COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee, v. Constance L. GOODWIN, Appellant.
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
April 17, 2000
750 A.2d 795 | 561 Pa. 346
Argued Sept. 17, 1997.
PER CURIAM:
AND NOW, this 17th day of May, 2000, the Petition for Allowance of Appeal is GRANTED and the order of the Commonwealth Court is REVERSED. See Marchlen v. Township of Mt. Lebanon, 560 Pa. 453, 746 A.2d 566 (2000).
750 A.2d 795
COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellee,
v.
Constance L. GOODWIN, Appellant.
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
Argued Sept. 17, 1997.
Decided April 17, 2000.
Allen Powanda, Greensburg, for Com.
OPINION ANNOUNCING THE JUDGMENT OF THE COURT
NIGRO, Justice.
In this appeal, Appellant Constance Goodwin argues that she was subjected to an investigatory stop without the requisite reasonable suspicion that she was engaged in criminal activity. We agree and therefore reverse the Superior Court‘s decision affirming the suppression court‘s denial of Goodwin‘s motion to suppress.1
On November 8, 1993, Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Anthony DeLuca received an anonymous telephone call at 11:15 a.m. The anonymous caller alleged that David Klink‘s girlfriend sold drugs to Klink‘s minor son, Ian, who Trooper DeLuca had recently arrested on drug charges. According to the anonymous caller, this woman sells drugs both from her home and from the office where she works. The caller further stated that the woman always carries a quarter pound of marijuana in a pink bag and that children buy drugs from her. Also, the woman takes a one-hour lunch break at about 12:15 and drives a blue Mustang, registration AKA 2168, which was parked that day on the inside corner of a parking garage. The caller described the woman as 25 years old, with red hair, and stated that she was wearing a red coat and red stockings on that particular day. The anonymous caller then provided the name and address of the woman‘s employer, the street she lived on, the location of the parking garage, and the route the woman took to walk to the garage.
A few months earlier, in August of 1993, Trooper DeLuca bought drugs from Ian Klink while undercover. Ian got the drugs from an apartment building. Trooper DeLuca did not
After receiving the anonymous call, with the help of other officers, Trooper DeLuca watched the parking garage outside the office the caller identified. At about 12:10 p.m., Goodwin, who matched the caller‘s description, exited the office carrying a pink bag. She took the described route to the garage, entered the identified car, and traveled for several blocks. The troopers then stopped her car and told her that they had information that she was transporting marijuana.
Trooper DeLuca asked if he could search the car. He told Goodwin that she could consent or he would get a search warrant. After some discussion about how long the search would take, Goodwin ultimately agreed to the search and signed a consent form. When Goodwin removed the pink bag from the car, a trooper told her that they would search the bag since it had been inside the car. Goodwin then stated that drugs were in the bag. The trooper opened the bag and found marijuana. There were no drugs in the car.
Trooper DeLuca then asked Goodwin where she lived. She responded that she lived with David Klink and another male on the street identified by the caller. The troopers asked to search her apartment and she agreed. At the apartment, she verbally consented to a search of her bedroom, where the troopers found marijuana and drug paraphernalia. As a result, the troopers advised Goodwin of her Miranda rights and took a statement from her. Goodwin admitted that she sold drugs to Ian Klink and another male in August of 1993.
Goodwin was charged with offenses related to the sale of drugs to Trooper DeLuca in August of 1993 and the discovery of drugs in her bag in November of 1993.2 The trial court
On appeal, the Superior Court reversed and awarded Goodwin a new trial, finding that the trial court should have suppressed the drug evidence from the pink bag because the search of the bag was outside the scope of Goodwin‘s consent to search her car. The Commonwealth petitioned for clarification as to the sentence for the charges related to the August drug sale. The Superior Court issued another opinion awarding a new trial on the charges related to the drugs found in Goodwin‘s bag in November but affirming the sentence on the charges related to the drug sale in August. Thus, only those charges related to the August drug sale are the subject of this appeal.
Goodwin argues that the investigatory detention she was subjected to was invalid since the anonymous tip and other purported corroborating evidence did not create a reasonable suspicion that she was engaged in criminal activity.3 We agree.
