State v. Vineyard

• Decision Date: 22 December 1997
• Citation: 958 S.W.2d 730
• Parties: STATE of Tennessee, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Davey Joe VINEYARD and Jimmy Lee Cockburn, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

Page 730

958 S.W.2d 730

STATE of Tennessee, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Davey Joe VINEYARD and Jimmy Lee Cockburn, Defendants-Appellants.

Supreme Court of Tennessee,

at Knoxville.

Dec. 22, 1997.

Rehearing Denied Feb. 17, 1998.

John Knox Walkup, Attorney General and Reporter, Michael E. Moore, Solicitor General, Karen M. Yacuzzo, Assistant Attorney General, Nashville, Jerry N. Estes, District Attorney General, Athens, Joseph A. Rehyansky, Assistant District Attorney General, Cleveland, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Kenneth L. Miller, Logan, Thompson, Miller, Bilbo, Thompson & Fisher, P.C., Cleveland, for Defendants-Appellants.

OPINION

DROWOTA, Justice.

In this appeal we are asked to determine whether under Article I, Section 7 of the Tennessee Constitution a stop based upon probable cause is valid irrespective of the subjective motivations of the police officer making the stop. The defendant concedes that under the Fourth Amendment to the federal constitution, the subjective motivations of police officers are irrelevant so long as the stop is otherwise based upon probable cause. ¹ However, the defendant asks us to hold that, in this context, the Tennessee Constitution's prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures is more stringent than the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The Court of Criminal Appeals recognized that the state constitution may grant greater protection from unreasonable searches and seizures than that provided by the federal constitution, ² but found that the protection afforded in this context is the same under both constitutions. Therefore, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the trial court's denial of the defendant's motion to suppress.

We conclude that, in this context, the protection afforded by Article I, Section 7 of the Tennessee Constitution is co-extensive with the protection afforded by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Accordingly, a stop based upon probable cause is valid under the Tennessee Constitution, without regard to the actual subjective motivations of police officers. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals is affirmed. ³

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Both defendants, Davey Joe Vineyard and Jimmy Lee Cockburn, pled guilty to possession of more than 10 pounds of marijuana for resale. Cockburn also pled guilty to possession of drug paraphernalia and nolo contendere to speeding. Pursuant to RULE 37(B)(2)(I), TENNESSEE RULES OF CRIMINAL PROCEDURE⁴, the defendants reserved as a dispositive question of law the trial court's refusal to suppress the incriminating evidence discovered in the motor vehicle occupied by them when they were arrested.

The only witness on behalf of the State at the suppression hearing was Detective Gates, a narcotics officer with the City of Cleveland. Sometime prior to the morning of May 6, 1994, Detective Gates said that he had received information from an anonymous informant that a vehicle occupied by the defendants would be traveling north on Interstate 75 ("I-75"). The vehicle would pass through Bradley County en route to an undisclosed location, where the defendants would obtain a load of marijuana and return, later that day, through Bradley County bound for Georgia.

At approximately 7:00 a.m., on May 6, 1994, Detective Gates, along with Detective Queen, of the narcotics squad of the Cleveland city police department, were conducting drug interdiction surveillance of traffic on I-75. Between 8:00 and 8:30 a.m., Gates saw the defendants' vehicle, a pickup truck, as it proceeded northbound. He notified Officer Queen that he had identified the vehicle, and he then crossed I-75 to a position from which he could watch the southbound traffic. At approximately 9:30 a.m., the vehicle passed Gates' position traveling south. Driving unmarked police vehicles, Gates and Queen followed the defendants. Gates testified he had no intention of stopping the defendants' vehicle at that time but was instead waiting for the driver to commit a traffic violation. Gates said he paced the defendants' vehicle at about 75 miles per hour, ten miles per hour faster than the posted speed limit. Gates also observed the defendants' vehicle move from the left lane to the right lane without displaying a turn signal, and about one mile farther, the vehicle pulled back into the left lane without a signal. At that point, Gates radioed the head of the narcotics squad, Lieutenant Wilcoxin, who, accompanied by Officer Young, was stopped in a marked police car in the highway median some distance south. Gates told Wilcoxin they were planning to stop the defendants at Exit 25 and asked him to check the speed of the defendants' vehicle by radar when it passed his location. Wilcoxin attempted to check the speed by radar, but because of the traffic, was unable to do so. When the defendants' vehicle passed by the marked police car, Gates saw Vineyard looking back at it.

