IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE

AT NASHVILLE

Assigned on Briefs February 9, 2016

STATE OF TENNESSEE v. JONATHAN CASEY BRYANT

 Appeal from the Circuit Court for Warren County

No. F-13763 Larry B. Stanley, Jr., Judge

No. M2015-00938-CCA-R3-CD – Filed April 5, 2016

The defendant, Jonathan Casey Bryant, pleaded guilty in the Warren County Circuit

Court to promoting the manufacture of methamphetamine, reserving as a certified 

question of law whether the evidence obtained following a traffic stop should have been 

suppressed because it arose from his illegal detention. Following our review, we affirm 

the judgment of the trial court. 

Tenn. R. App. P. 3 Appeal as of Right; Judgment of the Circuit Court Affirmed

ALAN E. GLENN, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which JAMES CURWOOD WITT,

JR., and ROBERT L. HOLLOWAY, JR., JJ., joined.

Felicia B. Walkup, McMinnville, Tennessee, for the appellant, Jonathan Casey Bryant.

Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; Sophia S. Lee, Senior Counsel; 

Lisa Zavogiannis, District Attorney General; and Thomas J. Miner, Assistant District 

Attorney General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

OPINION

FACTS and PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On June 23, 2012, the defendant was riding as a passenger in a vehicle driven by 

Charleston Ortega when Sergeant Ben Cantrell of the McMinnville Police Department, 

who was familiar with both the defendant and Mr. Ortega from their involvement in the 

production of methamphetamine and knew that Mr. Ortega had an outstanding arrest 

warrant, spotted them in the vehicle and initiated a traffic stop. Mr. Ortega fled when 

Sergeant Cantrell attempted to arrest him, but the defendant remained at the scene, was 

detained in handcuffs by Sergeant Cantrell, and gave consent to the officer to search a 
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safe inside the vehicle, which he said he had just sold to a friend. Sergeant Cantrell 

found items used in the manufacture of methamphetamine inside the safe and inside the 

vehicle itself. The defendant was arrested and subsequently indicted for initiating the 

process intended to result in the manufacture of methamphetamine, promoting the 

manufacture of methamphetamine, and possession of drug paraphernalia. 

Following the denial of his motion to suppress the results of the search, the 

defendant pled guilty on February 6, 2013, to promoting the manufacture of 

methamphetamine in exchange for the dismissal of the other two counts of the indictment 

and a four-year sentence as a Range I, standard offender, with 180 days to serve and the 

remainder of his time on supervised probation. As a condition of his guilty plea, the 

defendant attempted to reserve a certified question of law regarding the legality of his 

detention and the subsequent search. On October 3, 2014, this court dismissed the appeal 

on the basis that the certified question of law had not been properly reserved under 

Tennessee Rule of Criminal Procedure 37 because, although the judgment form 

referenced “Exhibit No. 1, . . . at no point d[id] an actual question appear in the record.” 

See State v. Jonathan Casey Bryant, No. M2013-00922-CCA-R3-CD, 2014 WL 

4953619, at *1, *3. (Tenn. Crim. App. Oct. 3, 2014), perm. app. denied (Tenn. Feb. 20, 

2015).

Our direct appeal opinion dismissing the original appeal contains the following 

summary of the evidence presented at the suppression hearing: 

During a hearing on the motion, Officer Ben Cantrell, with the 

McMinnville Police Department, testified that around 11:00 a.m. on June 

23, 2012, he observed a vehicle being driven by Charleston Dakota Ortega, 

and the Defendant was a passenger in that vehicle. The vehicle was packed 

with personal belongings according to Officer Cantrell, and Officer Cantrell 

was familiar with both Ortega and the Defendant, knowing their previous 

involvement with methamphetamine production. Officer Cantrell knew that 

there was a warrant out for Ortega‟s arrest, so he initiated a traffic stop by 

activating his blue lights. As soon as Ortega exited the vehicle, Officer 

Cantrell attempted to place him under arrest, but Ortega fled on foot. 

Officer Cantrell began to chase Ortega but decided to return to his 

unattended patrol car and the Defendant who was still present on the scene. 

After a conversation with the Defendant, Officer Cantrell placed him in 

handcuffs, stating to the Defendant that he was only being detained and was 

not under arrest. Officer Cantrell explained that he did so due to “safety 

concern[s,]” being there by himself with no other officers to assist him.
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Officer Cantrell learned that neither Ortega nor the Defendant were 

the registered owner of the vehicle. Because the Defendant did not have a 

driver‟s license, Officer Cantrell determined that the vehicle would have to 

be towed. As Officer Cantrell began to inventory the car, he discovered a 

roll of aluminum foil, arousing his suspicions about the manufacture of 

methamphetamine. Officer Cantrell also observed a locked safe. He asked 

the Defendant who the safe belonged to, and the Defendant replied that he 

had sold the safe to a friend. Officer Cantrell asked the Defendant if he still 

had the key, to which the Defendant said yes and produced the key from his 

pants pocket. The Defendant consented to a search of the safe, where 

Officer Cantrell discovered more materials used in the methamphetamine 

manufacturing process. Officer Cantrell then placed the Defendant under 

arrest, and Officer Cantrell estimated that the entire episode lasted about 

twenty minutes.

