United States of America v.  Rodney Tyrone Jones

PUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v. No. 99-4201 
RODNEY TYRONE JONES,
Defendant-Appellant. 
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of South Carolina, at Spartanburg.
Henry M. Herlong, Jr., District Judge.
(CR-98-461)
Argued: January 25, 2001
Decided: March 1, 2001
Before WIDENER, MICHAEL, and MOTZ, Circuit Judges.
Vacated and remanded by published opinion. Judge Michael wrote
the opinion, in which Judge Widener and Judge Motz joined.
COUNSEL
ARGUED: Henry Jerome Mims, THE MIMS LAW FIRM, Greer,
South Carolina, for Appellant. Beth Drake, Assistant United States
Attorney, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: J.
Rene Josey, United States Attorney, Harold Watson Gowdy, III,
Assistant United States Attorney, Greenville, South Carolina, for
Appellee.

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OPINION
MICHAEL, Circuit Judge:
Rodney Jones appeals his conviction for possessing with intent to
distribute cocaine base (crack cocaine) in violation of 21 U.S.C.
§ 841. Jones moved to suppress the crack on the ground that it was
discovered by the police during the illegal stop of an automobile
occupied by Jones and three other African American men. The race
of the occupants prompted a city police officer to make the stop
shortly after police had been unable to corroborate an anonymous tip
that "several black males" were causing a disturbance at a certain
intersection. The district court denied the suppression motion and
admitted the crack cocaine into evidence. Because the tip proved to
be unreliable and the driver of the car was obeying the rules of the
road, the stop violated the Fourth Amendment, and the crack should
have been excluded from Jones’s trial. We therefore vacate his con-
viction.
I.
Union, South Carolina, is a city of about 10,000 people, nearly
forty percent of whom are African American. Sometime before 1:13
a.m. on March 17, 1998, the police dispatcher in Union received an
anonymous 911 call. The caller complained that "several black males"
were drinking beer and causing a disturbance in the roadway at the
intersection of Lybrand and Pond Streets. Aside from mentioning
their race, the caller did not provide any physical description of the
men and did not say whether they were in or near a vehicle. The dis-
patcher did not intrude upon the caller’s anonymity or press the caller
for any details. At 1:13 a.m., acting on this anonymous tip, the dis-
patcher radioed City Officer Rickey Mallet, asking that Mallet inves-
tigate the reported disturbance. Officer Claude Hart, who happened to
be near the intersection in a separate police car, also responded to the
dispatcher’s call. Each officer approached the intersection from a dif-
ferent direction. When they arrived at the scene, the officers did not
find anyone or see any signs of a disturbance. After scouting the
neighborhood in and around the intersection, the officers confirmed
that the area was clear.
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The officers then departed, and after Officer Hart had traveled
about two-tenths of a mile, he met a white Chevrolet coming into the
area. The driver of the car was not committing any traffic infractions,
and there were no signs of any other violations. Officer Hart noticed,
however, that there were four African American men in the Chevro-
let. Solely because the earlier call to the dispatcher had mentioned
several black males, Hart decided to stop the car. Hart quickly made
a U-turn, switched on his blue lights, and the driver of the Chevrolet
pulled over and stopped. Officer Mallet arrived moments later to
assist Hart. Hart went to the driver’s window and asked the driver for
his license, registration, and insurance information. While Officer
Hart was waiting for the documents, he noticed an open bottle of beer
at the feet of the passenger in the front seat. After the driver, Jamel
Good, produced his documents, Officer Hart asked Good to step out
of the car, and he complied. Hart then mentioned the open bottle of
beer and obtained Good’s consent to search the car. Hart ordered the
passengers, including the front-seat passenger, Rodney Jones, to get
out of the vehicle. Hart then searched the front passenger area and
found two open beer bottles. After he recovered the bottles, Hart
placed Jones under arrest for violating South Carolina’s open con-
tainer law. See S.C. Code Ann. § 61-4-110. While Hart was handcuff-
ing Jones, Officer Mallet patted him down. As he felt the front of
Jones’s jacket, Mallet heard a "crinkling" sound. Mallet checked the
front jacket pocket and found a plastic bag that contained 23.92 grams
of crack cocaine, according to subsequent laboratory analysis.
Jones was indicted in April 1998 and charged with possession with
intent to distribute crack cocaine. See 21 U.S.C. § 841. Jones’s first
trial ended in a hung jury. At his second trial he moved to suppress
the crack cocaine that Officer Mallet discovered on the ground that
it was the fruit of an unlawful stop. The district court denied the
motion, and the jury returned a guilty verdict. Jones appeals his con-
viction, challenging only the denial of his suppression motion.
II.
The Fourth Amendment protects "persons" from "unreasonable
searches and seizures." U.S. Const. amend. IV. A discretionary auto-
mobile stop by the police is a seizure of the person and therefore
"‘must be justified by . . . a reasonable suspicion, based on specific
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and articulable facts, of unlawful conduct.’" United States v. Wilson,
205 F.3d 720, 722-23 (4th Cir. 2000) (quoting United States v. Has-
san El, 5 F.3d 726, 729 (4th Cir. 1993)). Reasonable suspicion, of
course, is "more than an ‘inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or
"hunch" of criminal activity.’" Illinois v. Wardlow, 120 S. Ct. 673,
676 (2000) (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 27 (1968)). In this
case, we must determine whether the anonymous tip to 911 together
with Officer Hart’s observations of the white Chevrolet provided rea-
sonable suspicion to justify his investigative stop of the car.
