United States v. Monteiro
447 F.3d 39 (2006)
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Rule of Law:
A hearsay tip about a completed crime that is substantially undermined by a police investigation cannot provide the reasonable suspicion necessary to justify an investigatory vehicle stop, even when combined with the suspect's criminal history and gang affiliation.
Facts:
- On March 25, 1999, police investigated a shooting targeting Antonio Cabral, a known gang associate.
- Later that day, Cabral told police that his unnamed female relative witnessed a separate shooting on Shirley Street involving a red Honda with license plate 5021EV.
- Cabral, whose gang was a rival to the car owner's suspected gang, refused to identify his relative.
- Police investigated Shirley Street that evening and found no physical evidence of a shooting, nor had any 911 calls been made, which was unusual for shootings in that neighborhood.
- Police identified the Honda's owner as Marcelino Rodrigues, a suspected rival gang member who had a recent firearms possession arrest.
- One week later, on March 31, police observed Rodrigues driving the red Honda with two passengers, including Amando Monteiro, and pulled the vehicle over for 'field interrogation' without observing any traffic violation or suspicious activity.
Procedural Posture:
- Amando Monteiro was indicted in federal court on various charges.
- Monteiro filed a pretrial motion to suppress evidence (two guns) found during the March 31st vehicle stop.
- The U.S. District Court (trial court) held an evidentiary hearing and granted Monteiro's motion to suppress.
- The government, as the appellant, filed an interlocutory appeal of the suppression order to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, where Monteiro was the appellee.
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Issue:
Does a vehicle stop based on a third-hand, uncorroborated tip about a past crime violate the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable seizures when a police investigation fails to find any evidence of the reported crime and instead reveals facts inconsistent with the tip?
Opinions:
Majority - Lipez, Circuit Judge.
Yes, the vehicle stop violated the Fourth Amendment. To justify a stop, police needed a particularized and objective basis for suspecting legal wrongdoing, which they lacked. The court reasoned that the tip from Cabral's relative was functionally anonymous and bore significant badges of unreliability: it was hearsay, relayed by a person with a motive to fabricate a story about a rival, and was contradicted by the police's own investigation. The police found no physical evidence or witnesses to the alleged Shirley Street shooting, and no one had reported it via 911. Corroborating the license plate only identified a determinate person (Rodrigues) but did not, as required by Florida v. J.L., corroborate the tip's 'assertion of illegality.' Rodrigues's criminal history and gang affiliation were insufficient to make an unreliable and disproven tip reliable. Given the totality of the circumstances, including the one-week passage of time and the lack of any imminent threat, the police had only a mere 'hunch,' not the reasonable suspicion required for a constitutional stop.
Analysis:
This decision reinforces the principle from Florida v. J.L. that an informant's tip must possess sufficient indicia of reliability in its assertion of criminal activity, not just in its identification of a person. It clarifies that when a police investigation actively undermines a tip's credibility, the tip loses much of its weight in the reasonable suspicion analysis. The case further delineates the difference between investigating ongoing crimes and completed crimes, suggesting that officers have a greater responsibility to develop grounds for a stop when a week has passed and there is no exigent threat to public safety.
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