Id. 

Additional facts provided by Sergeant Cantrell at the suppression hearing include 

the following:1 Sergeant Cantrell had previously arrested the defendant while the 

defendant was driving a stolen vehicle. When he asked the defendant who the owner was 

of the vehicle he had just stopped in which the defendant was riding as a passenger, the 

defendant gave him a name other than the registered owner, who was a man named 

Destry Cobbs. Sergeant Cantrell was familiar with Mr. Cobbs as someone who had also 

been involved in the manufacture of methamphetamine. He advised the defendant of his 

rights and informed his mother, who had arrived at the scene, that “if nothing else 

happen[ed], [the defendant would] be released.” He then asked the defendant about the 

safe. The defendant claimed to have sold the safe to a friend, but he still had a key on his 

person and produced it out of his pocket. He asked the defendant if he could search the 

safe, and the defendant consented. 

The defendant subsequently filed a petition for post-conviction relief in which he 

alleged ineffective assistance of counsel based on counsel‟s failures regarding the 

certified question of law. The post-conviction court granted his petition and set aside the 

judgments. On April 8, 2015, the defendant entered into the same plea agreement with 

the State, this time properly preserving the following certified question of law: 

Whether the initial seizure of the Defendant was permissible as a brief 

investigatory detention based upon reasonable suspicion, and whether any 

evidence obtained during a later search of the Defendant and of items found 

 

1 We have taken judicial notice of the transcript of the suppression hearing, which was included 

in the record of the defendant‟s original appeal.
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in the passenger compartment of a vehicle in which the Defendant was a 

passenger was fruit of the poisonous tree and thus inadmissible. 

ANALYSIS

When this court reviews a trial court‟s ruling on a motion to suppress evidence, 

“[q]uestions of credibility of the witnesses, the weight and value of the evidence, and 

resolution of conflicts in the evidence are matters entrusted to the trial judge as the trier 

of fact.” State v. Odom, 928 S.W.2d 18, 23 (Tenn. 1996). The party prevailing at the 

suppression hearing is entitled to the strongest legitimate view of the evidence and all 

reasonable inferences that may be drawn from the evidence. State v. Hicks, 55 S.W. 3d 

515, 521 (Tenn. 2011). The findings of a trial court in a suppression hearing are upheld 

unless the evidence preponderates against those findings. See Odom, 928 S.W.2d at 23. 

However, the application of the law to the facts found by the trial court is a question of 

law and is reviewed de novo. State v. Walton, 41 S.W.3d 75, 81 (Tenn. 2001); State v. 

Crutcher, 989 S.W.2d 295, 299 (Tenn. 1999); State v. Yeargan, 958 S.W.2d 626, 629 

(Tenn. 1997).

The defendant contends that his consent to search was obtained through an 

exploitation of his illegal detention, arguing that Sergeant Cantrell lacked either 

reasonable suspicion or probable cause that he was involved in a crime. The State 

responds by arguing that under the totality of the circumstances Sergeant Cantrell had 

reasonable suspicion to believe that the defendant was engaged in criminal activity at the 

time he was seized. The State further argues that the defendant lacks standing to 

challenge the searches because he was not the owner of the vehicle and denied ownership 

of the safe. In the alternative, the State argues that the totality of the circumstances 

supports a conclusion that the defendant‟s consent to search was voluntary. 

Both the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 

7 of the Tennessee Constitution protect individuals against unreasonable searches and 

seizures. See U.S. Const. amend. IV; Tenn. Const. art. I, § 7. “These constitutional 

provisions are designed to „safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against 

arbitrary invasions of government officials.‟” State v. Keith, 978 S.W.2d at 865 (quoting 

Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 528 (1967)). A search or seizure conducted 

without a warrant is presumed unreasonable, and evidence obtained as a result will be 

suppressed “unless the prosecution demonstrates by a preponderance of the evidence that 

the search or seizure was conducted pursuant to an exception to the warrant requirement.” 

Id. (citations omitted).

An exception to the warrant requirement exists when an officer has either probable 

cause, or reasonable suspicion supported by specific and articulable facts, that a criminal 
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offense has been or is about to be committed. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21 (1968); State 

v. Binette, 33 S.W.3d 215, 219 (Tenn. 2000). Reasonable suspicion is an objective 

standard and must be determined from the totality of the circumstances. United States v. 

Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417-18 (1981); see Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 696 

(1996). 

The defendant concedes that Sergeant Cantrell had probable cause to stop the 

vehicle based on his knowledge of Mr. Ortega‟s outstanding arrest warrant but argues 

that the officer lacked either probable cause or reasonable suspicion to detain him, a mere 

passenger in the vehicle. The trial court made the following findings of fact and 

conclusions of law regarding the legality of the defendant‟s detention:

I think in this instance that the person who had a warrant against them [Mr. 

Ortega] fled while driving someone else‟s vehicle which was cram-packed 

full from top to bottom with personal property and the owner of the vehicle 

was a convicted felon known to the Sergeant and that both [the defendant 

and Mr. Ortega] had been involved in methamphetamine manufacturing or 

trafficking and stolen the vehicle, stolen automobile possession in the past. 

I think all of that was known to [Sergeant Cantrell] and I think as a totality 

that adds up to reasonable suspicion. 

The record does not preponderate against these findings and conclusions. The 

defendant argues that Sergeant Cantrell‟s past dealings with him was insufficient to 

create an objective justification for reasonable suspicion. However, as noted by the trial 

court, there were more factors present than just the officer‟s knowledge of the 

defendant‟s criminal history. See State v. Lloyd Andra Webb, No. E2009-02135-CCAR3-CD, 2011 WL 486850, at *9 (Tenn. Crim. App. Feb. 11, 2011) (observing that while 

a defendant‟s nervous behavior, combined merely with an officer‟s knowledge of the 

defendant‟s criminal past, is insufficient for reasonable suspicion to detain a defendant 

following a traffic stop, “an officer‟s prior knowledge of a defendant‟s criminal history or 

reputation, in addition to nervousness and other factors, can give rise to reasonable 

suspicion to detain a defendant further”) (citations omitted). 

Sergeant Cantrell testified as to a number of circumstances that, based on his 

personal knowledge of the defendant and his experience as a law enforcement officer, 

formed an objective basis for his reasonable suspicion that the defendant was involved in 

criminal activity. These included his knowledge of the defendant‟s criminal history with 

stolen vehicles and methamphetamine production, Mr. Ortega‟s flight from the vehicle, 

the suspiciously “packed” condition of the vehicle, the defendant‟s having provided a 

false name as the owner of the vehicle, and the fact that the registered owner of the 

vehicle was an individual whom he knew to have also been involved in 
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methamphetamine production. We conclude, therefore, that the trial court did not err in 

finding that the defendant‟s detention was lawful. 

Relying on his contention that the detention was unlawful, the defendant argues 

that the evidence resulting from the officer‟s search of the safe must be suppressed under 

the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine because his consent to search was obtained by 

exploitation of the illegal detention. We have, however, already concluded that the 

defendant‟s detention was lawful based on the officer‟s reasonable suspicion that the 

defendant was involved in criminal activity. 

It is well-settled that a search conducted pursuant to voluntary consent is an 

exception to the requirement that searches and seizures be conducted pursuant to a 

warrant. State v. Bartram, 925 S.W.2d 227, 230 (Tenn. 1996). To satisfy the 

constitutional reasonableness standard, consent must be “„unequivocal, specific, 

intelligently given, and uncontaminated by duress or coercion.‟” State v. Simpson, 968 

S.W.2d 776, 784 (Tenn. 1998) (quoting State v. Brown, 836 S.W.2d 530, 547 (Tenn. 

1992)). The question of whether consent was voluntary is determined from the totality of 

the circumstances. State v. Cox, 171 S.W.3d 174, 183-84 (Tenn. 2005) (citing 

Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 243 (1973)). In assessing the totality of the 

circumstances, relevant factors to consider are: “(1) [t]ime and place of the encounter; 

(2) [w]hether the encounter was in a public or secluded place; (3) [t]he number of officers 

present; (4) [t]he degree of hostility; (5) [w]hether weapons were displayed; (6) [w]hether 

consent was requested; and (7) [w]hether the consenter initiated contact with the police.” 

Id. at 185 (citation omitted).

We agree with the State that the totality of the circumstances supports a finding 

that the defendant‟s consent to search was voluntarily and intelligently given. The entire 

detention lasted only twenty minutes by Sergeant Cantrell‟s estimation. In addition, the 

defendant was asked only once and there was no evidence of any badgering or 

harassment by the officer. We conclude, therefore, that the trial court properly denied the 

defendant‟s motion to suppress the evidence. 

CONCLUSION

Based on the foregoing authorities and reasoning, we affirm the judgment of the 

trial court denying the motion to suppress. 

_________________________________ 

ALAN E. GLENN, JUDGE