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State v. Myhre11/8/2005
hes that Yunis' information was reliable and provided sufficient basis for the investigatory stop. We address each of the three Pratt factors in turn.
The first Pratt factor provides that a citizen informant's tip may be considered more reliable where the citizen identifies him or her self, thereby exposing the citizen to criminal or civil liability if the information is false. Pratt, 286 Mont. at 165, 951 P.2d at 42. At the evidentiary hearing on Myhre's motion to dismiss, the State entered into evidence an audio tape of the telephone conversation between Yunis and the 911 dispatcher on the night of Myhre's arrest. The audio tape reveals that when Yunis called 911, she gave the dispatcher her first name and her cell phone number, and informed the dispatcher that she was from Hardin, Montana. Yunis also described the make, model, year and color of the vehicle she was driving, as well as giving the first two numbers of her vehicle's license plate indicating the county in which her vehicle was registered.
Myhre points out that the written call for service report printed by the highway patrol dispatcher indicates that Yunis was from Gallatin County, rather than Big Horn County where Hardin is located, and lists an incorrect prefix for Yunis' cell phone number. At the hearing in the District Court, Reddick testified that this mixup occurred when the 911 dispatcher relayed the information from Yunis' cell phone call to the highway patrol dispatcher. Reddick also testified that he contacted the original 911 dispatcher several days later, obtained Yunis' correct phone number and eventually located Yunis in order to take a statement from her regarding the incident. Myhre asserts that, notwithstanding Reddick's ability to search down and talk to Yunis several days after his arrest, the misinformation in the written report results in Yunis' information being unreliable because " he information is not reliable unless the identity of the citizen informant has been confirmed prior to the investigative stop." Thus, according to Myhre, because Reddick did not personally have the correct information identifying the citizen informant, he could not rely on the citizen's information to establish particularized suspicion. Myhre's contention is without merit.
We rejected a contention identical to Myhre's in Pratt. There, the defendant argued that the officer initiating the investigative stop "must have personally assessed the reliability of the informant's tip before making the stop." Pratt, 286 Mont. at 166, 951 P.2d at 43. After analyzing both United States Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals jurisprudence on the issue, we determined that the officer could reasonably rely on information conveyed by a dispatcher or other officer for particularized suspicion justifying an investigatory stop without being required to personally assess the underlying reliability of the information. Pratt, 286 Mont. at 166-67, 951 P.2d at 43-44.
We recently reaffirmed that, in applying the three-factor Pratt analysis to the totality of the circumstances, "when a tip has been relayed from dispatch and an officer has acted on that information, it is appropriate to look beyond the stopping or investigating officer to include the information known to the dispatching or reporting officer." State v. Hall, 2004 MT 106, 15, 321 Mont. 78, 15, 88 P.3d 1273, 15.
In the present case, the audio tape of Yunis' 911 call clearly establishes that she gave the original 911 dispatcher her first name, correct cell phone number, description of the vehicle she was driving and the name of the town in which she lived. This information identified Yunis sufficiently to expose her to criminal or
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