IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TENNESSEE

AT NASHVILLE

September 13, 2016 Session

STATE OF TENNESSEE v. AMANDA L. IRWIN

Appeal from the Circuit Court for Coffee County

No. 41206M L. Craig Johnson, Judge

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No. M2016-00219-CCA-R3-CD – Filed November 8, 2016

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Amanda L. Irwin (“the Defendant”) pled guilty to driving under the influence and 

possession of an open container of an alcoholic beverage, reserving two certified 

questions of law challenging the trial court’s denial of a motion to suppress. On appeal, 

the Defendant asserts that the law enforcement officer lacked reasonable suspicion to ask 

her to step out of her car and perform field sobriety tests. After a review of the record 

and applicable law, we affirm the trial court’s denial of the motion to suppress. 

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

ROBERT L. HOLLOWAY, JR., J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which JAMES

CURWOOD WITT, JR., and TIMOTHY L. EASTER, JJ., joined.

James H. Threet, III, Manchester, Tennessee, for the appellant, Amanda L. Irwin.

Herbert H. Slatery III, Attorney General and Reporter; M. Todd Ridley, Assistant 

Attorney General; Craig Northcott, District Attorney General; and Marcus Simmons, 

Assistant District Attorney General, for the appellee, State of Tennessee.

OPINION

I. Factual and Procedural Background

Motion to Suppress

On June 12, 2014, the Defendant was indicted by the Coffee County Grand Jury 

for first offense driving under the influence of an intoxicant (“DUI”); driving with a 

blood alcohol content of 0.08% or higher; driving with a revoked license, second offense;
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operating a motor vehicle while in possession of an open container of alcohol; driving 

without proof of registration; and driving without proof of insurance. Thereafter, the 

Defendant filed a motion to suppress the evidence against her, arguing that she was 

subject to a “warrantless seizure.”

At the suppression hearing, Trooper Jason Boles with the Tennessee Highway 

Patrol testified that around 6 a.m. on October 13, 2013, he was off-duty when he arrived 

at Sonic restaurant in Manchester for breakfast. The restaurant was not yet open. 

Trooper Boles noticed a car that appeared to have entered the Sonic from the exit and had 

pulled into a parking space from the wrong direction. As Trooper Boles passed the 

irregularly-parked car, he saw that the driver “leaned up in her seat and looked to the 

right and looked to the left like she was just unsteady and fell straight back in her seat, 

like she just passed out right there.” Concerned that the driver might be intoxicated, 

Trooper Boles called an on-duty trooper to inform him of a possible DUI at Sonic.

Trooper Donnie Clark was on duty that morning and responded to Trooper Boles’s

call. When he arrived at Sonic, he circled the restaurant and parked perpendicular to the 

irregularly-parked car so as to not block in the vehicle. He did not activate his blue 

lights. Trooper Clark exited his patrol car, and as he approached the parked vehicle, the 

driver, who was later identified as the Defendant, opened her car door. On the audio of

the dash camera video,

1

Trooper Clark could be heard to say, “Howdy. How are you? 

How much did you have to drink last night?” The Defendant’s response is unintelligible, 

but Trooper Clark testified at the suppression hearing that the Defendant stated that she 

had been drinking.

Trooper Clark also testified that the Defendant “appear[ed] to be somewhat 

intoxicated,” that he smelled alcohol on the Defendant’s person when he spoke with her, 

and that her speech was slurred. After the Defendant informed Trooper Clark that she 

had been drinking, Trooper Clark asked the Defendant to exit her vehicle and to perform 

three field sobriety tests. The Defendant complied and performed the walk-and-turn, 

one-leg-stand, and finger-to-nose tests. Trooper Clark testified that the Defendant 

performed “poorly” on the tests, and he arrested the Defendant for DUI. 

On cross-examination, Trooper Clark stated that, when he pulled up near the 

Defendant’s car in the Sonic parking lot, the Defendant was not breaking any traffic laws. 

He also stated that Trooper Boles did not indicate that the Defendant was in physical 

distress. However, Trooper Clark said that Trooper Boles informed him that the 

 

1 The State introduced and played the dash camera video from Trooper Clark’s patrol car at the 

suppression hearing.
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Defendant “sat up and then fell back in her seat,” so Trooper Clark did not know if the 

Defendant was having medical problems when he approached the Defendant’s car. 

Trooper Clark testified that Trooper Boles did not relay any information or evidence that 

the Defendant had been in a car accident or had damaged anything. Additionally, 

Trooper Clark stated that neither he nor Trooper Boles personally witnessed the 

Defendant drive her car.

Trooper Clark noted that the Defendant opened her car door as he approached her 

car and that he did not speak to the Defendant before she opened her car door. Trooper 

Clark also stated that the Defendant was not pulled over the curb and that she had 

successfully parked between posts marking the parking space in the Sonic parking lot. 

Trooper Clark testified that the keys to the Defendant’s car were “readily available” and 

were inside the vehicle, but he could not remember whether the keys were in the ignition 

when he spoke with the Defendant. 