An investigatory stop, which subjects a suspect to a stop and a period of detention but does not involve such coercive conditions as to constitute an arrest, requires a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 1879-80, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889 (1968); Commonwealth v. Melendez, 544 Pa. 323, 327-33, 676 A.2d 226, 228-30 (1996). Reasonable suspicion depends upon both the content of the information possessed by the police and its degree of reliability. Commonwealth v. Wilson, 424 Pa. Super. 110, 115, 622 A.2d 293, 295-96 (1993) (quoting Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 330, 110 S. Ct. 2412, 2416, 110 L. Ed. 2d 301 (1990)). Thus, quantity and quality of information are considered when assessing the totality of the circumstances. Id. If information has a low degree of reliability, then more information is required to establish reasonable suspicion. Id.
This Court has recently addressed the role of anonymous tips in providing a basis for an investigatory stop. In Commonwealth v. Jackson, 548 Pa. 484, 698 A.2d 571 (1997), a police officer responded to a radio report stating that a man in a green jacket was carrying a gun at a particular location. No additional details were provided. When the officer arrived at the identified location, he saw a number of people including the defendant who was wearing a green jacket. Based solely upon the anonymous call, the officer stopped and searched the defendant.
Relying upon Commonwealth v. Hawkins, 547 Pa. 652, 692 A.2d 1068 (1997), a factually similar case4, the Court held in Jackson that the anonymous tip did not justify a stop and frisk of the defendant. Jackson at 494, 698 A.2d at 576. In Hawkins, a plurality of the Court explained that when police receive an anonymous call alleging that a person of a particular description is carrying a gun at a particular location, and the police broadcast that information to patrol cars, neither the dispatcher nor the officers in their cars know whether the information is reliable. Hawkins, 547 Pa. at 656, 692 A.2d at 1070. The Court observed that an anonymous tip may be nothing more than a mere prank call. Id. At the same time, it may be based on no more than the caller‘s unparticularized
The Court in Jackson further explained that the fact that the police proceeded to the designated location and saw a person matching the description in the call did not corroborate any alleged criminal activity. Jackson, 548 Pa. at 492, 698 A.2d at 574-75 (quoting Hawkins, 547 Pa. at 656-57, 692 A.2d at 1070). Since anyone can describe a person who is standing in a particular location, “[s]omething more is needed to corroborate the caller‘s allegations of criminal conduct.” Id. In the typical anonymous caller situation, the police will need an independent basis to establish reasonable suspicion. Id.
As explained in Hawkins, where the police are acting on information supplied anonymously, the public will receive its full measure of protection by police who act within constitutional restraints. Hawkins, 547 Pa. at 657-58, 692 A.2d at 1071. When the police receive unverified information that a person is engaged in illegal activity, the police may observe the suspect and conduct an investigation. If police surveillance produces a reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct, the suspect may be stopped and questioned. Id.
Since the police in Jackson and Hawkins acted on anonymous tips and had no independent reason to believe that the suspects may have been involved in criminal activity, the Court reversed the judgments of sentence. See also Commonwealth v. Kue, 547 Pa. 668, 692 A.2d 1076 (1997) (opinion announcing the judgment of the Court) (where, other than anonymous tip, there was no reason to believe that criminal conduct was afoot, an officer‘s stop was unsupported by reasonable suspicion).
Applying the rationale in Jackson and Hawkins to the instant case, the Superior Court‘s decision cannot stand.
The police, however, saw no unusual activity while they watched Goodwin and had no reason independent of the anonymous tip to suspect that criminal activity was afoot. Thus, the allegations of criminal conduct furnished by the anonymous tipster remained uncorroborated. Under Jackson, such an uncorroborated anonymous tip is insufficient to provide the basis for an investigatory stop.
