IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE

AT KNOXVILLE

September 26, 2018 Session

STATE OF TENNESSEE v. JERRY RAY OAKS

Appeal from the Criminal Court for Carter County

No. 23804 Lisa Rice, Judge

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No. E2017-02239-CCA-R3-CD

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ROBERT L. HOLLOWAY, JR., J., dissenting.

I respectfully disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the trial court 

erred in denying the defendant’s motion to suppress. In my opinion, based on the 

proof presented at the suppression hearing and at trial, the trial court correctly 

determined that there were exigent circumstances justifying the warrantless blood 

draw. For the reasons that follow, I would affirm the defendant’s conviction of 

vehicular homicide.

Timeline

Sometime after 11 p.m. on February 13, 2016, Lieutenant William 

Buchanan of the Avery County, North Carolina Sheriff’s Department happened 

upon the scene of a horrific, head-on motor vehicle accident in rural Carter 

County. At 11:10 p.m., after checking on the drivers, he called 9-1-1 to report the 

accident. 

Firefighting crews from three fire departments and multiple Emergency 

Medical Services vehicles began to arrive. At 11:16 p.m., deputies with the Carter 

County Sheriff’s Department (CCSD) arrived. After determining that a fatality 

had occurred, CCSD Lieutenant Larry Vaughn contacted the Tennessee Highway 

Patrol (THP) to request assistance.

At 11:25 p.m., THP Trooper Brad Proffitt arrived at the scene and made a 

quick assessment of the situation. Trooper Proffitt radioed his supervisor, 

Sergeant Jason Andes, a seventeen-year veteran with the THP who was en route to 

the scene, and informed Sergeant Andes that there was a fatality and that alcohol 

may have been involved. 

02/12/2019
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At approximately 11:39 p.m., Sergeant Andes arrived, spoke to witnesses, 

and learned that the defendant was already en route by ambulance to Johnson City 

Medical Center (JCMC) in Washington County with critical, life-threatening 

injuries. Sergeant Andes contacted the THP Critical Incident Response Team

(CIRT). Sergeant Andes knew that the defendant had left the accident scene 

sometime after 11:25 p.m. and before 11:39 p.m. and that it was approximately a 

thirty-minute drive from the accident scene to JCMC. He attempted to contact 

District Attorney General Tony Clark to get advice on how to proceed due to what 

he perceived to be a “lack of time” to obtain a search warrant for the defendant’s 

blood. General Clark did not answer. Although Sergeant Andes had not 

previously sought a search warrant for a blood draw, he had been trained on the 

process involved in drafting and obtaining such a warrant, and he had “observed 

another officer’s obtaining a blood draw warrant.” He estimated that it would take 

“well over an hour” to write the warrant, find a judge, get the warrant executed, 

get to the hospital, locate the defendant, serve the warrant, and obtain a blood 

draw. Sergeant Andes believed that once the defendant was taken into surgery, it 

would be too late to obtain a blood draw.

At approximately 11:55 p.m., only sixteen minutes after arriving at the 

scene, Sergeant Andes contacted Trooper William Shelton, who was on patrol in 

Washington County. He instructed Trooper Shelton to go to JCMC, try to talk to 

the defendant, and, if possible, obtain a blood sample.

At 11:59 p.m., the defendant arrived at JCMC.

At 12:03 a.m. on February 14, Trooper Shelton arrived at JCMC. At 12:13 

a.m., he located the defendant in a trauma room where he was being attended by 

several medical personnel who were trying to stabilize the defendant so he could 

be taken to the operating room. After speaking with the charge nurse, Trooper 

Shelton filled out the required paperwork for a mandatory blood draw.

At 12:25 a.m., Registered Nurse April Douglas drew the defendant’s blood. 

At 12:28 a.m., medical personnel began “massive transfusion protocol” in 

an attempt to “resuscitate” the defendant. The defendant received seven units of 

fluid and four units of blood via a “rapid infuser” through a “central venous 

access” line between 12:28 a.m. and 12:45 a.m.

At 12:58 a.m., the defendant was taken to surgery.
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The Trial Court’s Oral Ruling 

At the end of the suppression hearing, the trial court made an oral ruling. 

