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Ind. Supreme Court OKs police stop based only on tip
from the Times and FB
INDIANAPOLIS | A police officer can pull over a driver based on a concerned citizen's 911 tip, even if the officer never witnesses suspicious behavior, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
On April 23, 2009, Andrew Davies called 911 from his car in Plainfield, Ind., to report a possible drunk driver in a blue Volkswagen on the road ahead of him pulling into a gas station. Officers arrived at the gas station 90 seconds after Davies' 911 call and pulled over a blue Volkswagen as the driver was beginning to back up.
Following a drunk driving test to Amanda Renzulli, she was charged with felony drunk driving because she was previously convicted of drunk driving in 2005. She asked the trial court to suppress the evidence obtained in the traffic stop because the officer had no independent reason to pull her over.
The court agreed, saying police did not witness any suspicious driving before making a stop, did not know whether Renzulli was driving the vehicle prior to its arrival at the gas station and did not notice whether any other blue Volkswagens were at the gas station. The Indiana Court of Appeals upheld that ruling, 2-1.
But in a 4-1 decision, written by Justice Steven David, the Supreme Court said the information provided by Davies gave officers enough reasonable suspicion to briefly detain Renzulli for investigative purposes.
Davies' willingness to give his name and telephone number to the 911 operator along with a vehicle description made his tip independently reliable, especially with officers stopping Renzulli almost immediately after Davies called, the court said.
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It looks like Davies' willingness to stand behind his 911-complaint and fully divulge his identity was enough to comply with reliable info standards for reasonable suspicion.
Here, reasoned the Court, " An investigatory stop of a citizen by a police officer does not violate that citizen’s constitutional rights if the officer has a reasonably articulable suspicion of criminal activity. Lampkins v. State, 682 N.E.2d 1268, 1271 (Ind. 1997) (citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30 (1968); United States v. Hatch, 827 F. Supp. 536, 541 (N.D. Ind. 1993)). Reasonable suspicion is a “somewhat abstract†concept that is not readily reduced to a “neat set of legal rules.†United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266, 274 (2002).
"As the Court of Appeals has written on the topic, 'A police officer may briefly detain a person for investigatory purposes without a warrant or probable cause if, based upon specific and articulable facts together with rational inferences from those facts, the official intrusion is reasonably warranted and the officer has a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity 'may be afoot.' †Combs v. State, 851 N.E.2d 1053, 1057 (Ind. Ct. App. 2006).
"In Indiana, we have said that reasonable suspicion does not rise to the level of probable cause. Platt v. State, 589 N.E.2d 222, 226 (Ind. 1992). When making a reasonable suspicion determination, reviewing courts examine the 'totality of the circumstances.' Id. In Kellems v. State, 842 N.E.2d 352 (Ind. 2006), rev’d on other grounds, 849 N.E.2d 1110 (Ind. 2006), and its companion case Sellmer v. State, 842 N.E.2d 358 (Ind. 2006), we decided whether a telephone tip to the police provided the reasonably articulable suspicion of criminal activity necessary to justify an investigatory stop.
"In those cases, “we followed the directive of the Supreme Court that reasonable suspicion determinations are to be made ‘by looking at the “totality of the circumstances†of each case to see whether the detaining officer has a “particularized and objective basis†for suspecting legal wrongdoing.’†Kellems, 842 N.E.2d at 354 (quoting Arvizu, 534 U.S. at 273)."
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