State of Tennessee, Appellee v. Johnny M. Henning, Appellant

Summary

The Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed the denial of Johnny Henning's motion to suppress, holding the search warrant was supported by probable cause because independent police corroboration recited in the affidavit cured its merely conclusory allegation of informant credibility under Jacumin, and that the warrant was neither unconstitutionally general nor defective for failure to attach the affidavit. On a question of first impression, the court announced that appellate courts may consider the entire record, including trial evidence, when evaluating a pretrial suppression ruling, while preserving the affidavit-only rule for probable-cause review and leaving the Odom preponderance standard intact. Applying the whole record, the court held the officers' failure to knock and announce was excused by exigency—Henning's flight and the risk the drugs would be carried inside the house—and that his warrantless arrest rested on probable cause plus hot-pursuit exigency. The court affirmed but remanded for resentencing to resolve a conflict between the bench ruling and the judgment over the applicable sentencing range. Justice Birch, joined by Special Justice Reid, concurred in the result but cautioned against using trial evidence to retroactively validate warrants and would have confined appellate review to the suppression-hearing record.