE ISSUED: April 3, 2000

Court Evaluates the Reliability of Anonymous Tips, Standing Alone, and Holds They are Insufficient to Support a Terry Frisk

    In Florida vs. J. L., ___ U.S. ___ (No. 98-1993 filed March 28, 2000), the United States Supreme Court held that police generally cannot stop and search someone for a gun based on an anonymous tip accurately describing only that person's location and clothing.

    Police had received an anonymous tip that three black youths were standing in front of a pawnshop and that the one in a plaid shirt was carrying a concealed gun. Police approached and, apparently without asking any questions, patted down J. L., the only one wearing a plaid shirt. Officers found a gun. J. L. a minor, moved to suppress the gun as the product of an illegal search. The United States Supreme Court, in a unanimous 9-0 decision, held the gun should have been suppressed.

    The Court stated, "[u]nlike a tip from a known informant whose reputation can be assessed and who can be held responsible if her allegations turn out to be fabricated, an anonymous tip alone seldom demonstrates the informant's basis of knowledge or veracity." Therefore, an anonymous tip, without sufficient corroboration, cannot rise to the level of reasonable suspicion of criminal wrongdoing to support a Terry stop or frisk. The court distinguished prior anonymous tip cases dealing with drugs, stating:

[T]he officer's suspicion about J. L. in this case "arose not from any observations of their own but solely from a call made from an unknown location by an unknown caller. Unlike a tip from a known informant whose reputation can be assessed and who can be held responsible if her allegations turn out to be fabricated, see Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 146-147 (1972), "'an anonymous tip alone seldom demonstrates the informant’s basis of knowledge or veracity,'" Alabama v. White, 496 U.S., at 329. As we have recognized, however, there are situations in which an anonymous tip, suitably corroborated, exhibits "'sufficient indicia of reliability to provide reasonable suspicion to make the investigatory stop.'" Id., at 327. The question we here confront is whether the tip pointing to J. L. had those indicia of reliability

In White, the police received an anonymous tip asserting that a woman was carrying cocaine and predicting that she would leave an apartment building at a specified time, get into a car matching a particular description, and drive to a named motel. Ibid. Standing alone, the tip would not have justified a Terry stop. Id., at 329. Only after police observation showed that the informant had accurately predicted the woman's movements, we explained, did it become reasonable to think the tipster had inside knowledge about the suspect and therefore to credit his assertion about the cocaine. Id., at 332. Although the Court held that the suspicion in White became reasonable after police surveillance, we regarded the case as borderline. Knowledge about a person's future movements indicates some familiarity with that person's affairs, but having such knowledge does not necessarily imply that the informant knows, in particular, whether that person is carrying hidden contraband. We accordingly classified White as a "'close case.'" Ibid.

The tip in the instant case lacked the moderate indicia of reliability present in White and essential to the Court's decision in that case. The anonymous call concerning J. L. provided no predictive information and therefore left the police without means to test the informant's knowledge or credibility. That the allegation about the gun turned out to be correct does not suggest that the officers, prior to the frisks, had a reasonable basis for suspecting J. L. of engaging in unlawful conduct: The reasonableness of official suspicion must be measured by what the officers knew before they conducted their search. All the police had to go on in this case was the bare report of an unknown, unaccountable informant who neither explained how he knew about the gun nor supplied any basis for believing he had inside information about J. L. If White was a close case on the reliability of anonymous tips, this one surely falls on the other side of the line.

     The Court also rejected the State's argument that, due to the dangerousness of weapons, there should be a "firearms" exception to the reasonable suspicion rule, saying such an exception would create a slippery slope of constitutional loopholes. If the court allowed gun exceptions, Justice Ginsburg wrote, states might argue for drug frisks based solely on "bare-boned tips about narcotics." The court noted that its ruling does not cover true "public safety" exception cases, stating, for example, that a report of a person carrying a bomb would not necessarily have to "bear the indicia of reliability we demand for a report of a person carrying a firearm before police can constitutionally conduct a frisk."

    Under current law, police can act on an anonymous tip only if it involves suspicious behavior that they witness once on the scene; if the tipster accurately predicts future events; or if the information leads to independent police work that uncovers additional evidence.

    Please advise if you have any questions about this decision.