The court affirmed a judgment holding that a Terry "stop and frisk" search of respondent based only on an anonymous tip was invalid under U.S. Const. amend. IV. Respondent was searched after an anonymous caller reported to the police that a young black male standing at a particular bus stop and wearing a plaid shirt was carrying a gun. The court held that an anonymous tip that a person was carrying a gun was, without more, insufficient to justify a police officer's stop and frisk of that person. The tip pointing to respondent lacked the moderate indicia of reliability necessary because the call provided no predictive information to enable the police to test the informant's knowledge or credibility. Further, the accurate description of respondent's appearance was not enough since the reasonable suspicion at issue required that the tip be reliable in its assertion of illegality, not just in its tendency to identify a determinate person. Finally, the court declined to modify the Terry standard to license a "firearm exception" since it roved too far from the court's established reliability analysis. Fla. v. J.L. 529 U.S. 266
Holding: The Court held that an anonymous tip must be of a credible informant, and that the information has some a great amount of validity.
Defendant claimed that the trial court erred in denying his dispositive motion to suppress. Defendant conceded that a hotel clerk who called a dispatcher was a citizen informant and therefore fell at a higher end of the reliability scale. However, he argued that, while the tip at issue was deemed relatively reliable, and that therefore comparatively less information was necessary to establish the requisite quantum of suspicion, the information in a Computer Assisted Dispatch (CAD) report did not clear even that low bar. Upon review, the court agreed that the deputies who stop defendant had no objective basis for such stop because what was reported to the dispatcher and relayed to the deputy in the CAD report did not crate a reasonable suspicion that defendant had committed, was committing, or would commit a crime. The court held that the tip was not reliable in its assertion of illegality and was therefore insufficient to justify the stop. Although there was no dispute as to the hotel clerk's reliability, it was simply that the information provided by the clerk did not create a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity was afoot. Cooks v. State, 28 So.3d 147,148, 2010.
Holding: The Court held that an anonymous tip that leads to an arrest must be a reliable tip.
