All You Need to Know About Anonymous Tips and Informants
Police make arrests based on diverse information sources. In some cases, an officer may witness the actual crime and apprehend the suspect. However, third-party information is used in most situations.
Anonymous tips and informants dominate a majority of police cases, and the information collected from such sources directly informs the next steps the police should take. Although, trustworthiness is a key concern with anonymous tips and informants, which is why it is crucial that you have legal counsel when such evidence is used in your case.
What Are Anonymous Tips and Informants?
Informants are people who may have witnessed suspected crimes and provided their accounts to the police. They are commonly used in organized crime cases.
In some cases, informants may be “cooperating witnesses” who help the police in exchange for prosecution immunity or a reduced charge and sentence. Uninvolved citizens and bystanders may also simply wish to report possible crimes.
Regardless of the type, informants often wish to remain anonymous. Most courts uphold requests for confidentiality, but an informant’s identity may be revealed when the defendant can demonstrate relevance.
An anonymous tip, on the other hand, is a report of a crime by someone who gives no information about themselves. Police primarily get such information from phone calls.
An informant is similar to an anonymous tipster. The key difference is that the latter gives no information about themselves. This disparity determines what the police can do next with the obtained information.
Assessing Trustworthiness
A police officer must be able to assess the trustworthiness of an informant and the provided information. This primarily involves establishing the informant’s credibility and how they learned the information.
Known informants provide the most trustworthy information. Prior productive tips from such individuals can be proof of the accuracy of provided information. Police officers can also conduct independent investigations to corroborate an informant’s information.
A criminal defendant may also separately test the trustworthiness of an informant. For this reason, the United States Supreme Court warrants a “totality of the circumstances” analysis of informants.
Anonymous tips are generally considered unreliable. It is challenging and sometimes impossible to determine the authenticity of this information. The tipsters also face no legal repercussions for providing false information.
Despite these credibility issues, the United States Supreme Court allows anonymous tips to substantiate probable cause and reasonable suspicion. For example, in the drug sale case of Illinois v. Gates, the Supreme Court ruled that the cited anonymous tip and the corroboration by police offered probable cause to validate the issuance of a search warrant.
Legal Issues with Anonymous Tips and Informants
The United States Supreme Court holds that anonymous tips are inadequate to warrant a Terry stop. Thus, tips must have specific details that the police corroborate through independent investigation.
Legal guidelines also suggest that face-to-face tips are more reliable than telephone tips. This is because an officer can assess a tipster’s credibility and demeanor during a face-to-face meeting.
Courts do not prohibit anonymous tips of future actions of suspects that actually occur. However, a law enforcement officer must testify about receiving the tip and the ensuing observations.
A Local Attorney Can Evaluate the Credibility of Evidence in Your Case
Anonymous tips and informants are controversial, especially when it comes to their credibility. However, they are accepted as evidence sources in American courts.
Get in touch with an lawyer if your case involves such sources of evidence. With professional legal help, you can check the reliability and accuracy of anonymous tips and accounts by informants. Your criminal attorney may even convince the court to throw out such evidence.