Massachusetts Supreme Court Differs from SCOTUS Over Anonymous Tip

An anonymous tip about an apparent drunk driver does not, by itself, give the police reasonable suspicion to conduct an investigatory stop of the suspected motorist.

 

Commonwealth v. Depiero, 2015 BL 435626, Mass., No. SJC-11893, 1/4/16

    An anonymous tipster called 9-1-1 and complained about an apparently drunk driver.  The Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that this, by itself, did not give the police reasonable suspicion to conduct an investigatory stop of the suspected drunk driver.

    The court's decision does not follow the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Navarette v. California, which says that anonymous calls are normally reliable because caller ID technology makes prank calls unlikely. In this case, the court indicated that caller ID technology is irrelevant if the caller does not know about it, and a tipster might instead be a prankster.

http://www.bloomberglaw.com/public/document/Commonwealth_v_Depiero_No_SJC11893_2015_BL_435626_Mass_Jan_04_201