The Superior Court found, and the Commonwealth argues, that the anonymous caller‘s tip was similar to the tip in Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 110 S. Ct. 2412, 110 L. Ed. 2d 301 (1990), where the United States Supreme Court held that police corroboration of an anonymous tip that predicted a person‘s future actions justified an investigatory stop.5 The tipster in Alabama v. White told the police that the defendant would leave her apartment at a particular time, travel to an identified motel, and that she would have drugs in a brown attaché case. The police stopped the defendant‘s car just short of the identified motel. In upholding the stop, the United States Supreme Court found that the information provided by the caller demonstrated “insider information—a specific familiarity with respondent‘s affairs.” White, 496 U.S. at 332, 110 S. Ct. at 2417. The Court then held that if an anonymous tip provides such insider information, including
After the illegal stop, Goodwin consented to a search of her apartment where she admitted that she sold drugs to Ian Klink in August. Goodwin argues that her statement is the fruit of the illegal stop and must be suppressed. We agree.6 The voluntariness of a statement is a threshold requirement for its admissibility. Commonwealth v. Yocham, 473 Pa. 445, 455-56, 375 A.2d 325, 330-31 (1977). In addition, the causal chain between the initial illegality and the statement made thereafter must be broken so that the statement is an act of free will that is purged of the primary taint. Id.
While Goodwin received Miranda warnings, we cannot conclude that the statement was an act of free will purged of the primary taint. During the illegal stop of her car, Goodwin was caught with drugs. Immediately thereafter, the police asked to search her apartment. Once there, more drugs were found and Goodwin then confessed to her involvement in the August drug sale. In these circumstances, while the confession was voluntary, it was not free of coerciveness as it resulted shortly after the unlawful stop without intervening circumstances. See Yocham, 473 Pa. at 455, 375 A.2d at 330 (considering temporal proximity of illegal act and confession and intervening circumstances to determine admissibility of confession).
In sum, since the uncorroborated anonymous tip did not create the reasonable suspicion necessary to stop Goodwin for investigation, the statement regarding Goodwin‘s involvement in the August drug transaction, which was a fruit of the illegal stop, must be suppressed. Thus, we reverse the decision of the Superior Court affirming the trial court‘s denial of Goodwin‘s motion to suppress the statement and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Justice ZAPPALA filed a concurring opinion in which Chief Justice FLAHERTY joins.
Justice CASTILLE filed a dissenting opinion in which Justice NEWMAN joins.
ZAPPALA, Justice, concurring.
Although I disagree with the majority‘s Fourth Amendment analysis pursuant to the United States Supreme Court‘s decision in Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 110 S. Ct. 2412, 110 L. Ed. 2d 301 (1990), I find that its conclusion is supported by
In White, the anonymous caller informed the police that Vanessa White would be leaving 235-C Lynwood Terrace Apartments at a certain time in a brown Plymouth station wagon with the right taillight lens broken, that she would be going to Dobey‘s Motel and that she would be in possession of about an ounce of cocaine inside a brown attaché case. Police officers proceeded to the apartment complex and saw a brown Plymouth station wagon with a broken right taillight parked in front of the 235 building. They observed White exit the building, carrying nothing in her hands and enter the station wagon. The police officers followed the vehicle as it drove the most direct route to Dobey‘s Motel. The officers stopped the vehicle just short of the motel. Marijuana was discovered in an attaché case and cocaine was found in White‘s purse.
Acknowledging that it was a close case, the Court held that the anonymous tip coupled with the police corroboration established reasonable suspicion to support the investigatory stop.2 The Court held that the independent corroboration by the police of significant aspects of the informer‘s predictions imparted some degree of reliability to the other allegations made by the caller. It emphasized that the caller predicted White‘s future behavior and possessed a special familiarity with her affairs.
