Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 15:51:41 -0700 From: crowtalk@THERIVER.COM (Joe Horn) Subject: US Supreme Court moves toward civil rights re: To: AZRKBA@asu.edu
Supreme Court Curbs Use of Tips in Searches
By Joan Biskupic Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, March 29, 2000; Page A02
In a departure from its recent pattern of strengthening the hand of law enforcement, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously yesterday that police may not stop and frisk someone based merely on an anonymous tip that he is carrying a gun.
The justices' decision in the Florida case was a surprisingly united rejection of arguments pressed by state and federal law enforcement officials seeking more leeway to stop people who have aroused some suspicion but do not appear to have broken the law. The court specifically rejected the notion that, given the danger posed by illegal guns, police should have greater latitude to act on anonymous tips that refer to firearms.
"The question," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the court yesterday, "is 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. We hold that it is not."
She added that when police know the informant, his or her reliability can be assessed and someone can be held accountable if the tip turns out to be fabricated.
The ruling comes at a time of heightened national debate over firearms offenses, as well as public worries in some places about police tactics.
While yesterday's decision flowed in part from a 1990 ruling that highlighted the problems of anonymous tips, it also may have reflected the fear in some quarters that individual rights have been threatened by aggressive crime prevention. Traces of such sentiment emerged at oral arguments last month, as did concerns that anonymous tips can be the product of vendettas or pranks.
The court rebuffed arguments by Florida officials and the Justice Department that there should be a "firearm exception" to the general rule that forbids stops and frisks based on anonymous tips. But the justices said they were not ruling out the possibility that a situation might be so dangerous--a tip that a person is carrying a bomb, for example--that police could act without testing the reliability of the tip.
The court also suggested that in airports, schools and other public places where the rules for police searches are looser, officials could have wider discretion to act on an anonymous tip.
University of Chicago law professor Albert Alschuler called the ruling surprising because "there's been a drift [on the court] that is very much pro-police." But he added, "The anonymous tip in a gun case, the faceless accuser, is a recurring problem, and this ruling provides some guidance."
Florida Assistant Attorney General Michael J. Neimand said he was disappointed that police weren't given more discretion in firearms situations. Robert T. Scully, executive director of the National Association of Police Organizations, went further in his disapproval, asserting that, "as a consequence of this ruling, the danger to law enforcement officers and the general public will significantly increase."
Lawyer Harvey Sepler, who represented the defendant in the case, countered that "the justices recognize that police action plays an important role in our society, and . . . fundamental constitutional liberties have to be maintained."
Yesterday's case began in 1995, when an unnamed tipster told Miami police that one of three young black men at a bus stop was toting a gun, adding that he was wearing a plaid shirt. Officers saw nothing suspicious, but patted down the youth in plaid and found a gun.
The Florida Supreme Court ruled the search unconstitutional. It noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed police to stop a person--even though there is no probable cause for arrest--if an officer has some reason to suspect that criminal activity may be afoot. But the state court said nameless telephone tips, without verification by the police, are not enough to justify a fris and, therefore, violate a person's Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches.
In affirming that decision and clearing up conflicting views among lower courts, the justices ruled that the Miami tip was not sufficiently reliable to justify the police action.
"The anonymous call concerning J.L. [as the defendant is known in the case] provided no predictive information and therefore left the police without means to test the informant's knowledge or credibility," Ginsburg wrote.
"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."
Ginsburg said it is not enough that police verify innocent details such as the plaid shirt in this case. The law "requires that a tip be reliable in its assertion of illegality."
Responding to arguments that police be given more leeway when a tipster claims a firearm is involved, Ginsburg wrote in Florida v. J.L.: "Such an exception [for firearms] would enable any person seeking to harass another to set in motion an intrusive, embarrassing police search of the targeted person simply by placing an anonymous call falsely reporting the target's unlawful carriage of a gun."
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote a concurring statement, signed by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, suggesting that in some siuations police may not know the tipster's name but might recognize a voice or trace a number, which could allow the officers to act on the tip.
Copyright 2000 The Washington Post Company