Wilcoxin pulled onto the highway and turned on his blue lights. As the defendants' vehicle drove to the side of the highway at Exit 25, Gates saw the passenger, Vineyard, "moving about" in the vehicle "doing something with his hands." Gates gave this account of the stop:

Due to his actions, when we stopped, they was ordered to put their hands in view where we could see them. They did not comply with the first order. At this time weapons were drawn. I believe three, three of the officers, myself, Queen and Young did pull our weapons as we did approach the vehicle. They were ordered to keep their hands up ... As we approached with the windows down we had a strong odor of marijuana about the vehicle. It was real, real strong.

Detective Gates testified that the defendants got out with their hands on the rail of the truck and told the officers there were no weapons or drugs in the truck. Wilcoxin then asked, "Do you give us consent to search?" to which Cockburn answered, "Yes go ahead." The marijuana, which was the object of the motion to suppress, was located in the cab of the truck only partially concealed in a plastic bag. The vehicle was stopped approximately seven miles from the point where the officers began following it.

Detective Gates testified that he had pursued the defendants' vehicle "with the expectation and hope that there would be a traffic violation to give ... a reason to pull the vehicle over." "Drug interdiction" consists of surveillance of the highway and the stop of certain vehicles for traffic violations so that the officers could observe the occupants and the contents of the vehicles and try to obtain permission to search the vehicles for illegal drugs. He stated that he does not stop all traffic violaters, and, at times, uses a "courier profile" for selecting the vehicles to be stopped. Detective Gates acknowledged that uniformed officers on routine patrol usually do not try to search vehicles stopped for traffic violations.

The defendants moved to suppress the evidence seized as a result of the stop, and after considering the proof, the trial judge denied the motion. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the trial court's decision, concluding that the stop was lawfully based upon probable cause to believe that a traffic violation had occurred. Thereafter, we granted permission to appeal to consider this important question of constitutional law, and for the reasons that follow, now affirm the decision of the Court of Criminal Appeals.

PRETEXTUAL STOPS

The Fourth Amendment ⁵ to the United States Constitution guarantees "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures...." Similarly, Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution of Tennessee provides "that the people shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers and possessions, from unreasonable searches and seizures...." The purpose of the prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment is to "safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against arbitrary invasions of government officials." Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 528, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 1730, 18 L.Ed.2d 930 (1967).

In this appeal, the defendants urge this Court to hold that the evidence against them should have been suppressed as the fruit of an illegal pretextual stop and search of their automobile. The defendants assert that because the officers initiating the stop were subjectively seeking to discover drugs as the result of an anonymous tip, rather than enforce the traffic laws, the stop was pretextual. They ask the Court to hold that pretextual stops violate Article I, Section 7 of the Tennessee Constitution even when, based upon the facts and circumstances, the police officer has probable cause to believe that the defendant has violated the law. The defendants concede that the stop in this case does not violate the Fourth Amendment. Their only insistence is that this Court should interpret Article I, Section 7 as providing greater protection than the Fourth Amendment as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court in Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 135 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996). The State responds that this Court should affirm the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals and hold that the Tennessee Constitution provides no greater protection than the Fourth Amendment as interpreted in Whren.

Though state courts are free to interpret their respective state constitutional provisions as affording greater protections than the "base line" level of protection guaranteed by the federal constitution, this Court has previously stated that "Article I, Section 7 is identical in intent and purpose with the Fourth Amendment." State v. Downey, 945 S.W.2d 102, 106 (Tenn.1997), quoting Sneed v. State, 221 Tenn. 6, 13, 423 S.W.2d 857, 860 (1968). Federal case law interpreting the Fourth Amendment is to be regarded as "particularly persuasive" when the scope and intent of Article I, § 7 is at issue. I...