INFORMANT'S TIP IS JUDGED A GOOD REASON FOR SEARCH

FRANKFORT - A corroborated tip from a reliable informant can be enough
for police officers to make a search and arrest in drug cases, the
state Supreme Court said yesterday.

The court rejected an appeal by Jermaine E. Williams, convicted in
Jefferson County of trafficking in crack cocaine and being a
persistent felon.

Williams was arrested after a tip to police in which a proven
informant described Williams, the car he would be driving, the
apartment complex to which he was headed and the manner in which he
would be concealing cocaine -- between his buttocks.

Detectives put Williams under surveillance, then arrested and searched
him and seized cocaine. At trial, Williams sought to have the evidence
suppressed because the officers did not have a search warrant.

The state Supreme Court said the tipster's information gave police
"reasonable suspicion" to stop Williams. "The key details of the tip
were independently corroborated by the police through their
surveillance of (the) apartment," the court said in an opinion by
Justice Williams Graves.

But in a similar case from Grant County, the court said an anonymous
tip about a suspected drunken driver was not enough to permit a
Kentucky State Police trooper to pull the vehicle over.

The court overruled the Grant County Circuit Court, which rejected
driver Mark Collins' motion to suppress blood-alcohol test results
that showed him to be intoxicated.

An anonymous caller contacted state police, described Collins' vehicle
and reported his license number. He was stopped on Interstate 75 near
Williamstown. A trial judge ruled, and the Court of Appeals agreed,
that the tip was a reasonable basis for stopping Collins. The Supreme
Court disagreed, because the tip was too general and because the
investigating officer didn't observe illegal activity.