Can an anonymous tip form the basis to support a traffic stop? It is a pretty common occurrence – especially after the advent of cell phones – for people to call 911 to report erratic driving. Normally, we get a few DUI cases every year that originated with a cellular caller reporting suspicious or reckless driving behavior that precipitate police getting involved and making a traffic stop. The United States Supreme Court recently addressed this question in California v. Navarette.

In that case, a woman called 911 to report that she had been run off the road by a pickup truck, along with very specific information about the incident. The 911 dispatcher then relayed the information to the California Highway Patrol – which was provided with a description of the truck coupled with a license plate number, the roadway and direction the truck was traveling along with the approximate location of the pickup truck when the incident occurred. Approximately 19 miles down the road, the highway patrol spotted the pickup truck and followed it for 5 minutes without independently observing any traffic violations. The police officer then decided to conduct a traffic stop based solely upon the anonymous tip. When the police officer activated the lights and sirens, the driver of the truck complied and pulled over his vehicle. As the police officer was approaching the driver’s window, he could smell the overpowering odor of raw marijuana. It was later discovered that there was 30 pounds of marijuana in the bed of the pickup truck.

The defendant then moved to suppress the evidence – contending that a traffic stop cannot be based solely upon an anonymous tip from an unidentified caller. The state courts refused to suppress the evidence finding that the anonymous tip was a sufficient basis to support the traffic stop. The case eventually wound up in the United States Supreme Court, which also concluded that the traffic stop was lawful. Justice Thomas, writing for the 5-member majority, noted that the Fourth Amendment permits a traffic stop provided that the police officer has “a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity.” In legal parlance, this is known as “reasonable suspicion” that the driver is engaged in some kind of criminal behavior. In assessing the facts known to a police officer at the time of the traffic stop, the Court must review the totality of the circumstances presented to the police officer at the moment the traffic stop was made. Justice Thomas noted that a “hunch” was not sufficient to support a traffic stop – but it was lower hurdle than probable cause. The ultimate question boiled down to the reliability of the anonymous 911 call.

In this case, the Court considered the detailed nature of the 911 call – and that it was contemporaneously made. Moreover, the Court noted the advanced in technology of 911 calls – that they are taped, tracked and the caller can late be tracked down and identified in the event that a false call is made. Given the technological advances, the Court concluded that “a reasonable officer could conclude that a false tipster would think twice before using such a system.”

The Court also opined that the reported behavior was serious in nature – running another motorist off the road – which was indicative of reckless and dangerous driving behavior suggesting that the driver was impaired (a drunk driver) in some manner and could cause a death or serious bodily injuries to other motorists. The mere fact that the police officer did not personally observe any of this behavior did not change the existence of reasonable suspicion created by the 911 call. Justice Thomas observed that “it is hardly surprising that the appearance of a marked police car would inspire more careful driving for a time.” The Court upheld the conviction.

Four justices dissented from this opinion – and for those interested in the “ideological” divides on the Court this case demonstrates how unpredictable those divides can be. Justice Scalia wrote the dissenting opinion, which was joined by Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Kagan. When there is a 5-4 decision with Justice Thomas writing the majority opinion, most people would have concluded that Justice Scalia had joined the majority opinion. But he did not do so in this case.

Justice Scalia attacked the majority’s reliance on the anonymous 911 caller with the following condemnation: “The Court’s opinion serves up a freedom-destroying cocktail consisting of two parts falsity: (1) that anonymous 911 reports of traffic violations are reliable so long as they correctly identify a car and its location, and (2) that a single instance of careless of reckless driving necessarily supports a reasonable suspicion of drunkenness. All the malevolent 911 caller need do is assert a traffic violation and the targeted car will be stopped, forcible if necessary, by the police. If the driver turns out not to be drunk (which will almost always be the case), the caller need fear no consequences, even if 911 knows his identity. After all, he never alleged drunkenness, but merely called in a traffic violation – and on that point his word is as good as the victim’s. Drunk driving is a serious matter, but so is the loss of our freedom to come and go as we please without police interference.”

In the end, these cases are always very fact specific – and the anonymous 911 caller normally starts the ball rolling and the police follow up and independently observe violations that lead to a traffic stop. There are times, however, that the 911 caller’s information – standing alone – may be sufficient to support a traffic stop. It simply depends on the nature and extent of the information provided in the 911 call itself.

