Anonymous Tips and Frisks - legal cases

FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin,The,  August, 2000  by Michael J. Bulzomi

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Determining Reasonable Suspicion

The law enforcement profession is a precarious and perilous one. Its priorities are protecting the public and ensuring officer safety. Officers must be cautious because violence is always possible. Caution, however, does not mean that constitutional rights can be overlooked. It has been argued that "in dealing with rapidly unfolding and often dangerous situations on city streets, the police are in need of an escalating set of flexible responses, graduated in relation to the amount of information they possess." [1]

The Supreme Court of the United States has addressed this need by recognizing search warrant exceptions that apply to situations where the usual search warrant requirement would hinder law enforcement in acquiring evidence that may be otherwise lost, or in obtaining items that would pose a danger to the public or to the officers. These exceptions require a sufficient showing of probable cause, or in cases of safety, reasonable suspicion. The Court appears reluctant to create any further search warrant exceptions other than the five it has currently allowed. These exceptions are: 1) the emergency or exigent circumstances exception, which requires a reasonable suspicion of danger to justify a limited search [2] or probable cause to allow a search to prevent escape [3] or to avoid the destruction of evidence; [4] 2) the consent exception, which requires a reasonable belief that the consenting party has apparent authority, control, and access over the property and voluntarily consents; [5] 3) the motor vehicle e xception requires probable cause to believe there is evidence or contraband in the motor vehicle; [6] 4) the search incident to arrest exception, which is justified by a lawful custodial arrest, [7] permitting a search of the arrestee, personal items in his possession, [8] the area within the arrestee's immediate control [9] for weapons, means of escape and evidence of any crime, and immediate adjacent areas for persons who may pose a danger to officers; [10] and 5) the inventory exception, which allows law enforcement to locate and identify valuable or dangerous items contained within property they have lawful custody of, using a standardized inventory policy. [11] This article discusses one aspect of the emergency exception regarding frisks for weapons and the decisions made by the Court about frisks for weapons based on anonymous tips in Florida v. J.L. [12]

Florida v. J.L.

On October 13, 1995, an anonymous caller reported to police that a young black man was standing at a particular bus stop wearing a plaid shirt and carrying a gun. Officers went to the bus stop within minutes after receiving the information and saw three black males, one of whom was wearing a plaid shirt. Apart from the tip, the officers had no reason to suspect any of the three of illegal conduct. The officers did not see a firearm or observe any unusual movements to indicate the existence of a firearm. Without hesitation or question, one of the officers, who was a 14-year veteran, frisked the young man wearing the plaid shirt and seized a gun from his pocket. The other officer frisked the remaining two youths, against whom no allegations had been made, and found nothing. The youth who carried the gun was charged under state law with carrying a concealed firearm without a license and possessing a firearm while under the age of 18.

The Florida trial court granted the youth's motion to suppress the gun as the fruit of an unlawful search. The intermediate appellate court reversed, but the Supreme Court of Florida quashed that decision and held the search invalid under the Fourth Amendment. The case then came before the U.S. Supreme Court to determine 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.

The opinion of the Court delivered by Justice Ginsburg held that an anonymous tip of a person carrying a gun is not, without more information, sufficient to justify police officers stopping and frisking that person. The Court found that officers, for the protection of themselves and others, may detain individuals based on a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is about to occur. As long as officers can articulate a separate reasonable suspicion that the individual is armed, they can conduct a carefully limited search of the individual's outer clothing for weapons. Officers' assessment of reasonable suspicion can be based on their own perceptions, their training and experience, their knowledge of the area or person(s), and witness or informant information, including corroborated anonymous tips. This is a reiteration of the Court's landmark case, Terry v. Ohio. [13]

Terry v. Ohio

Terry involved three individuals who were stopped and frisked by Officer McFadden after he had observed them repeatedly walking up and down a street and peering into the window of a particular store. In Terry, the Court said, to justify a stop, the officer must identify specific articulable facts which, when taken with their logical inferences establish a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is about to occur. This makes the intrusion reasonable.