FILED

March 23, 1999

Cecil W. Crowson

Appellate Court Clerk

IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE

AT NASHVILLE

JANUARY SESSION, 1999

STATE OF TENNESSEE, ) C.C.A. NO. 01C01-9803-CC-00126

)

Appellee, )

)

) DICKSON COUNTY

VS. )

) HON. ALLEN W. WALLACE,

MICHAEL ALLEN PRICE, ) JUDGE

)

Appellant. ) (Certified Question; Search and Seizure)

ON APPEAL FROM THE JUDGMENT OF THE

CIRCUIT COURT OF DICKSON COUNTY

FOR THE APPELLANT: FOR THE APPELLEE:

MICHAEL J. FLANAGAN JOHN KNOX WALKUP

95 White Bridge Road #208 Attorney General and Reporter

Nashville, TN 37205

KIM R. HELPER

Assistant Attorney General

425 Fifth Avenue North

Nashville, TN 37243

DAN ALSOBROOKS

District Attorney General

ROBERT WILSON

Assistant District Attorney General

P.O. Box 580

Charlotte, TN 37036

OPINION FILED ________________________

AFFIRMED

DAVID H. WELLES, JUDGE
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OPINION

The Defendant, Michael Allen Price, pleaded guilty to one count of

possession of LSD with intent to sell and one count of possession of marijuana

with intent to sell. He reserved a certified question of law—whether sufficient

articulable facts existed to justify a reasonable suspicion supporting an

investigatory stop of Defendant’s vehicle—which we now address. We conclude

that the investigatory stop was based on specific and articulable facts such that

the officer had reasonable suspicion that Defendant possessed illegal narcotics.

On September 19, 1997, officers seized 440 grams of marijuana and 50

squares, or “hits,” of LSD from Defendant’s person and vehicle. Officer Stewart

Goodwin, the Dickson County narcotics officer who effected the seizure, provided

the only testimony at the trial court’s hearing on Defendant’s Motion to Suppress.

Based upon his testimony, we affirm the decision of the trial court to admit the

seized evidence. 

According to Officer Goodwin, he received a telephone call from an

informant with whom he had previously worked to facilitate approximately twenty

drug “buys” over the course of two years. Goodwin stated that every time the

informant told him he had ordered drugs from a dealer, the informant had been

correct, and Goodwin considered him reliable. On this occasion, the informant

told Goodwin that he heard from a friend that Defendant dealt drugs. After

consulting with Goodwin, the informant ordered a pound of marijuana and fifty

hits of LSD, to be delivered on September 19, 1997.
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The informant told Officer Goodwin that the dealer, a white male in his

early twenties named Michael Price, would deliver the drugs with another m ale

in a white vehicle with out-of-county plates to the Perfect Pig restaurant in W hite

Bluff at 10:00 to 10:30 p.m. on September 19. Goodwin and two other officers

waited for the vehicle, which appeared at 10:40 that evening, after the restaurant

had closed. The vehicle, which Goodwin stated “exactly” fit the description given

by the informant, entered the parking lot of the Perfect Pig, slowly traveled

through the lot, and then exited onto Highway 70. 

Officer Goodwin activated his blue lights and followed the vehicle, which

did not yield to the officers for at least a mile, until it had reached the county line

of Cheatham County. There is no question that after Goodwin performed the

investigatory stop, he gathered sufficient probable cause to arrest Defendant.

The sole issue certified to this Court is whether Goodwin possessed sufficient

reasonable suspicion prior to activating his blue lights, thus initiating the Terry

stop. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968); Whren v. United States, 517 U.S.

806, 809-10 (1996) (“Temporary detention of individuals during the stop of an

autom obile by the police, even if only for a brief period and for a limited purpose,

constitutes the ‘seizure’ of ‘persons’ within the meaning of [the Fourth

Amendment].”).

The United States Supreme Court in Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648

(1979), stated, 

Except in those situations in which there is at least articulable

and reasonable suspicion that . . . either the vehicle or an occupant

is otherwise subject to seizure for violation of law, stopping an

automobile and detaining the driver in order to check his driver's
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license and the registration of the automobile are unreasonable

under the Fourth Amendment. 

Id. at 663. In addition, when evaluating whether a police officer’s reasonable

suspicion is supported by specific and articulable facts, a court must consider the

totality of the circumstances. State v. Watkins, 827 S.W.2d 293, 294 (Tenn.

1992). 

In State v. Pulley, 863 S.W.2d 29 (Tenn. 1993), our supreme court upheld

the constitutionality of an investigatory stop of a vehicle based upon an

informant’s tip and concluded that traditional Jacumin criteria should be used to

determine whether the tip is “sufficiently reliable” to support a finding of

reasonable suspicion. Id. at 32 (referencing State v. Jacumin, 778 S.W.2d 430,

436 (Tenn. 1989) (holding that the Tennessee Constitution requires facts

indicating an informant’s basis of knowledge and veracity or credibility)).

As the United States Supreme Court expressed,

Reasonable suspicion is a less demanding standard than

probable cause not only in the sense that reasonable suspicion can

be established with information that is different in quantity or content

than that required to establish probable cause, but also in the sense

that reasonable suspicion can arise from information that is less

reliable than that required to show probable cause. 

Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 330 (1990). Recently, our supreme court

observed that when applying this analysis to the area of informant’s tips, “the twopronged test of reliability [in Jacumin] need not be as strictly applied if the

informant’s tip is being used to establish reasonable suspicion rather than

probable cause.” State v. Simpson, 968 S.W .2d 776, 782 (Tenn. 1998). 
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In Jacumin, the court adopted the Aguilar-Spinelli test for magistrates

determining whether probable cause exists to issue a search warrant. 778

S.W.2d at 436; see Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108 (1964); Spinelli v. United

States, 393 U.S. 410 (1969). As modified for an investigatory stop, the test

measures whether the tip was sufficiently reliable to perm it the investigating

officer to determine whether “reasonable suspicion” existed. Pulley, 863 S.W.2d

at 32. The test requires the officer to have facts that establish (1) the informant’s

basis of knowledge of the information, and (2) circumstances indicating the

veracity or credibility of the informant. Jacumin, 778 S.W.2d at 432.

Furtherm ore, 

[c]ircumstances relevant to the evaluation include, but are not

limited to, the officer’s personal objective observations, information

obtained from other police officers or agencies, information obtained

from citizens, and the pattern of operation of certain offenders. A

court must also consider the rational inferences and deductions that

a trained officer may draw from the facts and circumstances known

to him.

State v. Yeargan, 958 S.W .2d 626, 632 (Tenn. 1992). 

Within this framework, we review whether the informant’s tip in this case

was sufficiently reliable to support the officer’s finding of reasonable suspicion to

stop Defendant. “Questions of credibility of the witnesses, the weight and value

of the evidence, and resolution of conflicts in the evidence are m atters entrusted

to the trial judge as the trier of fact.” State v. Odom, 928 S.W.2d 18, 23 (Tenn.

1996). Findings of fact by the trial court upon a motion to suppress will be upheld

unless the evidence preponderates against them. Id. However, the application

of law to these facts is a question of law, which an appellate court reviews de

novo. State v. Yeargan, 958 S.W.2d 626, 629 (Tenn. 1997) (citing Beare Co. v.

Tennessee Dep’t of Revenue, 858 S.W .2d 906, 907 (Tenn. 1993)). 
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We find this case to be analogous to the recent case of State v. Keith, 978

S.W.2d 861 (Tenn. 1998), in which the supreme court affirmed, on interlocutory

appeal, denial of the defendant’s motion to suppress. Id. at 867. While the facts

are not directly on point to the case at bar, we conclude that the result should be

the same.

In Keith, a confidential informant who had previously given several reliable

tips to police informed officers that the defendant and another man had been

storing illegal narcotics at a precise location. Id. at 863. This confidential

informant also provided a physical description of the men. Id. Three days later,

an anonymous informant told police that persons at the same address “were

involved in the possession and sale of illegal drugs.” Id. The anonymous

informant claimed that he saw drugs inside the residence within four days of the

call and that “shortly before placing the call he observed marijuana in a red

Honda CRX vehicle which was parked outside the residence and saw both

suspects present at the residence.” Id. Finally, this informant gave a physical

description of both suspects that matched that given by the confidential

informant. Id. 

Officers corroborated portions of the inform ation given by both informants

by setting up surveillance at the home after each call. Id. They observed

persons matching the physical description of the men leave the residence, get

into the red Honda CRX, and drive away. Id. Officers followed the vehicle for a

short distance before stopping it and ultimately seizing the narcotics. Id. at 863-

64. The Keith court found that both prongs of the Aguilar-Spinelli-Jacumin test
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were met and that reasonable suspicion by the officers was supported. Id. at

866-67. 

Likewise, in this case we conclude both (1) that the informant’s tip was

sufficiently reliable to support a finding of reasonable suspicion, and (2) that

Officer Goodwin corroborated enough of the information by direct observation to

create actual reasonable suspicion based upon specific and articulable facts. 

The tip satisfied the “basis of knowledge” prong of the Aguilar-SpinelliJacumin test because the informant had personally ordered specific types and

quantities of drugs from Defendant, scheduled to be delivered at a certain

location on a certain date at a certain time. The tip satisfied the “veracity or

credibility” prong because the officer testified he had received reliable and

accurate tips from this confidential informant approximately twenty times in the

past. 

With respect to independent corroboration of the tip, Officer Goodwin

testified at the hearing on the motion to suppress that he observed a man

matching the description given by the informant, accompanied by one passenger,

driving a vehicle matching the description, at the precise location given, at the

approxim ate time given. Furthermore, the Perfect Pig restaurant was closed for

business at that time, and the suspect drove slowly through the parking lot and

back onto the roadway for no apparent reason. As a matter of law, Officer

Goodwin possessed sufficient reasonable suspicion to conduct an investigatory

stop of Defendant. 
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Because the officer had reasonable suspicion to conduct an investigatory

stop of Defendant, we affirm the trial court’s denial of Defendant’s motion to

suppress. The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.

____________________________________

DAVID H. WELLES, JUDGE

CONCUR:

___________________________________

JOHN H. PEAY, JUDGE

___________________________________

THOMAS T. WOODALL, JUDGE