While America slept her children were sacrificed on the altar of convenience and in the name of family planning. Conservative estimates place the number of casualties at the hands of abortionists at over 56 million since January 22, 1973 when the U.S. Supreme Court “discovered” the right to abortion in America’s Constitution.

The issue of abortion remains an issue of deep division between pro-life and abortion-rights activists. Recent reports and serialized videos now available on the internet make it eminently clear that fetal tissues and organs are being harvested. It is a harvest of shame that should jolt every American to full attention. Yet the media refuses to fully and forthrightly expose the scandal, even while Planned Parenthood representatives dissemble and attempt to confuse those asking serious questions.

Perhaps America would already be awake to this Holocaust (and I do not use that word lightly) if only the news media had adequately reported on the case of Kermit Gosnell in 2013. That the abortion industry reaps huge monetary rewards pro-life groups have asserted for years; America slept on. Today Dr. Kermit Gosnell, formerly of Philadelphia, is locked away “doing life” because he killed for profit.

The Report of the Grand Jury In Re Misc. NO. 0009901-2008, prepared by Philadelphia District Attorney R. Seth Williams can be located online by anyone wishing to read it. But I assume, and I think rightly so, that few people have time to read the nearly 300-page report. For that reason I quote the “Overview” below so that readers may begin to grasp the true horror of what went on in the Gosnell case, and be somewhat prepared for the revelations breaking in the current Planned Parenthood Scandal. The Report speaks for itself, and the District Attorney’s words are clear, even eloquent. Please take time to read them:

“This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable, babies in the third trimester of pregnancy--and then murdered these newborns by serving their spinal cords with scissors. The medical practice by which he carried out this business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels--and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths. Over the years, many people came to know that something was going on here. But no one put a stop to it.

Let us say right up front that we realize this case will be used by those on both sides of the abortion debate. We ourselves cover a spectrum of personal beliefs about the morality of abortion. For us a criminal grand jury, however, the case is not about that controversy; it is about disregard of the law and disdain for the lives and health of mothers and infants. We find common ground in exposing what happened here, and in recommending measures to prevent anything like this from ever happening again.

The ‘Women’s Medical Society’ was the impressive-sounding name of the clinic Kermit B. Gosnell, M.D., operated for almost four decades in West Philadelphia. The clinic was anything but impressive. It reeked of animal urine, courtesy of the cats that were allowed to roam (and defecate) freely. Furniture and blankets were stained with blood. Instruments were not properly sterilized. Disposable medical supplies were not disposed of; they were reused, over and over again. Medical equipment--such as the defibrillator, the EKG, the pulse oximeter, the blood pressure cuff--was generally broken; even when it worked, it wasn’t used. The emergency exit was padlocked shut. And scattered throughout, in cabinets, in the basement, in a freezer, in jars and bags and plastic jugs, were fetal remains. It was a baby charnel house.

The people who ran this sham medical practice included no doctors other than Gosnell himself, and not even a single nurse. Two of his employees had been to medical school, but neither of them were licensed physicians. They pretended to be. Everyone called them ‘Doctor,’ even though they, and Gosnell, knew they weren’t. Among the rest of the staff, there was no one with any medical licensing or relevant certification at all. But that didn’t stop them from making diagnoses, performing procedures, administering drugs.

Because the real business of the ‘Women’s Medical Society’ was not health; it was profit. There were two primary parts to the operation. By day it was a prescription mill; by night an abortion mill. A constant stream of ’patients’ came through during business hours and, for the proper payment, left with scripts for Oxycontin and other controlled substances, for themselves and their friends. Gosnell didn’t see these ’patients’; he didn’t even show up at the office during the day. He just left behind blank, pre-signed prescription pads, and had his unskilled, unauthorized workers take care of the rest. The fake prescriptions brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. But this drug-selling operation is the subject of separate investigation by federal authorities. Our focus was on the other side of the business.

Murder [happened] in plain sight. With abortion, as with prescriptions, Gosnell’s approach was simple; keep volume high, expenses low--and break the law. That was his competitive edge.

