Sunday, April 21, 2013

Tenth Circut US v. Madrid 12-2095

Decision here.

   An anonymous 911 caller reported that there was suspicious activity in the parking lot of an apartment complex.  He reported that there were two men and two women, and that the two men were "in each other's faces" and looked like they were about to fight.  He described the people involved and their vehicles.  He expressed fear for his fiancee's safety (she was apparently about to arrive). And when the police showed up and the suspects scattered, he said so.

   Officers arrived about five minutes after the call was first placed.  Based on the information relayed to them from dispatch, they stopped both cars.  Madrid was the driver of one of them.

   The officers who stopped Madrid recognized him from previous contacts (one of them had served a search warrant on his house a month ago).  They both knew that he was a convicted felon.  The cover officer saw a rifle case in the back of Madrid's car, so the primary officer got him out of the car and handcuffed him.  The cover officer left for five minutes (the officer who had stopped the other car needed backup while arresting one of the occupants for a warrant), then returned and took the rifle case out of the car.  It did, in fact, contain a rifle.

   The officers told Madrid that he could be charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm, and agreed to let him work off the charge by assisting them in other investigations.  Madrid was released, but his rifle was kept as evidence.  No report was filed at the time.

   Madrid did not assist the police in other investigations, so they went forward with charges against him.  He moved to suppress the rifle, arguing that the stop of his car had been illegal.

   Terry v. Ohio established a two prong test for determining the reasonableness of investigative stops.  First, they must be justified at their inception.  Second, they must be reasonably related in scope to the circumstances justifying the detention.  Madrid's argument is that the stop was not justified at its inception.

   The question is whether officers had a particularized and objective basis for believing that Madrid was doing something illegal.  The courts have held that as long as this standard is met, reasonable suspicion can exist even where it is more likely than not that the person detained was not guilty of anything.

   Madrid argued that the officers who stopped him should have known that no physical fight had occurred, but they were responding to a call of two males who were about to fight.  They had reason to believe that Madrid (and the others) had just been involved in criminal activity, and the covernment's interest in stopping people who are currently engaged in or fleeing from the scene of criminal activity is stronger than its interest in stopping people who have previously been involved in criminal activity and are now going about their (lawful) business.

   Madrid argued that the court should have taken into account the minor nature of the crime the police were stopping him for.  The court recognized that Madrid was apparently fleeing from the scene of a reported fight, and also noted that his initial detention was no more intrusive than a traffic stop.  It only became more intrusive after the police had probable cause to believe he was a felon in possession of a firearm.

   And finally, Madrid argued that the anonymous tip was unreliable and did not justify stopping him.  The courts have identified five relevant factors in determining the reliability of an anonymous tip: 

[R]elevant factors include: (1) whether the informant lacked "true
anonymity" (i.e., whether the police knew some details about the
informant or had means to discover them); (2) whether the informant
reported contemporaneous, firsthand knowledge; (3) whether the
informant provided detailed information about the events observed;
(4) the informant's stated motivation for reporting the information;
and (5) whether the police were able to corroborate information
provided by the informant.

   In this case, the informant had true reliability.  The police could have speculated that he or his fiancee lived in the apartment complex, but they had no phone number, no way of knowing whether or not he really lived there, and no way of knowing whether or not he would stay there once they arrived.  On the other hand, he was clearly reporting contemporaneous, firsthand knowledge.  He was providing detailed information about the events (such as suspect descriptions), his stated motivation for making the report was the safety of his fiancee, and although any fight was over when they got there the police were able to corroborate the suspect vehicle descriptions provided by the informant.

   Anyway, anonymity notwithstanding, the informant's tip was sufficiently reliable to justify the brief detention which led to Madrid's arrest.  His conviction was affirmed.

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