Pubdate: Wed, 19 Apr 2000
Source: Morning Call (PA)
Copyright: 2000 The Morning Call Inc.
Contact:  http://www.mcall.com/
Author: Todd Spangler Of The Associated Press

STATE HIGH COURT REVERSES THREE DRUG DECISIONS

Pennsylvania Justices Act According To U.S. Supreme Court Ruling About
Anonymous Tips.

PITTSBURGH -- The state's highest court reversed three drug
convictions in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision last month
that limited the authority of police to search suspects after
receiving anonymous tips.

In the Pennsylvania cases, which were announced Monday, the state
Supreme Court ruled that in each of the three -- one in Huntingdon
County and two in Westmoreland County -- police did not have enough
detailed information from anonymous callers to warrant searching the
suspects.

In one of its rulings, the split court wrote that "an anonymous tip
may be nothing more than a mere prank call."

"When the police are acting on information supplied anonymously, the
public will receive its full measure of protection by police who act
within constitutional restraints," the court said.

The U.S. Supreme Court last month reaffirmed limitations on police who
act on anonymous tips, saying Miami authorities unlawfully searched
and arrested a juvenile for carrying a gun. An anonymous caller had
told police that someone matching the juvenile's description had a
concealed weapon outside a pawn shop.

Writing for the court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg also noted that the
ruling covers anonymous tips regarding people suspected of carrying
illegal drugs -- a limitation that played a role in the Pennsylvania
cases.

In the first, the state Supreme Court threw out a drug conviction
against Constance Goodwin, who was arrested following an anonymous tip
to state police in November 1993.

The caller described Goodwin and said she carried marijuana with her
in a pink bag, alleging that she sold drugs to children, police said.
Troopers stopped her car after the call and, after getting permission
from her to search the car and her apartment, found marijuana and drug
paraphernalia.

According to the court record, she admitted to selling drugs to two
people in August 1993 and was sentenced on that charge in Westmoreland
County Court of Common Pleas.

But the court threw out the charge, saying it was a result of the
search and that police "saw no unusual activity while they watched
Goodwin and had no reason independent of the anonymous tip to suspect
that criminal activity was afoot."

The court said police, before making a search on a tip, must have
detailed "insider" information about a person's activity or
corroborate a tip through further investigation.

The two other cases involved Lance White, in Westmoreland County, and
Anthony Wimbush, in Huntingdon County, both of whom were sentenced on
drug charges in 1994.

The court held that police wrongly searched Wimbush's van after an
anonymous caller told state police Wimbush would have cocaine and
marijuana in his possession. White was arrested in New Kensington
after a caller told police that a black male would leave a housing
complex with drugs in his possession and get onto a girl's black bicycle.

"Appellants argue that the investigatory detention they were subjected
to was unconstitutional since the anonymous tip and other purported
corroborating evidence did not create a reasonable suspicion that they
were engaged in criminal activity," the court said. "We agree."

Justice Ronald Castille did not agree, noting in his dissenting
opinion that the reason for the anonymity is a "mortal fear of drug
dealers" that makes it hard for police to investigate.

"This decision protects our citizens against what the majority must
conclude to be the ominous specter of having to answer a few questions
posed by hard-pressed police," he wrote. "All it surrenders in
exchange is the ability of law enforcement officers to do their jobs."
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