A reliable informant provides probable cause that a woman will be bringing marijuana to your city tomorrow. The next day you stop the red Datsun 210 with license 'Weed is Good' and find twenty pounds of marijuana in the trunk. The stop was legal because the stop occurred on a public street or PVA.

• A. Legal as long as the vehicle was stopped on a public street or PVA.
• B. Illegal because the informant's tip was not independently verified.
• C. Legal only if the officer had a search warrant.
• D. Illegal because marijuana is illegal.

Answer: (A)

The key idea here is that a vehicle stop can be lawful when it happens in a public place and the officer has a justified basis to suspect criminal activity, which a reliable informant tip can provide. If the informant is credible and the information is sufficiently reliable, that tip can give the officer reasonable suspicion or even probable cause to stop a vehicle, especially when the stop occurs in a place where traffic stops are routinely permitted, like a public street or a public vehicle area (PVA).

In this scenario, the informant forecasted that marijuana would be brought into the city, and the stop took place on a public street. Because the stop occurred in a publicly accessible location, and the informant’s reliability supports the belief that contraband could be present, the stop is legally permissible without a warrant. The subsequent discovery of marijuana in the trunk is consistent with that justification and aligns with how the automobile exception allows searches when there is probable cause to believe the vehicle contains contraband.

Flaws in the other reasoning aren’t as persuasive here: independent verification of the tip isn’t strictly required when the informant is reliable; a warrant isn’t needed to make a lawful stop on a public street; and the illegality of marijuana doesn’t, by itself, negate a lawful stop.