United States v. Conner, No. 12-1063 (10th Cir. 2012)
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Defendant-Appellant Christopher Michael Conner entered a conditional plea to being a felon in possession of a firearm, reserving the right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress. He was sentenced to 28 months' imprisonment followed by three years' supervised release. On appeal, he argued that the officers who stopped and frisked him based upon an anonymous tip violated the Fourth Amendment. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit concluded that "[t]his [was] clearly not a case of police officers arbitrarily stopping an individual walking down the sidewalk during the middle of the afternoon. . . . nor [was] this a case of police officers arbitrarily stopping an individual walking down an alley late at night in a high-crime area. Here, the officers had a sufficiently reliable tip and a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity they believed Mr. Conner might have been involved in an armed confrontation. Reasonable suspicion requires a dose of reasonableness and simply does not require an officer to rule out every possible lawful explanation for suspicious circumstances before effecting a brief stop to investigate further."
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