Applying White to the instant case, I conclude that no violation of the Fourth Amendment occurred.3 Similar to the anonymous caller in White, the informer here relayed informa-
Analyzing the same claim under
In Alabama v. White, the Supreme Court did not effectively distinguish between information contained in an anonymous tip which is readily observable by a casual acquaintance of the accused and information which is not.6 I find that the absence
The instant facts demonstrate this point. The information which was found by the lower courts to be corroborated by independent police investigation includes Appellant‘s place of employment, her physical characteristics and apparel on the day of the investigatory stop, including the fact that she would be carrying a pink bag, her type of car and registration number, the location of the parking garage and the route Appellant took to arrive at her car during her 12:15 lunch hour. I fail to see how such corroboration imparts reliability upon an otherwise unreliable anonymous tip.7
The call was placed at 11:15 a.m. and police stopped Appellant approximately an hour later. Thus any individual who saw Appellant arrive at work that morning would possess the same detailed information regarding her apparel, physical characteristics, type of vehicle and the location where she parked her car. Moreover, the time that she takes her lunch and the direction she walks to reach her parked vehicle is information available to anyone she worked with or who had seen her leave for lunch on a previous workday. The corroboration of such commonplace and unsuspicious activities can not give rise to a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity under
As noted by the majority, this conclusion is supported by our recent decisions in Commonwealth v. Hawkins, 547 Pa. 652, 692 A.2d 1068 (1997), and Commonwealth v. Jackson, 548 Pa. 484, 698 A.2d 571 (1997). In Commonwealth v. Hawkins, an officer responded to a police radio broadcast that a man of a particular description was carrying a gun. The source of the report was unknown. We held that the anonymous call and subsequent police corroboration was insufficient to establish reasonable suspicion to support an investigatory stop. We observed that if police “respond to an anonymous call that a particular person at a specified location is engaged in criminal activity, and upon arriving at the location see a person matching the description and nothing more, they have no certain knowledge except that the caller accurately described someone at a particular location.” Id. at 656-657, 692 A.2d at 1070. The same can be said of an anonymous tip that “predicts” an accused‘s location, physical appearance, and an unsuspicious routine activity.
In Commonwealth v. Jackson, a case factually indistinguishable from Hawkins, we reiterated that anonymous tips should be treated with particular suspicion as they may be a joke or may be based upon no more than a caller‘s unparticularized hunch. We concluded that the police must be able to corrobo-
Accordingly, I would hold that reasonable suspicion pursuant to
Chief Justice FLAHERTY joins in this Concurring Opinion.
CASTILLE, Justice, dissenting.
In finding that the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution requires suppression of the evidence in this case, the majority circumvents binding federal precedent. Because
In White, a police officer received a telephone call from an anonymous person stating that White would be leaving a specified apartment at a particular time in a brown Plymouth station wagon with a broken taillight; that she would be going to a specified motel; and that she would be in possession of about an ounce of cocaine inside a brown attaché case. After arriving outside the apartment building, the officer and his partner observed White leave the building—with nothing in her hands—and enter a station wagon similar to the one
After White was tried and convicted of several possession charges, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals determined that the officers lacked the reasonable suspicion necessary under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889 (1968), to justify the initial investigatory stop of respondent‘s vehicle; therefore, the marijuana and cocaine were deemed fruits of an unlawful detention. The Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that White‘s motion to suppress the evidence should have been granted and reversed her conviction. The Supreme Court of Alabama denied the State‘s petition for a writ of certiorari.
The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in order to resolve a conflict in the state and federal courts “over whether an anonymous tip may furnish reasonable suspicion for a stop.” Id. at 328, 110 S. Ct. at 2415. The United States Supreme Court noted that, similar to determinations of probable cause, reasonable suspicion determinations are considered under the “totality of the circumstances—the whole picture.” Id. at 330, 110 S. Ct. at 2416, citing United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417, 101 S. Ct. 690, 66 L. Ed. 2d 621 (1981). However, reasonable suspicion is a less demanding standard than probable cause, not only in the sense that reasonable suspicion can be established with information that is different in quantity or content than that required to establish probable cause, but also in the sense that reasonable suspicion can arise from information that is less reliable than that required to show probable cause. Id.
