COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA
Present: Judges Elder, Fitzpatrick and Senior Judge Duff
Argued by Teleconference
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
MEMORANDUM OPINION * BY
v. Record No. 1280-97-3 JUDGE LARRY G. ELDER
OCTOBER 21, 1997
JAMES ANTHONY YOUNGER
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF PITTSYLVANIA COUNTY
William N. Alexander, II, Judge
Eugene Murphy, Assistant Attorney General
(Richard Cullen, Attorney General, on brief),
for appellant.
No brief or argument for appellee.
The Commonwealth appeals a pretrial order of the trial
court suppressing evidence obtained during a stop of a car driven
by James Anthony Younger (defendant). It contends that the trial
court erred when it concluded that the officer who executed the
stop did not have a reasonable, articulable suspicion of criminal
activity. For the reasons that follow, we reverse and remand.
On January 25, 1997, between 6:00 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., Floyd
Hille, Chief of the Gretna Police Department, received a phone
call from a person who identified herself as Terri Younger, wife
of the defendant. Chief Hille believed that the caller was Mrs.
Younger because he had spoken with Mrs. Younger two or three
times before, and the caller's voice sounded like Mrs. Younger's
*
Pursuant to Code § 17-116.010 this opinion is not
designated for publication.
voice. The caller asked Chief Hille to be on the lookout for a
dark blue, four-door, 1985 Oldsmobile with license plate number
ZJH-9972. The caller said that the vehicle was registered in her
(Mrs. Younger's) name and that she had "dropped the insurance on
the vehicle." Chief Hille told the caller that he would look for
the vehicle. The caller did not mention defendant at any time
during the phone call.
Chief Hille was familiar with the Oldsmobile identified by
the caller because Mrs. Younger had called him on prior occasions
to inform him that defendant was driving it. In response to
these calls, Chief Hille attempted to "find and locate"
defendant. In addition, the chief had stopped defendant in the
Oldsmobile about a month earlier on December 25, 1996. After he
received the phone call, Chief Hille "ran" the license plate
number given to him by the caller in a computer data base, which
informed him that the Oldsmobile was registered in Mrs. Younger's
name. Chief Hille resumed his patrol and made efforts to find
the Oldsmobile. Around 11:15 p.m., Chief Hille spotted the
vehicle about to pull away from a gas station. Chief Hille could
not see who was driving the Oldsmobile because it had tinted
windows. Although Chief Hille did not observe the driver of the
car commit any traffic infractions, he decided to stop the
vehicle "to advise the driver that [he] had information that it
was uninsured [and] . . . to take it off the road." The chief
activated the blue lights on his vehicle and stopped the
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Oldsmobile, which was being driven by defendant. On February 18,
1997 a grand jury indicted defendant for a second or subsequent
offense of operating a motor vehicle after being adjudged an
habitual offender in violation of Code § 46.2-357. Defendant
filed a motion to suppress all evidence obtained by Chief Hille
during the stop. Two days before the hearing on defendant's
motion, Mrs. Younger told Chief Hille that she did not call him
on January 25. According to Chief Hille, Mrs. Younger said that
she was working at the time he received the call on that date.
Following a hearing, at which the testimony of Chief Hille
was the only evidence offered, the trial court granted
defendant's motion to suppress. The trial court concluded that
Chief Hille's stop of defendant was a "bad stop" because a "naked
telephone call is not enough to authorize a stop of this
vehicle."
"A police officer may stop the driver or occupants of an
automobile for investigatory purposes if the officer has 'a
reasonable articulable suspicion, based upon objective facts,
that the individual is involved in criminal activity.'" Freeman
v. Commonwealth, 20 Va. App. 658, 660-61, 460 S.E.2d 261, 262
(1995) (quoting Jacques v. Commonwealth, 12 Va. App. 591, 593,
405 S.E.2d 630, 631 (1991)). To determine whether there was a
reasonable suspicion justifying an investigatory stop, we must
examine the totality of the circumstances from the perspective of
a "reasonable police officer with the knowledge, training, and
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experience of the investigating officer." Murphy v.
Commonwealth, 9 Va. App. 139, 144, 384 S.E.2d 125, 128 (1989).
Information provided by an anonymous or known informant may
establish an articulable, reasonable suspicion for a police
officer to execute a Terry stop if the information possesses
"sufficient 'indicia of reliability.'" See Alabama v. White, 496
U.S. 325, 328-31, 110 S. Ct. 2412, 2415-16, 110 L.Ed.2d 301
(1990); Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 146-47, 92 S. Ct. 1921,
1923-24, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972); Bulatko v. Commonwealth, 16 Va.
App. 135, 137, 428 S.E.2d 306, 307 (1993); Beckner v.
Commonwealth, 15 Va. App. 533, 535, 425 S.E.2d 530, 531 (1993).
Specifically, the officer must have some objective basis for
assessing both the informant's personal reliability and "the
reliability of the informant's knowledge of the information
contained in the report." Beckner, 15 Va. App. at 535-36, 425
S.E.2d at 532.
When determining whether an informant's tip possessed
sufficient indicia of reliability to establish articulable
reasonable suspicion, a court must consider the totality of the
circumstances "taking into account the facts known to the
officers from personal observation, and giving the . . . tip the
weight it deserved in light of its indicia of reliability
. . . ." White, 496 U.S. at 330-31, 110 S. Ct. at 2416. If a
tip has a relatively low degree of reliability because it is from
an anonymous informer, more information will be required to
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establish the "requisite quantum of suspicion," such as
"independent corroboration of significant aspects of the tip."
