Supreme Court Decision Allows Stop Based on Anonymous Tip

 Posted on May 02, 2014 in Criminal Defense

This is a decision that is likely to have many far-reaching effects. The United States Supreme Court decision came in the case Navarette vs California. The case is related to the California Highway Patrol’s decision to pull over a pickup truck based on an anonymous tip.

The California Highway Patrol was alerted to the silver Ford F-150 Pickup via an anonymous tip which informed officers that a truck had just run another car off the road. The officers found the F-150 pickup exactly where the anonymous tip had informed the officers it would be. They followed the truck for some time, but did not notice any illegal or suspicious activity. However, they still pulled the truck over, and searched it. They found a stash of marijuana in the truck, and he was arrested.

The cops say that they smelled marijuana near the truck, and then decided to search the truck. What is disturbing is that this entire search of the truck was based on an anonymous tip. There was nothing that the truck driver did to arouse suspicion in the officers. He was driving at a reasonable speed, and was not driving recklessly or dangerously. He was not veering lanes, and there was no reason to suspect that he was driving in an impaired condition. The officers had pulled him over based on an anonymous tip, claiming that he had run another car off the road.

A decision like this is dangerous because it believes that an anonymous tip’s claim of eyewitness accounts is sufficient without any other corroborating evidence.