Pennsylvania, like other states, permits legal abortion within a regulatory framework. Physicians must, for example, provide counseling about the nature of the procedure. Minors must have parental or judicial consent. All women must wait 24 hours after visiting the facility, in order to fully consider their decision. But Gosnell’s compliance with such requirements was casual at best. At the Women’s Medical Society, the only question that really mattered was whether you had the cash. Too young? No problem. Didn’t want to wait? Gosnell provided same-day service.

The real key to the business model, though was this: Gosnell catered to the women who couldn’t get abortions elsewhere--because they were too pregnant. Most doctors won’t perform late second-trimester abortions, from approximately the 20th week of pregnancy, because of the risks involved. And late-term abortions after the 24th week of pregnancy are flatly illegal. But for Dr. Gosnell, they were an opportunity. The bigger the baby, the more he charged.

There was one small problem. The law requires a measurement of gestational age, usually done by an ultrasound. The ultrasound film would leave documentary proof that the abortion was illegal. Gosnell’s solution was simply to fudge the measurement process. Instead of hiring proper ultrasound technicians, he ‘trained’ the staff himself, showing them how to aim the ultrasound probe at an angle to make the fetus look smaller. If one of his workers nonetheless recorded and ultrasound measurement that was too big, it would just be redone. Invariably these second ultrasounds would come in lower. In fact, almost every time a second gestational age would be recorded as precisely 24.5 weeks--slightly past the statutory cutoff. Apparently Gosnell thought he would get away with abortions that were just a little illegal. In reality, of course, most of these pregnancies were considerably more advanced.

But the illegal abortion business also posed an additional dilemma. Babies that big are hard to get out. Gosnell’s approach, whenever possible, was to force full labor and delivery of premature infants on ill-informed women. The women would check in during the day, make payment, and take labor-inducing drugs. The doctor wouldn’t appear until evening, often 8:00, 9:00, or 10:00 p.m., and only then deal with any of the women who were ready to deliver. Many of them gave birth before he even got there. By maximizing the pain and danger for his patients, he minimized the work, and cost, for himself and his staff. The policy, in effect, was labor without labor.

There remained, however, a final difficulty. When you perform late-term ‘abortions’ by inducing labor, you get babies. Live, breathing, squirming babies. By 24 weeks, most babies born prematurely will survive if they receive appropriate medical care. But that was not what the Women’s Medical Society was about. Gosnell had a simple solution for the unwanted babies he delivered: he killed them. He didn’t call it that. He called it ‘ensuring fetal demise.’ The way he ensured fetal demise was by sticking scissors into the back of the baby’s neck and cutting the spinal cord. He called that ‘snipping.’

Over the years, there were hundreds of ‘snippings.’ Sometimes, if Gosnell was unavailable, the ’snipping’ was done by one of his fake doctors, or even by one of the administrative staff. But all the employees of the Women’s Medical Society knew. Everyone there acted as if it wasn’t murder at all.”

( Are you crying yet!)

“Most of these acts cannot be prosecuted, because Gosnell destroyed the files. Among the relatively few cases that could be specifically documented, one was Baby Boy A. His 17-year-old mother was almost 30 weeks pregnant--seven and a half months--when labor was induced. An employee estimated his birth weight as approaching six pounds. He was breathing and moving when Dr. Gosnell severed his spine and put the body in a plastic shoebox for disposal. The doctor joked that this baby was so big he could ‘walk me to the bus stop.’ Another Baby Boy B, whose body was found at the clinic frozen in a one-gallon spring-water bottle, was at least 28 weeks of gestational age when he was killed. Baby C was moving and breathing for 20 minutes before an assistant came in and cut the spinal cord, just the way she had seen Gosnell do it so many times.

And these were not even the worst cases. Gosnell made little effort to hide his illegal abortion practice. But there were some, ’the really big ones,’ that even he was afraid to perform in front of others. These abortions were scheduled for Sundays, a day when the clinic was closed and none of the regular employees were present. Only one person was allowed to assist with these special cases--Gosnell’s wife. The files for these patients were not kept at the office; Gosnell took them home with him and disposed of them. We may never know the details of these cases. We do know, however, that, during the rest of the week, Gosnell routinely aborted and killed babies in the sixth and seventh month of pregnancy. The Sunday babies must have been bigger still.

[Gosnell was a] butcher of women. Dr. Gosnell didn’t just kill babies. He was also a deadly threat to mothers. Not every abortion could be completed by inducing labor and delivery. On these occasions, Gosnell would attempt to remove the fetus himself. The consequences were often calamitous--though that didn’t stop the doctor from trying to cover them up.