At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court found that Trooper Clark’s initial 

encounter with the Defendant was not a consensual encounter because “[t]he [D]efendant 

did not seek out nor walk by Trooper Clark.” However, the trial court found that the 

initial encounter was a “brief investigatory stop based on reasonable suspicion” because 

Trooper Clark had been informed of the possible DUI by Trooper Boles, who was a 

trustworthy “citizen informant.” The trial court concluded that Trooper Clark had 

reasonable suspicion that the Defendant had committed a crime “based on the 

observations of the caller, the observations of the actual park[ing lot], and the appearance 

that the vehicle came in the wrong way in a one-way alley in a parking lot . . . .” 

Additionally, the trial court found that Trooper Clark had probable cause to arrest the 

Defendant for DUI. The trial court denied the Defendant’s motion to suppress.

On January 6, 2016, the Defendant pled guilty to one count of DUI (first offense), 

a Class A misdemeanor, and one count of operating a motor vehicle with an open 

container of alcohol, a Class C misdemeanor, and reserved the following certified 

questions of law: 

1. Whether Trooper Donnie Clark’s initial encounter with [the 

Defendant] was a brief consensual encounter that required no 

objective justification, which later evolved into a brief investigatory 

stop that was based upon Trooper Clark’s articulable and reasonable 

suspicion that a crime had been committed? 

2. If Trooper Clark’s initial encounter with [the Defendant] was not a 

brief consensual encounter, whether the stop and detention of [the 

Defendant] was supported by reasonable suspicion and lawful under 
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the [Fourth] Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Art. 1 Sec[.] 7 

of the [Tennessee] Constitution?

In its Judgment Order Reserving Certified Question of Law (“Judgment Order”)

filed the same day, the trial court found that “[t]he questions certified to the Court of 

Criminal Appeals are dispositive of the case[]” and that the certified questions “arose 

from a suppression hearing that was held on December 17, 2014, . . . the transcript[] of 

which is part of the trial court record.”

The Defendant’s remaining charges — driving on a revoked license, second 

offense; driving without proof of registration; and driving without proof of insurance —

were dismissed. The trial court sentenced the Defendant to eleven months and twentynine days for the DUI charge and ordered the Defendant to pay a $10 fine for the open 

container charge. The trial court ordered the Defendant to serve forty-eight hours of the 

DUI sentence, with the remainder of the sentence suspended to supervised probation. 

This timely appeal follows. 

II. Analysis

Certified Questions of Law

Tennessee Rule of Criminal Procedure 37 states that a defendant may appeal a 

judgment of conviction after a guilty plea if:

(A) the defendant entered into a plea agreement under Rule 11(c) but 

explicitly reserved-with the consent of the state and of the court-the right to 

appeal a certified question of law that is dispositive of the case, and the 

following requirements are met:

(i) the judgment of conviction or order reserving the certified question that 

is filed before the notice of appeal is filed contains a statement of the 

certified question of law that the defendant reserved for appellate review;

(ii) the question of law as stated in the judgment or order reserving the 

certified question identifies clearly the scope and limits of the legal issue 

reserved;

(iii) the judgment or order reserving the certified question reflects that the 

certified question was expressly reserved with the consent of the state and 

the trial court; and
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(iv) the judgment or order reserving the certified question reflects that the 

defendant, the state, and the trial court are of the opinion that the certified 

question is dispositive of the case[.]

Tenn. R. Crim. P. 37(b)(2)(A)(i)-(iv).

The defendant has the burden of ensuring that the “prerequisites are in the final 

order and that the record brought to the appellate courts contains all of the proceedings 

below that bear upon whether the certified question of law is dispositive and the merits of 

the question certified.” State v. Preston, 759 S.W.2d 647, 650 (Tenn. 1988). If the 

certified question is not dispositive of the case, the appeal must be dismissed. Id. at 651.

A certified question is dispositive “when the appellate court must either affirm the 

judgment [of conviction] or reverse and dismiss [the charges].” State v. Dailey, 235 

S.W.3d 131, 134 (Tenn. 2007) (quoting State v. Walton, 41 S.W.3d 75, 96 (Tenn. 2001))

(alterations in original) (internal quotation marks omitted). However, this court “is not 

bound by the determination and agreement of the trial court, a defendant, and the State 

that a certified question of law is dispositive of the case.” Id. (quoting State v. 

Thompson, 131 S.W.3d 923, 925 (Tenn. Crim. App. 2003)). We must “make an 

independent determination that the certified question is dispositive.” Id. (citing Preston, 

759 S.W.2d at 651). 

We conclude that the Defendant properly certified two questions of law to this 

court. The record shows that the Defendant entered a plea agreement on January 6, 2016, 

and the Defendant explicitly reserved the right to appeal two questions of law.2 The trial 

court filed the Judgment Order on January 6, 2016, and the Defendant filed her Notice of 

Appeal on January 26, 2016; therefore, the Judgment Order reserving the certified 

questions was filed before the notice of appeal in this case. Additionally, the Judgment 

Order contained statements of the two certified questions of law that the Defendant 

reserved for our review. 

