IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE
AT JACKSON
OCTOBER 1997 SESSION
FILED
January 26, 1998
Cecil Crowson, Jr.
Appellate C ourt Clerk
STATE OF TENNESSEE, )
) C.C.A. NO. 02C01-9705-CC-00167
Appellan t, )
) MADISON COUNTY
VS. )
) HON. WHIT LAFON,
DEWAYNE MOORE, ) JUDGE
)
Appellee. ) (Interlocutory ap peal:
motion to suppress)
FOR THE APPELLANT: FOR THE APPELLEE:
JOHN KNOX WALKUP JAMES D. GASS
Attorney General & Reporter P.O. Box 7624
Jackson, TN 38308
KENNETH W. RUCKER
Asst. Attorney General
Cordell H ull Bldg., 2n d Fl.
425 5th Ave. N.
Nashville, TN 37243-0493
JERRY WOODALL
District Attorney General
AL EARLS
SHAUN A. BROWN
Asst. District Attorneys General
Lowell Thomas State Office Bldg.
Jackson, TN 38301
OPINION FILED:____________________
AFFIRMED
JOHN H. PEAY,
Judge
OPINION
The defendant was indicted for two weapons violations, possession of drug
paraphernalia, and driving without a license. He filed a motion to suppress as evidence “all
drugs and drug paraphernalia, and firearms, which were taken from the vehicle [he] was
driving at the time of h is arrest.” A fter a hear ing, t he co urt below gran ted th e def endant's
motion. The State filed this interloc utory appeal, co ntesting the trial court's ruling. We
affirm.
Belinda Colema n, a patrol of ficer with th e Jackson Police Departm ent,
testified that, at approximately 11:00 p.m. on May 31, 1996, she had been in a residential
neighborhood taking a missing person report. While she was taking the report, she saw the
vehicle which the defendant was driving “traveling very, very slowly, five to ten miles an
hour through the neighb orhood. . . . Approx imately five to ten minutes late r the vehicle
circle[d] again.” At this time, she testified, one of the people who lived in the
neighborhood had “advised [her] that the vehicle had been circling the neighborhood for
quite some time.” Wh en she finished taking h er report, she followed the vehicle in her
police car. She testified that it had had four people in it, and that as she had followed it, “It
made evasive actions and kept turning down different roads, taking side streets, back roads,
in an attem pt to sha ke me .” 1 She further testified that she had been given a description the
1
Officer Coleman's description of the defendant's intention in making these turns is unsupported by any
independent proof. In other words, her description of the defendant's driving as “evasive” and done “in an attempt
to shake me” was based, as far as we can tell from the record, solely on the fact that the defendant had made
several turns. She did not testify that he had sped up or made the turns with any particular alacrity. The mere
making of m ultiple turns in a ne ighborho od is not ind icative of crimin al activity, even wh ile being follow ed by a
police car . Cf. State v. Scar lett, 880 S.W.2d 707 , 708 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1993) (where this Court, in reversing the
trial court's grant of the defendant's motion to suppress, relied in part on proof that, when the police officer
followed the defendant's car, he made “several quick, hard-angled turns.”)
2
night before “of a small red vehicle which was occupied by four black males that had been
involved in several auto burglaries2 the night before.”
After following it for some unspecified distance, Officer Coleman stopped
the vehicle. She initially testified that the defendant had not been the driver. However,
after reviewing her report, she acknowledged on cross-examination that the defendant had
been the driv er. She also testified on cross-examination that, “The burglaries had occurred
over in the Daughtery Street area.” Shortly after this testimony, the trial court interrupted
the defendant's cross-examination and asked the State if it had any further proof. The State
responded that its only remaining testimony would come from the police officer who had
found the weapons after the stop. At that point, the court below held “the search was b ad.”
No findings of fact were set forth on the record.
We first note that “s topping an automob ile and detain ing its occup ants
constitute a