Recently, in Florida v. J.L., 529 U.S. 266 (2000), the Supreme
Court revisited the issue of when an anonymous tip may provide rea-
sonable suspicion for an investigative stop.1 In J.L. the Court sup-
pressed a handgun that the Miami-Dade Police had seized from an
African American juvenile who was stopped and frisked on the basis
of an anonymous tip. The police had received an anonymous tele-
phone tip that a young African American male in a plaid shirt stand-
ing at a certain bus stop was carrying a gun. The police went to the
bus stop and found three African American males, one of whom was
wearing a plaid shirt. Aside from the tip, the police did not have any
reason to suspect any of the three men of unlawful activity. The offi-
cers did not see a firearm, and the men did not make any moves that
were threatening or unusual. One of the officers stepped up to the
young man with the plaid shirt, frisked him, and recovered a gun from
his pocket. See id. at 270.
The Court held unanimously that the stop and frisk violated the
juvenile’s Fourth Amendment rights. The Court acknowledged that
"there are situations in which an anonymous tip, suitably corrobo-
rated, exhibits ‘sufficient indicia of reliability to provide reasonable
suspicion to make the investigatory stop.’" Id. (quoting Alabama v.
White, 496 U.S. 325, 327 (1990)). The Court nevertheless concluded
that this tip lacked the necessary indicia of reliability. According to
the Court, the tip "provided no predictive information and therefore
left the police without means to test the informant’s credibility or
knowledge." Id. at 271. The police improperly relied on "the bare
report of an unknown, unaccountable informant who neither
1The district court in this case did not have the benefit of J.L. when it
denied Jones’s motion to suppress.
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explained how he knew about the gun nor supplied any basis for
believing he had inside information about [the juvenile]." Id.
Although the tip was reliable in the limited sense that it accurately
described the juvenile’s clothing and location, the Court held that the
tip was insufficient to establish reasonable suspicion. The Court noted
that reasonable suspicion "requires that a tip be reliable in its assertion
of illegality, not just in its tendency to identify a determinate person."
Id. at 272. Thus, because the police could not verify the informant’s
credibility and they had no reason to suspect the juvenile of unlawful
behavior apart from the tip, the Court held that the stop was unjusti-
fied and that the gun was the fruit of an unlawful search. See id. at
274.2
The anonymous tip in this case, like the one in J.L., lacks sufficient
indicia of reliability. In fact, the tip here was so barren of detail about
the alleged culprits’ physical descriptions that it was even less reliable
than the deficient tip in J.L. The 911 caller told the Union police dis-
patcher that several black males were drinking and causing a distur-
bance at a certain intersection. The caller said nothing else.
Specifically, he did not identify himself, did not give his location or
vantage point, and did not explain how he knew about the distur-
bance. The tipster did not say exactly how many men were present,
and apart from mentioning their race, gave no information about their
appearance. The caller did not mention whether the men were resi-
dents of the neighborhood or outsiders. Finally, he did not say
whether the men were in an automobile or whether they had access
to one. Union police went to the intersection and saw no one. They
undertook an inspection of the immediate area and still found no one
and saw no signs that there had been a disturbance. At that point, the
anonymous tip was totally uncorroborated. Cf. United States v.
Thompson, 234 F.3d 725, 729-30 (D.C. Cir. 2000) (holding that stop
and frisk was supported by reasonable suspicion because anonymous
tip was corroborated when "the police themselves observed [the
defendant] engaging in suspicious conduct"); United States v. Perrin,
45 F.3d 869, 872 (4th Cir. 1995) (recognizing that an informant’s tip
2The Court in J.L. was careful to note that the facts of the case did "not
require [it] to speculate about the circumstances under which the danger
alleged in an anonymous tip might be so great as to justify a search even
without a showing of reliability." J.L., 529 U.S. at 274.
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can provide the justification for an investigative stop if the informa-
tion in the tip is sufficiently corroborated).
In this case, the anonymous tip became essentially useless once the
police found no one and no illegal activity at the intersection. If the
police wished to investigate any further, they were relegated to look-
ing for several African American men, who had not been described
or otherwise identified. Indeed, as Officer Hart admitted, when he met
the white Chevrolet two-tenths of a mile from the empty intersection,
he "saw four black guys . . . and stopped them for that." Officer Hart
saw no traffic or equipment violations or any suspicious activity. He
stopped the car simply because the earlier, uncorroborated tip men-
tioned several black men. Because Officer Hart had not been able to
confirm the 911 "informant’s knowledge or credibility," J.L., 529
U.S. at 271, the tip was not a reliable accusation against the men in
the white Chevrolet. In short, the uncorroborated tip and Officer
Hart’s sighting of four African American men in a car were insuffi-
cient to establish reasonable suspicion for a stop. The stop was there-
fore illegal, and the crack cocaine that Officer Mallet discovered
during his search of Jones should have been excluded at trial. Jones’s
judgment of conviction is therefore vacated, and the case is remanded
for any further proceedings that would be consistent with this opinion.
VACATED AND REMANDED
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