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State v. Prendergast2/2/2004
police with enough information so that users of that system are not truly anonymous even when they fail to identify themselves by name." Golotta, 837 A.2d at 367. However, New Jersey also has a statute making it a crime to place a call to 9-1-1 without a need for emergency assistance. Id., citing N.J.S.A. 2C:33-3e.
The New Jersey court held that the anonymous tip was sufficient to justify an investigative stop, but the court narrowly tailored this rule to prevent an erosion of fourth amendment protections. The court required that the informant's tip "must convey an unmistakable sense that the caller has witnessed an ongoing offense that implicates a risk of imminent death or serious injury to a particular person such as a vehicle's driver or to the public at large." Id. at 369. The court also required the informant's tip to be made close in time to the informant's first-hand observations of the erratic driving. Id.
Several other jurisdictions have reached the same conclusion as the Vermont and New Jersey Supreme Courts. The Supreme Courts of Iowa, [FN9] **723 *460 Kansas, [FN10] and Wisconsin, [FN11] as well as the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals [FN12] and the New Mexico Court of Appeals, [FN13] have all held in post-J.L. decisions that an anonymous tip of erratic driving is sufficient to justify an investigatory stop. We agree.
FN9. State v. Walshire, 634 N.W.2d 625 (Iowa 2001). The Iowa Supreme Court held that an anonymous cellular telephone call, reporting that a vehicle was driving in the median and reporting the vehicle's make, model, location, direction, and license plate number, was sufficient to justify an investigatory stop. Id. at 625, 630. However, the court held that the informant was actually a citizen informant, "defined as one who is a witness to or a victim of a crime." Id. at 629.
FN10. State v. Crawford, 275 Kan. 492, 67 P.3d 115 (2003). The Kansas Supreme Court held that an anonymous call, reporting that a vehicle was being driven erratically and reporting the vehicle's make, model, color, location, direction, and license plate state of origin, was sufficient to justify an investigatory stop. Id. at 116-17.
FN11. State v. Rutzinski, 241 Wis.2d 729, 623 N.W.2d 516 (2001). The Wisconsin Supreme Court held that the report of erratic driving by an anonymous informant was sufficient to justify an investigative stop. However, the informant in Rutzinski, unlike the informant in the instant
case, remained on the line with the 9-1-1 operator for an extended period of time; when the police officer appeared behind the suspect car, the informant told the 9-1-1 operator that she or he (the informant) saw the police officer; that the informant was driving in the car in front of the suspect car; and that the police officer was directly behind the correct vehicle. Id. at 519. The court therefore held that, because the informant put her or his anonymity at risk (because the police officer could have traced the informant's license plates), the tip was not truly anonymous. Id. at 525-26.
FN12. United States v. Wheat, 278 F.3d 722 (8th Cir.2001), cert. denied, 537 U.S. 850, 123 S.Ct. 194, 154 L.Ed.2d 81 (2002). The Eighth Circuit held that an anonymous call, reporting that a vehicle was being driven erratically and providing the vehicle's make, color, location, direction, and partial license plate number, was sufficient to justify an investigative stop. Id. at 724. The court stated that "[w]e think that an anonymous tip conveying a contemporaneous observation of criminal activity whose innocent details are corroborated is at least as credible as the one in White, where future criminal activity was predicted, but only innocent details were corroborated." Id. at 735.
FN13. State v. Contreras
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