STATE OF FLORIDA, APPELLANT,
v.
CHRISTOPHER REWIS, APPELLEE

Fla. 5th DCA | 1998-11-20
No. 98-378
THOMPSON and ANTOON, JJ., concur.
722 So. 2d 863 Florida District Court of Appeal, Fifth District (1998) Caution
Cited by 23 cases

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.


Holding

The court held that an anonymous tip, lacking corroboration and with an unknown informant motive, does not provide reasonable suspicion for an investigatory stop.


Headnotes

[1] An investigatory stop must be based on reasonable suspicion.

[2] An anonymous tip, without sufficient corroboration by police, does not establish reasonable suspicion to justify a stop.

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Facts & Procedural History

Deputies stopped a vehicle based on an anonymous tip from a truck driver reporting erratic driving. The deputies observed nothing illegal themselves a…

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Opinion of the Court
ORFINGER, M., Senior Judge.

ORFINGER, M., Senior Judge.

The state appeals the granting of a disposi-tive motion to suppress evidence. We affirm.

Several sheriffs deputies were on duty at an interstate highway rest stop where they had been working a traffic detail for construction being done on the highway. As they were closing up their detail and standing near the exit of the rest stop, a tractor-trailer (semi) pulled up next to them and stopped. The driver exited his vehicle and told the deputies that he had seen a white Firebird driving down the road, that the car had been weaving on the road, and that he felt the driver was impaired. He gave the deputies the tag number of the Firebird, got back into his vehicle and left the rest stop. The deputies did not know this informant, did not get his identity or identify the semi he was operating.

As-the semi was leaving the' rest stop, a white Firebird came through the rest stop approaching the exit. The deputies flagged it down and had the driver, the appellee, exit the car. The deputies testified that they saw nothing illegal or improper about the operation of the Firebird, could not tell if it had stopped at the rest stop or was merely rolling through, and stopped it solely because of the truck driver’s tip. When they checked the tag number, it matched that given by the truck driver. While one deputy began to check appellee for sobriety, which was never determined, another deputy looked into the vehicle and saw what appeared to-be contraband (a white powdery substance in a clear glass bottle) sitting in the open on a seat in the car. The deputy retrieved the bottle, and a field test of the substance tested positive for heroin. Appellee was charged with possession of a controlled substance, and upon his motion, the court suppressed the evidence, holding that there was no legal basis for stopping appellee and detaining him, that the semi driver was an anonymous tipster under the facts here, and that the deputies had not corroborated the facts given in the tip.

The state contends that the driver of the semi was a citizen informant, rather than an anonymous one, whose information is. at the high end of the reliability scale. Foy v. State, 717 So. 2d 184 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998); State v. Evans, 692 So. 2d 216 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997). Appellee contends that the identity of the truck driver was unknown, as was his motive for disclosing the information about the operation of the Firebird, so as to put the tip at the low end of the reliability scale and requiring independent corroboration by the deputies before making the stop. Evans, swpra.

Although the deputies were given the tip by the passing driver, for all practical purposes he was an anonymous tipster. His identity is unknown, any means of locating him is unknown, as are his motives for disclosing the information. He might have pointed out the Firebird because he was angered by its driver, might have been cut off by the driver or been the recipient of an obscene gesture, or for any reason other than the one he gave deputies. The deputies had no way to corroborate the information, and agreed at the hearing that they had not themselves seen anything that would have given them reason to stop the Firebird other than the tip.

An investigatory stop must be based on reasonable suspicion. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). As detailed in Evans, supra:

“Not all tips are of equal value in establishing reasonable suspicion; they may vary greatly in their value and reliability ... anonymous tips are at the low end of the reliability scale ...

**

Because an anonymous caller’s basis of knowledge and veracity are typically unknown, these tips justify a stop only once they are sufficiently corroborated by police ... Accord Pinkney v. State, 666 So. 2d 590 (Fla. 4th DCA 1996) (anonymous tip requires detailed and specific information corroborated by police investigation; since the informant’s veracity, reliability, and basis for knowledge are unknown).” Evans, 692 So. 2d at 218. (citations omitted).

In Evans, supra, and in Foy, supra, the tipsters clearly identified themselves, gave detailed information on the alleged violation, and their motives for disclosing the information were readily ascertainable. Thus, their classification as “citizen informants” whose information could be considered rehable was proper. Here, there was absolutely nothing to suggest that the driver of the Firebird was impaired other than a conclusory tip from an unidentified passing motorist. See Campbell v. State of Washington, 31 Wash.App. 833, 644 P. 2d 1219 (Wash.App.1982).

The trial court correctly held that there was no reasonable suspicion here to justify the stop, so that the subsequent search was illegal.

AFFIRMED.

THOMPSON and ANTOON, JJ., concur.


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Citator

Cited By (12 total)

  • Solino v. State, 763 So. 2d 1249 (Fla. 4th DCA 2000)
    …the influence of alcohol, resisting arrest, and possession of marijuana with intent to sell. In the instant case, Deputy Jacobs had none of the indicia of reliability, identity or corroboration existing in Evans. We find the case of State v. Rewis, 722 So. 2d 863 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998), factually on point and supportive of Solino’s assertion that the trial court erred in failing to grant his motion to suppress. In Rewis several sheriffs’ deputies were on duty at an interstate highway rest stop where they had be…
  • Castella v. State, 959 So. 2d 1285 (Fla. 4th DCA 2007)
    …r citizen informants. We conclude that the individuals in this case who provided information to law enforcement face-to-face are more akin to citizen informants than anonymous tipsters. Unlike in Solino, and the case it relied upon, State v. Rewis, 722 So. 2d 863 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998), the individuals reporting information to law enforcement in this case did not allege that the defendant was involved in activity amounting to traffic infractions or criminal offenses, such as throwing a bottle out of an automobi…
  • A.W. v. State, 82 So. 3d 1136 (Fla. 4th DCA 2012)
    …number or address, there was no evidence that similar crimes had occurred in the area, nor was there any testimony regarding the length of the encounter with the informant so as to determine whether the officer assessed credibility); State v. Rewis, 722 So. 2d 863, 864-65 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998) (anonymous, face-to-face tip regarding possible drunk driver unreliable where informant flagged down officers at rest stop, provided no identifying information, officers could not identify truck informant drove and inform…

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