Wisconsin Supreme Court: No Anonymous Tips
UPDATE: I’m reading too fast and/or am too tired. This was a Court of Appeals decision - NOT a Supreme Court opinion. My opinion on the matter stays the same.
This Supreme Court seems intent on making it as difficult as possible for cops and good citizens to get the bad guys.
A Sheboygan woman’s second conviction for drunken driving was overturned today by the Second District Court of Appeals because police stopped the woman based only on an anonymous tip.
“The anonymous tip contained insufficient indicators of reliability and the police lacked reasonable suspicion to conduct a traffic stop; therefore, we reverse (the conviction),” Appeals Court Judge Daniel P. Anderson wrote.
Don’t you think it’s a good idea in principle that law enforcement agents have reasonable suspicion before searching your person or your property? Of course we know that it means some unlawful stuff remains undetected, but would things really be better if we dispensed with the reasonable suspicion threshold?
Posted by scott on August 22, 2007 at 1937 hrs
The woman was sitting at a green light, gunning her engine or trying to start an engine already started. In tandem with the previous report from the fast food place…that seems like enough information to pull her over.
Oh…and she WAS driving drunk!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 22, 2007 at 1942 hrs
The fact that she was indeed breaking the law isn’t what’s being contested. Law enforcement agencies must be held in check from infringing on our privacy, even if it means they watch some of their guilty collars walk. It’s all got to be a balance. Citing one instance of a drunk driver escaping prosecution doesn’t negate the principle. One might argue that the balance is wrong and that it should be edged one way or another, but to use a story like this to make a black and white statement about how law enforcement works in a free society would be wrong.
Posted by scott on August 22, 2007 at 1946 hrs
...and when she kills somebody’s parent or child in a drunken stupor, I’m sure they’ll take great comfort in knowing that some hack judge struck a good balance in maintaining the principal of privacy.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 22, 2007 at 1955 hrs
I agree with you in principle, Scott. But anonymous tips have long been a valid tool for law enforcement.
Posted by Owen on August 22, 2007 at 1958 hrs
Slight correction in the headline, Owen. This was a Court of Appeals case, not Supreme Court.
This is the latest is a series of adverse decisions regarding tips. However, this case was not published. It has no precedential value, and currently can’t be cited in circuit courts.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 22, 2007 at 2019 hrs
Imagine how the SPD would be crucified if they hadn’t made the stop, and this drunk killed somebody. Forget the tipster, they were right to pull her over just for the traffic violation of sitting at the green light.
Posted by Tony Turner on August 22, 2007 at 2022 hrs
I bet modern day mafia is celebrating over the death of the “anonymous tip”. All their enemies must now identify themselves to the bribed cops before the cops will do anything. Woohoo.
Scott, I too agree with the principle you are sporting, but disagree that anonymous tips should not be acceptable in a court of law anymore. Why would a timid concerned citizen open their mouth at all, if it won’t help? Another big score for apathy.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 23, 2007 at 1333 hrs
The court didn’t rule that anonymous tips are not acceptable. They ruled that in the absence of any other reason to make a stop, an anonymous tip that has not been evaluated for reliability is not in and of itself sufficient reason to pull someone over.
I don’t see how this is controversial. Had the court ruled otherwise there would essentially be no requirements whatsoever for searches.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 23, 2007 at 1453 hrs
BV, I don’t feel that strongly on this, but how much evaluation is good enough? They followed her and she did a suspicious thing at the light. If she then turned without signalling or weaved a tiny bit…or hit a kid on a bike, then they can pull her over? I know how this can lead to profiling and harassment if abused, but I would rather be pulled over by the cops and be given a breathalyzer test mistakenly from a ‘bad’ tip, than let someone who IS guilty go because a judge has a bigger gut feeling that a cop wasn’t doing his job properly ENOUGH. I would rather trust the cop’s gut feeling even if it did happen to be full of jelly doughnuts. Now if I get pulled over falsely 3 times in a few months, anonymous tips against my plates should be checked a little more closely for a while. There is a difference to me between ‘innocent until proven guilty’ and ‘caught in the act’ though.
My personal feeling is trust the instinct of the police on any individual the first time, question the police officer’s motives for subsequent ‘harassments’ of the same individual or group if wrong the first time. The idea that any potentially harmful criminal should be let go after being caught in the act (whether drunk driving, carrying kilos of cocaine, etc. not a single joint or a parking ticket dodger) because the opinion of the court is that ‘the cop didn’t have enough reason to stop him in the first place’ rubs me wrong because, after all…the cop and/or his tipper was right!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 23, 2007 at 1609 hrs
It’s a big mistake to just say we don’t need rules, just trust law enforcement to know who the bad guys are. It’s kind of like how so many unthinking conservatives say “Warrantless wiretapping? No problem! I have nothing to hide.” It’s incredibly short-sighted to let law enforcement agencies operate without parameters to insure our privacy. Their job is to catch law-breakers. In pursuit of that goal they’ll be strip searching us on every corner unless we have limits.
