{"id":2277,"date":"2009-09-18T08:04:53","date_gmt":"2008-07-21T07:02:05","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-07-21T07:02:05","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=2277","title":{"rendered":"CA5: Alleged CI was really a victim so a lower threshold applies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Defendant did not show a sufficient issue of fact to get a suppression hearing. The parties offered their versions of events, and defendant’s version was more a challenge to the scope of Belton<\/em>. Caller ID identified the caller, and he claimed to be a crime victim, not a CI, so a lower standard of justification is applied to him. Here it was sufficient. United States v. Casper<\/a>, 536 F.3d 409 (5th Cir. 2008), vacated and remanded, 129 S. Ct. 2156, 173 L. Ed. 2d 1153 (2009):<\/p>\n

We have agreed with other circuits that a citizen reporting a crime is more reliable, because such citizens are exposed to criminal liability for false complaints. United States v. Basey<\/em>, 816 F.2d 980, 988-89 (5th Cir. 1987). Reliability is the central concern. Thus, in Basey the tipster was reliable because the deputies conducting the Terry stop knew the citizen informant. Id. at 988. In contrast, in Martinez<\/em>, 486 F.3d at 861-62, where the government “never introduced any evidence about the informant whatsoever and made no effort to illustrate his or her reliability in the district court,” the tip was the “functional equivalent of an anonymous tip. To characterize it as anything else would be to assume the very credibility and reliability that the government has the burden of proving.”<\/p>\n

In the instant case, the government must establish the reliability of the informant, base its reasonable suspicion on other factors named in Martinez<\/em>, or both. The government offers that the informant was not anonymous because he could be identified by his phone number and held accountable for a false tip if that became necessary. We agree that, where instant caller identification allows the police to trace the identity of an anonymous telephone informant, the ready identifiability of the caller increases the reliability of such tips. See J.L.<\/em><\/a>, 529 U.S. at 276 (Kennedy, J., concurring). Additionally, an informant who explains the basis for his knowledge increases his reliability, see id. at 271, especially if he is a person relating the details of a crime he has personally suffered, see Adams v. Williams<\/em><\/a>, 407 U.S. 143, 147 (1972).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Opinion on remand on September 18, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"pingsdone","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2277\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}