Summary
The Supreme Court held that an anonymous tip alleging that a person is carrying a gun, without additional indicia of reliability, does not establish reasonable suspicion for a Terry stop and frisk. The Court rejected a categorical firearm exception to the ordinary reliability requirements for anonymous tips. It affirmed the Florida Supreme Court’s judgment suppressing the firearm seized from J. L.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether an anonymous tip that a person is carrying a gun, without predictive information or other indicia of reliability, provides reasonable suspicion sufficient to justify a Terry stop and frisk.
- Whether the alleged presence of a firearm creates an automatic exception to the ordinary Fourth Amendment reliability requirements for anonymous tips.
Holdings
- An anonymous tip lacking sufficient indicia of reliability does not provide reasonable suspicion to justify a stop and frisk merely because it alleges that the person possesses a firearm.
- The Court declined to create an automatic firearm exception allowing a bare-bones anonymous allegation of gun possession to justify a stop and frisk without the ordinary indicia of reliability.
Key quotations
“The reasonable suspicion here at issue requires that a tip be reliable in its assertion of illegality, not just in its tendency to identify a determinate person.” (at 272)
“In that context, we hold that an anonymous tip lacking indicia of reliability of the kind contemplated in Adams and White does not justify a stop and frisk whenever and however it alleges the illegal possession of a firearm.” (at 274)
Factual background
An anonymous caller told Miami-Dade police that a young Black male wearing a plaid shirt at a particular bus stop was carrying a gun. Officers arrived approximately six minutes later and saw three Black males, one of whom was J. L. and was wearing a plaid shirt, but they observed no firearm, threatening movement, or other indication of illegal conduct. Relying solely on the tip, an officer ordered J. L. to place his hands on the bus stop, frisked him, and seized a gun from his pocket.
Procedural history
After police frisked J. L. based solely on an anonymous report that a young male in a plaid shirt at a specified bus stop was carrying a gun, J. L. moved to suppress the firearm. The trial court granted suppression, the intermediate appellate court reversed, and the Florida Supreme Court quashed the appellate decision and held the search invalid under the Fourth Amendment. The United States Supreme Court affirmed the Florida Supreme Court.