Applying this lesser standard to the facts of the case before it, the United States Supreme Court concluded that, when the officers stopped White, the anonymous tip had been sufficient-
Further, in Commonwealth v. Hawkins, 547 Pa. 652, 692 A.2d 1068 (1997), this Court relied on White in attempting to impart guidance to police investigations in the area of search and seizure. Although the anonymous tip in Hawkins did not predict any future behavior, this Court noted that, “if the tip is
The relevant facts of the case at issue, as summarized by the trial court, indicate that on November 8, 1993, Trooper Anthony DeLuca of the Pennsylvania State Police received an anonymous telephone call at about 11:15 a.m. The caller advised the trooper that a woman who worked in a nearby law office was selling drugs to schoolchildren out of the office and at her residence. The caller further stated that the woman was the girlfriend of a man named David Klink, and that the woman had sold drugs to Klink‘s son, Ian. Additionally, the caller provided a physical description of the woman and stated that she would be leaving her office for lunch between 12:10 and 12:15 p.m., that she would proceed by a specified route to her blue Ford Mustang with Pennsylvania registration number AKA 2168, parked on the inside corner of a parking garage on Maple Avenue, and that she would be carrying illegal drugs in a small pink carrying bag. The phone call with the tipster lasted three or four minutes, during which the tipster stated that he had seen the drugs in appellant‘s pink bag that morning. Furthermore, Trooper DeLuca testified that, at the time of this phone call, he already had independent reason to believe that Ian Klink had purchased drugs from a female seller. In an undercover capacity, Trooper DeLuca had purchased drugs from the younger Klink outside of the building where DeLuca knew that Klink lived with his father and appellant. Klink had mentioned at the time that his supplier was a female.
Next, Trooper DeLuca and several other officers set up surveillance at a point where they could observe both the parking garage and the law office in which appellant worked. At approximately 12:08 p.m., a female exactly matching the caller‘s detailed description exited the law office carrying a pink bag. She followed the route that the caller had predicted she would follow and entered the Ford Mustang described by
The only question for purposes of this appeal is whether the officers had a reasonable suspicion that criminal activity was afoot when they pulled appellant over. If they did, then the subsequent permission that they received to search her residence was not tainted by the illegality of the stop, and the contraband found therein is not excludible.
The predictive detail that was corroborated in White—namely the defendant‘s itinerary—was corroborated in great detail here. A person with access to an individual‘s itinerary is likely to also have access to reliable information about the individual‘s illegal activities. White, supra at 332, 110 S. Ct. at 2417. Moreover, the police here corroborated the fact that appellant was carrying the same pink bag in which the tipster claimed to have seen drugs that very morning, unlike in White, where the officers were unable to corroborate the caller‘s prediction that White would be transporting the drugs in a certain type of attaché case and were also unable to establish the basis of the tipster‘s knowledge. Lastly, Trooper DeLuca had independently formed reasonable suspicion regarding appellant‘s drug trafficking activities based on the statements by her boyfriend‘s son. The combination of these statements with the subsequent detailed, predictive, and fully corroborated tip furnished Trooper DeLuca with a degree of suspicion that criminal activity was afoot far greater than the suspicion engendered by the facts of White.4 Consequently,
In determining that the Terry stop in this case violated the Fourth Amendment, the majority opinion relies on the fact that the police lacked independent corroboration of the criminal aspects of the anonymous tip. However, nothing in White requires such corroboration. All White requires is that the police corroborate the predictive aspects of the tip. By requiring corroboration of the criminal aspects of the tip, the majority raises the bar for a permissible stop under White from reasonable suspicion to probable cause.
The societal interest in allowing police officers to ask questions on the basis of a common-sense suspicion is compelling. One wonders how else police officers can advance cases such as this without asking questions of the suspects. The only possible alternative here was to allow the suspect to pass on unimpeded and follow her in an attempt to discover direct evidence of criminal conduct. But following her further would most likely yield no rewards unless the suspect was so simple-minded as to carry on her criminal activity in public. To say that the officers could have procured the cooperation of other witnesses is to ignore the reality that gives rise to anonymous reports of criminality to begin with—namely, citizens are frequently in mortal fear of drug dealers, and often with good reason. One can only conclude that there will frequently be nothing that officers can do in the wake of this opinion to justify an investigative stop. Instead, they must allow criminal activity to go forth unabated, even when concerned but fearful citizens try to alert them to such criminal activity, when they first corroborate the predictive information supplied by these citizens, and when all they seek to do is ask questions.
This decision protects our citizens against what the majority must conclude to be the ominous specter of having to answer a few questions posed by hard-pressed police; all it surrenders in exchange is the ability of law enforcement officers to do
dently acquired information concerning appellant‘s involvement with controlled substances.
Justice NEWMAN joins this dissenting opinion.