People v. Holmes, 2019 IL App (1st) 160987 (March). Episode 601 (Duration 9:33 )







An essentially anonymous tip was treated as wholly unreliable resulting in an outright reversal of this gun conviction.























Gist







Police approach a man with a gun and pat him down.







Facts







A Chicago police officer received information from a sergeant, who received information from an unidentified Chicago Park District security guard, whose source of information was unknown, that a man in Brainerd Park had a gun in his pocket.







The man was described as black, about five-and-a-half feet tall, wearing a purple shirt and black jeans.







Two or three minutes after talking to the sergeant, the officer and his partner saw defendant, who matched the description. There was nothing inappropriate about defendant’ conduct. Nonetheless, the officers approached defendant, and one of the officers immediately touched the pocket of his jeans.







The officer felt what he recognized as the trigger and trigger guard of a gun. The officers ordered defendant to the ground, put him in handcuffs, and placed him under arrest.







Issue







Defendant now challenges the initial seizure, before his arrest, as an unconstitutional Terry stop. He argues that the officers did not have reasonable suspicion to stop him.







In particular, both the security guard’s identity and the source of information remain unknown, “effectively” an anonymous tip, which, without more, cannot provide a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.







Defendant asserts that the officer’s frisk of his person constituted a Terry stop sufficient to trigger the protections of the fourth amendment and that the tip lacked the requisite legal corroboration to establish reasonable suspicion for a Terry stop and frisk.







Guard Not Anonymous







The State responds that the tip was reliable and not anonymous and contained sufficient information to support the Terry stop. The State argues the tip that led to defendant’s detention came from an identifiable security guard.







The State assures us that we can rely on the security guard’s tip because it was given in person and security guards are presumptively more trustworthy reporters of crime than ordinary eyewitnesses.







Terry Stops







Broadly speaking, Terry, 392 U.S. 1, governs.







Terry gives officers a “narrowly drawn authority” to detain people and search for weapons where they reasonably believe that “criminal activity may be afoot” and that the person seized “may be armed and presently dangerous.” Id. at 27, 30.







A seizure, short of an arrest, is justified only where an officer “reasonably suspects that the person apprehended is committing or has committed a criminal offense.” Arizona v. Johnson, 555 U.S. 323, 326 (2009).







Once seized, he or she may only be frisked if an officer “reasonably suspect[s] that the person stopped is armed and dangerous.” Id.







Informant Tips







In short, the validity of the initial stop constitutes a necessary precondition to the validity of any later search. Informant tips “may vary greatly in their value and reliability.” Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 147 (1972).







Cases involving known informants are “stronger cases” than those invol...