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

Summary

The Tennessee Supreme Court held that Article I, Section 7 of the Tennessee Constitution affords the same protection as the Fourth Amendment with respect to traffic stops supported by probable cause: a stop based on probable cause is valid regardless of the officer's subjective motivations. The defendants, who reserved a dispositive question of law after pleading guilty, argued the stop of their vehicle was a pretextual drug interdiction stop that violated the state constitution. The court adopted the U.S. Supreme Court's reasoning in Whren, concluded no settled state constitutional development or linguistic difference justified a divergent interpretation, and affirmed the denial of the motion to suppress. No separate opinions were filed.