Can a Driver be Stopped Based upon Information Acquired from an Informant?

In passed blogs I’ve discussed the term “probable cause” as it relates to an initial stop and ultimate arrest. In both instances these discussions involved information gathered solely by observations of the arresting officers. But, what if the officer does not personally observe the driver? Can a stop be initiated based upon information provided by an informant?

The simple answer is yes. A recent Stark County Court of Appeals opinion contains an excellent discussion of the topic. In the case, State v. Yoder, a citizen observed the defendant urinating in the parking lot of a restaurant and then stagger to the driver’s side of the defendant’s vehicle. The informant called 1-800-GRABDUI, providing his name, contact information, and the current location of driver. The informant gave the dispatcher a description of and the license plate number of the defendant’s vehicle. The caller further stated he observed the defendant having trouble walking to his vehicle and staggering badly, prior to driving the vehicle. The informant followed the defendant’s vehicle to the parking lot of a car wash, and waited for the police to respond. The officers waited for the defendant to exit the car wash and stopped the vehicle as it exited the car wash.

The officer approached the driver’s side of the vehicle and asked for the defendant’s driver’s license. At the time, the officer smelled a strong odor of alcohol and noted the defendant was “thick tongued.” The defendant was asked to exit the vehicle and to perform standard field sobriety tests and was subsequently charged with OVI. Prior to trial, the defendant filed a motion to suppress claiming the officer illegally stopped him having not personally observed indicia of the violations for which he was charged.

In its opinion, the court stated, “An investigative stop does not violate the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution if the police have reasonable suspicion the person stopped is, or is about to be, engaged in criminal activity...Reasonable suspicion can arise from information that is less reliable than that required to show probable cause...But it requires something more than an "inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or 'hunch'...The Fourth Amendment requires at least a minimal level of objective justification for making the stop.”

“Where the information possessed by the police before the stop was solely from an informant's tip, the determination of reasonable suspicion will be limited to an examination of the weight to be given the tip and the reliability of the tip. Courts have generally identified three classes of informants: the anonymous informant, the known informant from the criminal world who has provided previous reliable tips, and the identified citizen informant. An identified citizen informant may be highly reliable, and therefore a strong showing as to other indicia of reliability may be unnecessary.

The defendant argued that the officer had no personal knowledge which would lead him to believe that the defendant was violating the law; that the officers failed to personally observe any evidence of a traffic violation that would justify the stop.

The court quoted Adams v. Williams, a US Supreme Court Case in stating, “A tip which standing alone would lack sufficient indicia of reliability may establish reasonable suspicion to make an investigatory stop if it is sufficiently corroborated through independent police work.”

In applying this jurisprudence the court found that the informant’s information was “trustworthy and due significant weight.” Reciting the facts, the court stated the informant had identified himself, making him a known informant subjecting his observations to high reliability that the officers could rely upon.

As such, the appellate court upheld the lower court’s denial of the defendant’s motion to suppress.

Therefore, the answer to the questions is yes. A driver may be the subject of an investigatory stop based upon information provided by an information supplied by an informant provided that information is reliable.

(While this case does articulate this topic well, this writer does question the court’s failure to address the issue of the officer’s failure to see some indicia of evidence of erratic driving or other traffic violation that would justify a stop. The facts set froth in the court’s synopsis of the case fails to indicate whether the informant or the officers observed evidence of any underlying traffic violation. One can only speculate that, perhaps, the defendant failed to set forth this issue in his motion to suppress.)