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Court rules police can use anonymous calls to 911 as evidence to stop somebody on suspicion of drunk driving
By adamg on Thu, 02/19/2015 - 3:11pm
A Belmont man convicted of his second OUI offense appealed, arguing his arrest was illegal because a trooper only showed up at his home based on the word of an anonymous 911 caller and that's just not good enough to warrant a potential arrest.
But the Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled that the caller provided enough details of what he'd seen - not just stating that the guy was swerving all over Memorial Drive early one night in 2011, but providing his license-plate number and car's make and color as well - that State Police had every reason to send a trooper in pursuit of the guy, especially after they called up his plate numbers and learned he was on probation for his first OUI conviction.
The trooper headed to John DePiero's home and was waiting out front when he pulled up. Although he appeared to drive up normally, he was arrested after he fell out of the car when asked to step out by the trooper and after he failed field-sobriety tests and gave off an odor of alcohol, according to police.
DePiero argued that anonymous calls cannot be held to be reliable enough for a stop. The court acknowledged that can be true, but said that in this case, the circumstances merited police acting on them, in particular:
[T]he evidence supports the inference that the caller utilized the emergency number "911" for a valid reason, to report to the police what the caller understood to be a "drunk" driver operating a vehicle dangerously on a major thoroughfare, rather than for any malicious purpose that would lessen its reliability. ...
The fact that the caller's report bore sufficient indicia of reliability does not end our analysis. We must still determine whether the reliable tip created a reasonable suspicion that the crime of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol had been or was being committed. While there was no specific information provided by the caller regarding alcohol consumption, we can appropriately recognize that "swerving all over the road" is a significant indicator of drunk driving. Here, Trooper Dwyer could reasonably suspect that the behavior reported by the caller was consistent with driving under the influence of alcohol and because Trooper Dwyer knew that the defendant was on probation for drunk driving, he had the requisite reasonable suspicion to make an
investigatory stop, even though he had not personally observed any suspicious behavior.
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 Complete ruling, Commonwealth vs. John C. DePiero | 79.17 KB |
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Comments
Anonymous 911 calls?
How can there be anonymous 911 calls? I thought all those calls could be identified.
Call from a cell phone, don't
Call from a cell phone, don't give your name, state that you wish to remain anonymous. You aren't the suspect of a crime, so the cops aren't going to waste their time trying to get your name from your cell provider from your cell #, which they probably won't get from them anyways.
Unfortunately these days it's
Unfortunately these days it's not uncommon to find someone's ID by googling their cell phone number. I was pretty pissed when I found my name by typing my number.
Likely it's from various ecommerce sites selling info.
I'd guess this only works for about 20% of numbers, but that number will surely grow over time.
So get one of those cheapo 911 phones
Which, based on what I'm constantly hearing on BPD frequencies, can't be called back by dispatchers.
True, but I imagine in the
True, but I imagine in the legal world, if you call and state you wish you remain anonymous, and you aren't involved in the crime, there's no cause to figure out who you are, especially when you aren't all too helpful after the fact (the actual witnessing of say, erratic driving by a drunk driver has to be seen by the cop himself if he were to want to pull you over, or the drunk driver stumbling out of the car he was just driving)
I thought all calls to 911 were automatically identified
I thought 911 calls had some kind of automatic caller ID no matter what. By force of habit I once dialed a 9 (because you have to dial a 9 to get a line at my work phone) plus a 1 for long distance and then the number. After I hung up I received a call from 911 asking if I had an emergency. And this was from a phone with a blocked number.
different
Your office phone is probably a landline. And the way 911 works on a landline is different than a cell phone.
Landlines are automatically registered with 911 so when you call from any LL, your info is automatically sent and shown on screen to 911 operators, regardless if its blocked or not.
With a cell phone, unless you've registered your cell phone with a 'home' address (some providers now allow this), there's nothing to send. Yes they get the phone number, but no name or address like you do with a landline.
Even on IP phone services (vonage, hosted pbx, etc), if you want 911 service, most will require you to 'register' to use 911 service.
