{"id":2825,"date":"2009-02-10T08:29:52","date_gmt":"2009-01-01T09:14:08","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-01T09:14:08","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=2825","title":{"rendered":"CA7: 911 call was sufficiently corroborated by observations of details; caller’s name not required"},"content":{"rendered":"

911 call describing man who pulled a gun on his female companion was sufficiently corroborated by seeing people matching the description. A requirement of more corroboration or detail would make the 911 system incapable of being a crime tip system. United States v. Wooden<\/a>, 551 F.3d 647 (7th Cir. December 29, 2008), lower court opinion posted here<\/a>. As always, an interesting read from Judge Easterbrook:<\/p>\n

Doubtless greater confidence can be achieved when police know a caller’s identity, for then, as the Court observed in J.L.<\/a>, the threat of penalties for lies makes information more reliable. Yet as a practical matter a name given by a caller does not make the tip less anonymous. Suppose that the 911 call in this case had begun: “My name is John Jenkins, and I would like to report …”. That a caller gives a name does not mean that he is John Jenkins (either the President of Notre Dame or any other John Jenkins). Caller ID does not solve this problem for public phones or even home phones, which can be used by multiple people (including guests at a party); some subscribers block the service. Cell phones, which almost always use caller ID, can be stolen. And it would undermine the goal of the 911 system to require a caller to prove his identity, perhaps by coming to the station with a driver’s license or passport, before the police react to the information. When crime is in progress, prompt action is essential. The fourth amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, and it has long been understood that, when the police believe that a crime is in progress (or imminent), action on a lesser degree of probability, or with fewer procedural checks in advance, can be reasonable. See, e.g., Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398 (2006).<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

A 911 system designed to provide an emergency response to telephonic tips could not operate if the police had to verify the identity of all callers and test their claim to have seen crimes in progress. A process of testing would frustrate the expedition that often is essential to protect lives and safety. A system that follows an “act fast, verify later” approach creates risks of unjustified action and makes it possible for someone holding a grudge to cause trouble. All of this goes into the calculus of reasonableness, together with the fact that Terry<\/a> stops are brief, and people can quickly go on their way if the call proves to be unfounded. So we reiterate the holding of Drake and Hicks that a need for dispatch can make reasonable a stop that would not be reasonable if the police had time to investigate at leisure.<\/p><\/blockquote>\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-2825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2825","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=2825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2825\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}