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Washington v. Anderson6/16/1988
l communication that 'the car ahead is weaving in a sufficiently unusual manner that it seems something must be wrong'".
"If a determination concerns whether evidence shows that something occurred or existed, it is properly labeled a finding of fact, but if the determination is made by a process of legal reasoning from facts in evidence, it is a conclusion of law." State v. Niedergang, 43 Wash. App. 656, 658-59, 719 P.2d 576 (1986). Here, the facts in evidence are that Mr. Ristau pointed at the Volkswagen and made a motion "like a snake . . . going back and forth." Those facts are not disputed. But whether those facts justified the investigatory stop is a determination made by a process of legal reasoning. The Superior Court differed from the District Court on the law, not the facts. Thus, we reject Ms. Anderson's assertions that the Superior Court disregarded the District Court's findings.
Second, Ms. Anderson assigns error to the Superior Court's conclusion that the trooper conducted a valid investigatory stop of her vehicle.
Since the report came from an identified citizen informant, Trooper Lothrop properly concluded the source of his information was reliable. State v. Kennedy, 107 Wash. 2d 1, 8, 726 P.2d 445 (1986); State v. Huft, 106 Wash. 2d 206, 211, 720 P.2d 838 (1986); State v. Riley, 34 Wash. App. 529, 532, 663 P.2d 145 (1983). Ms. Anderson does not contend otherwise.
But, "reliability by itself generally does not justify an investigatory detention." State v. Sieler, 95 Wash. 2d 43, 48, 621 P.2d 1272 (1980). A reliable informant's tip which is
merely a bare conclusion unsupported by a sufficient factual basis or uncorroborated by independent police observation is not enough to allow the State to detain and question an individual. Sieler, at 48.
It was the lack of either a factual basis for the tip or independent police corroboration thereof that caused the court in Campbell v. Department of Licensing, 31 Wash. App. 833, 644 P.2d 1219 (1982) to suppress evidence seized in the stop of the defendant's vehicle. There, a passing motorist yelled to a state trooper that a drunk driver in a certain described vehicle was southbound on the highway. The trooper made a U-turn, spotted the defendant's vehicle, followed it for a while, but observed nothing abnormal. Nevertheless, he stopped the defendant and found that he appeared under the influence. The court held the tip itself was conclusory, making it impossible to assess its accuracy, and also was uncorroborated by the trooper's observations. Campbell, at 835. Hence, the stop was improper.
The situation here is distinguishable from Campbell. Unlike the informant in Campbell, Mr. Ristau made more than a conclusory statement. His tip was that the driver of the indicated vehicle was operating it in a manner that caused him concern, and he provided an underlying factual justification for his tip by gesturing that he had observed
the vehicle weaving. Even without supplementation by the trooper's own observations or Mr. Ristau's later statements, this communication gave rise to a well founded articulable suspicion that the driver's operation of the vehicle posed a danger to herself or others using the roadway. That suspicion was sufficient to warrant the trooper's investigatory stop. White v. State Dep't of Pub. Safety, 606 P.2d 1131, 1132 (Okla. 1980).
Ms. Anderson relies o
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