PS - I worked for a company that had phones that had sticky buttons and 9 for an outside line.. we were always calling 911. Of course people would hang up as soon as they heard the operator speak, and the PD would call back (as they do with all hangups). And if no one answered (often!), they would send a car out. After a few times of that, the PD told us to stop (or they would start to charge us per call). Shortly after that I changed the 9 to a 7 for an outside line.
I still have an old cell
I still have an old cell phone that I use in house with wifi but no SIM card. It complains about the lack of SIM but since all phones that can connect to a tower are required to make emergency calls, it says on the screen that there is no service but 911 calls are still possible. If you're paranoid and want to be anonymous, remove your SIM.
"With a cell phone, unless
"With a cell phone, unless you've registered your cell phone with a 'home' address (some providers now allow this), there's nothing to send. Yes they get the phone number, but no name or address like you do with a landline."
The phone company provides Enhanced 911 information which includes your current position. Any phone made in the last decade+ does this.
The only case where your address isn't provided is if the phone is prepaid.
thats why
I laff when they say that 800 number for "Anonymous Tips"
As someone who managed the bills for 800 numbers, I can tell you it's not anonymous, not at all. I get a 500+ page bill every month of every call my 800 numbers get. Yeah I don't get your name, but I do have your number and location. (or Central Office)
Makes sense. The trooper,
Makes sense. The trooper, acting on information that a vehicle registered to that address and to an owner with a history of driving under the influence, was present when the driver returned home and got out of his car when he began showing signs of intoxication.
Would it be any different if a cop driving down the street past your house saw you pull into your driveway, see you fall on your way out of the car, go over to see if you need help and him realize you were intoxicated?
It does make sense.....
But I could see a case like this go either way in Massachusetts. We still use the Aguilar-Spinelli Test for anonymous tips for the most part here, with 911 cases like this appearing to be the exception based on rulings like these.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aguilar%E2%80%93Spinelli_test
Courts tend to rule that people have less rights when it comes to driving (roadblocks, warrant exceptions to search and now 911 calls where anonymous tips are valid).
I'm confused
According to what I read (and you linked, Pete) the A/S test refers specifically to probable cause arrests and the generation of search warrants where the proximate evidence is the tip itself.
In this case, the probable cause for the arrest was not the tip itself, but the observations of the Trooper after following the tip. How or why the Trooper arrived at the home to observe the accused should be irrelevant, no? If he stayed on the road until such time that he observed the accused falling out of the car then why the challenge?
Can anyone elucidate the finer points here for me?
It has to do with how he "seized" him.
The trooper did not observe any motor vehicle violation, and only pulled over the vehicle (seized the person) because of an anonymous tip (and although the ruling mentions a curfew briefly, it does not talk abkut whether or not the trooper used this information as a basis for his stop either). The trooper seized the person before he saw him stumble out of his car. Once you turn on those lights, you "sieze" the person.
In order to pull someone over, you need to witness some sort of motor vehicle infraction, or have another reason to pull over the car. Usually an anonymous tip is not good enough. In this case, the court ruled that an anonymous 911 call regarding evidence of drunk driving was good enough,
If the trooper saw the vehicle actually swerve or have a broken tail light or,something, this wouldn't even be an issue.
I guess I get it?
With that relevant paragraph in mind, I think I understand your point. In my initial reading, the Trooper had pulled up, observed the accused fall out of the car, and then proceeded with an arrest. In fact, he pulled him out of the car, the fall happened, and then we go from there. PC is needed for the "stop".
Shouldn't have been an issue anyway
The person turned out to be drunk, thus vaildating the 911 caller's observations. And the lawyer should have argued his semantic points prior to the original trial, instead of wasting the courts time and the taxpayer's money with another "we didn't like the verdict, so we'll file an idiotic appeal that has nothing to do with the evidence (the fact the guy WAS DRUNK) in the case" after the fact.
When I read the title I
When I read the title I figured the guy made it home fine, and the cop came and knocked on his door. If that were the case I'd question the validity of the arrest, but since the cop witnessed the guy driving, and witnessed him exhibiting signs of drunkenness, I'd have to file this under "seems legit".
On another note, I've tried to make anonymous 911 reports before and had hostile dispatchers prod me for my full name, which I never give in case the person I'm reporting is someone who might retaliate against me.