And YES I’m all for having a guilty person go free if the cops violated the rules of evidence gathering and interrogation. That is the only incentive they have for following the rules. We can’t just say it’s okay this time because they were really guilty. It doesn’t work that way.
Here’s hoping that the drunk driver gets nailed legitimately and quickly. Or has learned her lesson.
Posted by scott on August 23, 2007 at 1616 hrs
There is a virtually identical case that also got overturned just recently and for exactly the same reasons. In both cases the police made no effort whatsoever to determine the tips reliability. In addition, they observed no actual traffic offenses or dangerous driving. Absent these, they had no legitimate reason to have suspicion. In the other case the state actually argued that the anonymous tip was reliable because lying to the cops carries a penalty and therefore the tip could be assumed to be reliable.
Now, they stopped both people, and that’s all good and well but establishing that this is a standard for conviction allows the police to do no checking of there sources at all and that is far more dangerous than the occasional drunk driver let off the hook.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 23, 2007 at 1628 hrs
It’s also worth pointing out that the court established no new precedent here. It relied on existing case law which was clear. The change in precedent would have been to uphold the conviction.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 23, 2007 at 1631 hrs
Nothing I said had anything to do about violating the rules of evidence. If the police get an anonymous tip and after checking in to it, see SOMETHING out of place, they should or should not proceed? I personally think that is enough for me if it is enough for the cop to proceed, you don’t…fair enough. If there were ‘rules’ about this instance the point would be answered.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 23, 2007 at 1635 hrs
That was the court’s point, TUERQAS. The police didn’t check on the tip and didn’t see anything that normally would have warranted a pull over.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 23, 2007 at 1642 hrs
I get you, but I think in this case, checking out the tip is checking out the car for suspicious activity and looking perhaps at prior record. While someone is driving (possibly drunk) an unknown distance is not the time to do a background on an anonymous tipper, besides that no… longer anonymous. So I guess what I am saying is, from the Cop’s perspective, they did check out the tip by:
1) looking up priors (this was a second conviction so there was a first to look up)
2) She acted suspiciously, though not overtly illegally at a stop light.The court’s point, BV is that they felt that was not enough. Your comment 15 statements tasking me were false.
There are, by the way, many precedents upholding both police instinct and anonymous tips as ‘good enough’ to continue or begin an investigation as well as the other way around. It would not have set a new precedent to uphold the conviction, just as it did not set a new precedent by turning over the conviction. The deciding factor was the court’s opinion on whether there was enough evidence to proceed. Some times yes, this time no.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 24, 2007 at 1512 hrs
I agree with you in that the cops did what they should have, and they prevented drunk drivers from driving, but it still shouldn’t result in a conviction, and anyways obtaining convictions is not the primary responsibility of the police.
There was no police instinct here, there was an anonymous tipsters’ instinct. The police themselves observed nothing that warranted the stop. And the court had no problem with anonymous tipsters except that they have to be checked out, or police acting on the tip have to observe something that warrants a search or arrest. If they had proceeded to conduct an investigation, they would have been fine, but they didn’t do that.
The police acted properly in that they “protected and served” the public, but in doing so they forfeited the ability of the state to obtain a conviction. I’m OK with their actions and with the result of the case.
I wasn’t tasking you. I was tasking the the title of the post, which is completely misleading.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 24, 2007 at 1804 hrs
Srsly. If iI called up the police and anonymously told them that you were selling drugs, would it be okay for them to enter your home to find out?
Posted by scott on August 24, 2007 at 1848 hrs
All right BV, I understand what you are saying better, thanks. I think I still disagree with your ‘saw nothing suspicious’ as they witnessed the started car trying to start, but like I said before, I can accept a court decision to say it wasn’t enough, but it wasn’t nothing.
Scott, tuck it in, your ‘I talk like a moron’ underwear is showing again. It would be perfectly all right for them to observe our house overtly or covertly a few times to see if your tip was worth pursuing, and looking up my past record. Without any signs of running drugs, that is as far as it would go. Acting on a tip alone with no other corroboration is what we have been discussing and feel free to quote the comment where I said I was for that.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 27, 2007 at 0901 hrs
I’d like you to show me where I have merited being called an idiot. Why must the hate always come out now? I thought we were having a civil discussion. Why change?
Posted by scott on August 27, 2007 at 1106 hrs
Srsly, If you were having a civil conversation and I threw in an extreme example against you that didn’t fit the topic and/or took for granted a position that you did not believe in or espouse, I believe the ‘f’ word would be aimed at me in your next comment. I prefer moron, idiot if you will.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 27, 2007 at 1146 hrs
K. I tried.
Posted by scott on August 27, 2007 at 1148 hrs
Names are short lived in the blogosphere, in general I would rather you did try. You have made me think outside my normal views more than others.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 27, 2007 at 1336 hrs
Some people want harsher laws involving drugs and firearms.. what do you think?
Posted by drug rehab program on November 16, 2007 at 1024 hrs
The law enforcement has to improve something for our benefit.
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