Id. at 331, 332, 110 S. Ct. at 2416, 2417. Less verification of
a tip is necessary when the police are more familiar with the
informant. See id.; Adams, 407 U.S. at 146-47, 92 S. Ct. at
1923-24 (holding that in-person discussion with known informant
who had provided information in the past was sufficient indicia
of informant's reliability); Johnson v. Commonwealth, 20 Va. App.
49, 54, 455 S.E.2d 261, 264 (1995) (stating that the fact that
informants had previously provided information that resulted in
arrests and successful prosecutions was an indicia of their
reliability); Beckner, 15 Va. App. at 535, 425 S.E.2d at 531-32
(stating that face-to-face confrontation with previously unknown
informant provided indicia of informant's personal reliability).
Upon appeal from an order granting a defendant's motion to
suppress, the Commonwealth has the burden to show that the trial
court's decision was erroneous. See Stanley v. Commonwealth, 16
Va. App. 873, 874, 433 S.E.2d 512, 513 (1993). We must review
the evidence in the light most favorable to the defendant, the
prevailing party below, granting him "all reasonable inferences
fairly deducible therefrom." See Commonwealth v. Grimstead, 12
Va. App. 1066, 1067, 407 S.E.2d 47, 48 (1991); Reynolds v.
Commonwealth, 9 Va. App. 430, 436, 388 S.E.2d 659, 663 (1990).
We review the trial court's findings of historical fact only for
"clear error" and "give due weight to inferences drawn from those
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facts by resident judges and local law enforcement officers."
Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. , , 116 S. Ct. 1657,
1663, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996). We review the trial court's
determination of reasonable suspicion de novo. See id. at ,
116 S. Ct. at 1659.
We hold that Chief Hille's stop of defendant was a valid
Terry stop. The information provided to him by the caller
possessed sufficient indicia of reliability from the perspective
of a reasonable police officer with Chief Hille's knowledge and
experience to provide an articulable basis for the chief to
suspect that the driver of the Oldsmobile was committing a crime.
First, the caller's tip that the Oldsmobile was uninsured
was sufficiently reliable from the perspective of a reasonable
police officer in Chief Hille's position to warrant the chief's
subsequent response. Because we view the evidence in the light
most favorable to defendant, we must accept as fact that the
person who called Chief Hille was not Mrs. Younger. However, we
conclude that Chief Hille's reliance on the tip was justified
because he reasonably believed that he was speaking with Mrs.
Younger, who was both known to him and the car's owner.
Under the circumstances of this case, the chief's belief
that the caller was Mrs. Younger was reasonable. When
determining reasonable suspicion,
reasonableness is judged from the perspective
of a reasonable officer on the scene allowing
for the need of split-second decisions and
without regard to the officer's intent or
motivation.
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Scott v. Commonwealth, 20 Va. App. 725, 727, 460 S.E.2d 610, 612
(1995) (citing Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396-97, 109 S. Ct.
1865, 1872, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1985)). In addition, we give
deference to the inferences the police officer draws from the
historical facts with which he or she is faced. See Ornelas, 517
U.S. at , 116 S. Ct. at 1663; Murphy, 9 Va. App. at 144, 384
S.E.2d at 128.
Based on Chief Hille's reasonable belief that he was
speaking with Mrs. Younger, the caller's information about the
Oldsmobile possessed sufficient indicia of reliability to justify
Chief Hille's response. Cf. Hill v. California, 401 U.S. 797,
804-05, 91 S. Ct. 1106, 1111, 28 L.Ed.2d 484 (1971) (holding that
arrest of person not named in warrant due to an understandable
mistake of identity and the subsequent search did not violate the
Fourth Amendment because the arrest and search were "reasonable
response[s] to the situation facing [the officers] at the time").
First, Chief Hille could reasonably conclude that the caller was
personally reliable because he knew Mrs. Younger and had received
information from her in the past about defendant. Chief Hille's
determination that the caller's statement was reliable was
likewise reasonable under the circumstances. Chief Hille had an
objective basis to assess the reliability of the caller's
knowledge that the Oldsmobile was uninsured because Mrs. Younger,
as the car's owner, was likely to know the status of the car's
insurance.
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Finally, Chief Hille's knowledge that the insurance on the
Oldsmobile had been canceled justified his decision to conduct an
investigative stop of the driver of the vehicle. Under Code
§ 46.2-707, it is a Class 3 misdemeanor for the non-owner of an
uninsured vehicle to drive the vehicle knowing that the uninsured
motor vehicle fee was unpaid. From "Mrs. Younger's" statement
that she had "dropped" the insurance on the Oldsmobile and the
fact that she was calling the police to report that someone might
be driving the car, Chief Hille could reasonably infer that she
had yet to pay the uninsured motor vehicle fee. Because Chief
Hille harbored an articulable, reasonable suspicion that the
driver of the Oldsmobile was engaged in criminal activity, his
investigative stop of the Oldsmobile did not violate the Fourth
Amendment.
For the foregoing reasons, we reverse and remand the order
of the trial court granting defendant's motion to suppress and
remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
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Commonwealth of Virginia v. James Anthony Younger
Combined Opinion