Anonymous Tip Provided Reasonable Suspicion

The fact that an unidentified tipster continued to stay in contact with police officers was enough to make the limited, predictive information in his tip sufficiently reliable to justify an investigative detention, the Louisiana Supreme Court decided Dec. 2. (State v. Carter, 2013 BL 334474, La., No. 13-KK-1952)

In Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325 (1990), the U.S. Supreme Court decided that officers’ corroboration of an anonymous tip about drug possession provided the reasonable suspicion required by the Fourth Amendment to justify a stop. The tip’s accurate predictions about the suspect’s movements showed that the tipster had “inside ...