On October 1, 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States heard a California case in which the police stopped a car—and ultimately arrested and charged its occupants for drug crimes—based on an anonymous tip of erratic driving called into dispatch. The California trial court found that the 911 call by a driver complaining of being run off the road contained sufficient “innocent details” for the officer to identity the vehicle, and further, that this “tip” actually indicated a traffic violation justifying an immediate stop. Undisputed in this case was the fact that the officer conducting the stop did not personally observe any erratic driving. The appellate courts in California declined to reverse the trial court, finding that, under the circumstances, the officers could reasonably conclude that there was a risk to public safety that necessitated a prompt stop—despite that the police did not observe firsthand any illegal activity.
The defendant driver argued before the Supreme Court that an anonymous tip does not constitute the reasonable suspicion required by the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment for a traffic stop unless it is corroborated. More specifically, per the precedent set forth in Florida v. J.L. requiring corroboration of anonymous tips, the defendant argued that the officer making the stop did nothing to corroborate the assertion of illegality (inasmuch as he did not observe erratic driving himself), and that it was not sufficient for just the “innocent details” of the tip to be corroborated by the officer’s own observations. The State of California has not yet filed its brief.
This case is an example of the common clashes between the interests of public safety the interests of freedom from unwarranted government intrusion. Courts have already found that the interests of freedom from government intrusion must sometimes yield some to the interests of public safety, such as allowing for DUI roadblocks.