The trial court implicitly accredited the testimony of the witnesses who testified at 

the suppression hearing, including Sergeant Andes. The trial court found that: (1) 

law enforcement officers “knew they had a short period of time before this very 

critically injured person was going to be taken back to surgery”; (2) “[i]t takes 

minutes to get to the scene, assess the circumstances, [and] handle the emergencies 

that are taking place”; (3) Sergeant Andes’ attempt to contact the District Attorney 

General “shows a good faith effort to get proper guidance on what to do”; (4)

“[t]he information that Sergeant Andes had amassed from his seventeen years of 

experience in this job and from being on the scene was that [there were] very 

serious injuries” to the defendant”; and (5) “rather than go himself or send Trooper 

Proffitt[,]” Sergeant Andes “had the foresight based on his best judgment to radio 

Trooper Shelton” and order him “to get to [JCMC] as quickly as he could.” 

In applying the law to the facts, the court concluded that, based on the 

totality of the circumstances existing at the time the decision was made to seek a 

warrantless blood draw, there was “an objectively reasonable belief that there was 

compelling need to act and insufficient time to obtain a warrant.” The trial court 

concluded that the “exigent circumstances exception” applied because the “urgent 

need for immediate action” was “too compelling to impose upon governmental 

actors the attendant delay that accompanies obtaining a warrant.” 

Analysis

“Exigent circumstances are those in which the urgent need for immediate 

action becomes too compelling to impose upon governmental actors the attendant 

delay that accompanies obtaining a warrant.” State v. Meeks, 262 S.W.3d 710, 

723 (Tenn. 2008) (footnote omitted). A reviewing court must determine “whether 

the circumstances g[a]ve rise to an objectively reasonable belief that there was a 

compelling need to act and insufficient time to obtain a warrant.” State v. 

Reynolds, 504 S.W.3d 283, 304-05 (Tenn. 2016) (quoting Meeks, 262 S.W.3d at 

723) (alteration in original). “Mere speculation is inadequate; rather, the State 

must rely upon specific and articulable facts and the reasonable inferences drawn 

from them.” Meeks, 262 S.W.3d at 723-24 (footnotes omitted). “To determine 

whether a law enforcement officer faced an emergency that justified acting 

without a warrant,” courts look to “the totality of the circumstances.” Missouri v. 

McNeely, 569 U.S. 141, 149 (2013). If, based on the totality of the circumstances,

officers in drunk-driving investigations cannot “reasonably obtain a warrant before 

a blood sample can be drawn without significantly undermining the efficacy of the 

search,” then an exception to the constitutional mandate that officers must obtain a 

search warrant applies. Id. at 152.
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In my opinion, the circumstances articulated by Sergeant Andes “g[a]ve 

rise to an objectively reasonable belief that there was a compelling need to act and 

insufficient time to obtain a warrant.” Reynolds, 504 S.W.3d at 304-05. Trooper 

Shelton located the defendant at JCMC at 12:13 a.m. and obtained a draw of the 

defendant’s blood at 12:25 a.m., only three minutes before the defendant began 

receiving a massive transfusion of blood and fluids and thirty-three minutes before 

the defendant was taken to surgery. If Sergeant Andes had delayed his decision to 

order Trooper Shelton to seek a warrantless blood draw, the efficacy of the search 

would have been undermined. See McNeely, 569 U.S. at 149. Further, contrary to 

the majority opinion’s implication that the officers should have made an effort to 

seek a warrant by contacting a Washington County judge, the basic underpinning 

of the exigent circumstance exception to the warrant requirement is that law 

enforcement officers are not required to seek a warrant due to “a compelling need 

to act and insufficient time to obtain a warrant.” See Meeks, 262 S.W.3d at 723. 

The majority opinion is correct that the defendant’s need for surgery, the 

possibility of the defendant receiving a blood transfusion, and the seriousness of 

the crash do not, in isolation, establish exigent circumstances. However, when all 

these facts are viewed in the totality of the circumstances, as we are required to do 

when reviewing a trial court’s suppression decision, see id., these facts and others 

emphasized in this opinion support the trial court’s conclusion that exigent 

circumstances existed in this case.

Conclusion

Based on the totality of the circumstances that existed at the time Sergeant 

Andes ordered Trooper Shelton to go to JCMC, the trial court determined that,

from an objective viewpoint, there was an urgent need to act in obtaining a blood 

draw and insufficient time to obtain a search warrant. Sergeant Andes made a 

reasonable decision to order Trooper Shelton to go JCMC and attempt to get a 

blood draw based on the totality of the circumstances known to him at the time the 

decision was made. In my opinion, the trial court’s decision to deny the motion to 

suppress was fully supported by the evidence presented at the suppression hearing. 

I would affirm the defendant’s conviction of vehicular homicide.

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ROBERT L. HOLLOWAY, JR., JUDGE