One woman, for example, was left lying in place for hours after Gosnell tore her cervix and colon while trying, unsuccessfully, to extract the fetus. Relatives who came to pick her up were refused entry into the building; they had to threaten to call the police. They eventually found her inside, bleeding and incoherent and transported her to the hospital, where doctors had to remove almost half a foot of her intestines.

On another occasion, Gosnell simply sent a patient home, after keeping her mother waiting for hours, without telling either of them that she still had fetal parts inside her. Gosnell insisted she was fine, even after signs of serious infection set in over the next several days. By the time her mother got her to the emergency room, she was unconscious and near death.

A nineteen-year-old girl was held for several hours after Gosnell punctured her uterus. As a result of the delay, she fell into shock from blood loss, and had to undergo a hysterectomy.

One patient went into convulsions during an abortion, fell off the procedure table, and hit her head on the floor. Gosnell wouldn’t call an ambulance, and wouldn’t let the woman’s companion leave the building so that he could call an ambulance.

Undoubtedly there were many similar incidents, but even they do not demonstrate Gosnell at his most dangerous. Day in and day out, the greatest risks came when the doctor wasn’t even there. Gosnell set up his practice to rely entirely on the untrained actions of his unqualified employees. They administered drugs to induce labor, often causing rapid and painful dilation and contractions. But Gosnell did not like it when women screamed or moaned in his clinic, so the staff was under instruction to sedate them into stupor. Of course his assistants had no idea how to manage the powerful narcotics they were using. Gosnell prepared a list of present dosage levels to be administered in his absence. But no allowances were made for individual patient variations, or for any monitoring of vital signs. All that mattered was the money. The more you paid, the more pain relief you received. It was all completely illegal, and completely unsafe.”

Gentle readers, this is only the first third of the Overview section of the Grand Jury Report. For anyone unable to connect the dots yet, here’s the bottom line: Infanticide. Babies were born alive, killed, and disposed of--all for the love of money.

Planned Parenthood (PP) never reported to authorities what was going on in Gosnell’s house of horrors. Some might say there is no proof that PP didn’t “know,” didn’t have proof of the crimes going on in Gosnell’s facility. Here’s the connection: women who were victims of Dr. Gosnell’s botched abortion procedures often showed up at PP facilities not uncommonly to receive medical care. These women complained to PP about what had happened to them under Dr. Gosnell’s care. In response, PP responded by “encouraging” the women to file complaints with the appropriate authorities, but PP never notified authorities or applied pressure to investigate and shut down Gosnell’s operation.

Now, we may know why. Planned Parenthood never wanted anyone to look too closely at their own operation. PP is a creature of the U.S. taxpayer. It is an organization which endangers the health of women and kills their babies. The information now being made public shows the utter degeneracy and hypocrisy of their “reproductive services.” They claim that fetuses are only tissues, yet they depend upon the fully formed development of those fetuses into humans so that those same body parts can be sold to third parties--for profit!

By the 16th week of development a fetus has fully developed and functioning parts. Planned Parenthood doctors offer their patients the opportunity to “donate” fetal tissue and body parts for the advancement of scientific research. It appears unlikely that patients understand that Planned Parenthood receives money from those ultimately receiving the body parts. Body parts are classified into Categories “A,” “B,” and “C,” according to their desirability and value, with purchasers of baby body parts able to pre-order according to their need. For those desiring the calvarium (head) of the baby, PP doctors would use their skills and technology to shift the baby in utero so as to perform a breech delivery (Never mind how much this elevates the level of danger to the woman giving birth!).

Feeling nauseated yet? The truth of this situation is hideous and I’ve only scratched the surface. Many, if not most, media outlets continue to deny, whitewash, or otherwise minimize how bad this situation is. America’s Abortion Holocaust has been underway for over 40 years, all the while with most still asleep. Isn’t it time to wake up?

P.S. As one might imagine, there was strong Congressional reaction to the Planned Parenthood Scandal. In a lengthy and strongly worded letter, U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois) demanded investigation by both the U.S. and California Attorneys General--of the group responsible for exposing Planned Parenthood’s trafficking in the body parts of aborted babies. How’s that for justice?