The questions of law reserved by the Defendant clearly identify the “scope and 

limits of the legal issue[s] reserved.” Tenn. R. Crim. P. 37(b)(A)(ii). Moreover, the 

certified questions were reserved with the consent of the State and the trial court. Lastly, 

the Judgment Order reflects that the trial court, the State, and the Defendant agree that the 

two certified questions reserved by the Defendant are dispositive of her case. Upon 

review, we likewise conclude that the certified questions are dispositive of the case. 

 

2 We note that while the plain language of Rule 37 refers to a “question of law,” this court has 

previously considered multiple certified questions of law arising from a defendant’s guilty plea. See, e.g.

State v. William Gary Mosley, No. M2014-02533-CCA-R3-CD, 2016 WL 309837, at *4-5 (Tenn. Crim. 

App. Jan. 26, 2016), no perm. app. filed.
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After answering the two certified questions, this court must either affirm the Defendant’s 

convictions or reverse the trial court’s order and dismiss the charges against the 

Defendant. Because we hold the Defendant properly certified two questions of law to 

this court that are dispositive of the case, we will proceed to analyze the merits of the 

certified questions.

Standard of Review

The applicable standard of review for suppression issues is well-established. A 

trial court’s findings of fact are binding on this court unless the evidence in the record 

preponderates against them. State v. Echols, 382 S.W.3d 266, 277 (Tenn. 2012) (citing 

State v. Odom, 928 S.W.2d 18, 23 (Tenn. 1996)). “Questions 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.” Id. The prevailing 

party is entitled to the strongest legitimate view of the evidence adduced at the 

suppression hearing and all reasonable and legitimate inferences that may be drawn 

therefrom. Id. The trial court’s application of law to the facts is reviewed under a de 

novo standard with no presumption of correctness. Id. (citing State v. Walton, 41 S.W.3d 

75, 81 (Tenn. 2001)). 

Consensual Police-Citizen Encounters

The Defendant argues that the initial encounter between Trooper Clark and herself 

was not consensual.3 The State contends that the initial encounter between Trooper Clark 

and the Defendant was consensual.

The United States and Tennessee constitutions protect citizens from unreasonable 

searches and seizures. U.S. Const. amend. IV; Tenn. Const. art. I, § 7; State v. Binette, 

33 S.W.3d 215, 218 (Tenn. 2000). It is well-settled that courts have divided policecitizen encounters into three different categories: “(1) a full scale arrest which must be 

supported by probable cause . . . ; (2) a brief investigatory detention which must be 

supported by reasonable suspicion . . . ; and (3) brief police-citizen encounters which 

require no objective justification . . . .” State v. Daniel, 12 S.W.3d 420, 424 (Tenn. 2000)

(citing Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590 (1975); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20-22 (1968); 

Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 434 (1991)). Full scale arrests and brief investigatory 

detentions or stops are seizures and therefore implicate an individual’s rights under the 

Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and under Article I, Section 7 of the 

Tennessee Constitution, but a consensual police-citizen encounter does not. See id.

 

3 The Defendant’s appellate brief mentions the trial court’s finding that the Defendant’s initial 

encounter with Trooper Clark was not consensual, but the Defendant offers no case law or facts arguing 

in support of the trial court’s finding.
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A seizure occurs when “in view of all the circumstances surrounding the incident, 

a reasonable person would have believed that he or she was not free to leave.” Id. at 425 

(internal citations omitted). “In order to determine whether a particular encounter 

constitutes a seizure, a court must consider all the circumstances surrounding the 

encounter to determine whether police conduct would have communicated to a 

reasonable person that the person was not free to decline the officer’s request or 

otherwise terminate the encounter.” Id. (quoting Bostick, 501 U.S. at 440) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). The factors that a court should consider when determining 

whether a seizure has occurred include, but are not limited, to “the time, place and 

purpose of the encounter; the words used by the officer; the officer’s tone of voice and 

general demeanor; the officer’s statements to others who were present during the 

encounter; the threatening presence of several officers; the display of a weapon by an 

officer; and the physical touching of the person of the citizen.” Id. at 425-26 (internal 

citations omitted). The Fourth Amendment is implicated when a police officer:

(1) pursues an individual who has attempted to terminate the contact by 

departing; (2) continues to interrogate a person who has clearly expressed a 

desire not to cooperate; (3) renews interrogation of a person who has earlier 

responded fully to police inquiries; (4) verbally orders a citizen to stop and 

answer questions; (5) retains a citizen’s identification or other property; (6) 

physically restrains a citizen or blocks the citizen’s path; [or] (7) displays a 

weapon during the encounter.

Id. at 426 (citing 4 Wayne R. LaFave, Search & Seizure, § 9.3 (a), at 104 (3d ed. 1996 & 

Supp. 1999) (collecting cases)). In the context of a traffic stop, a person is also seized 

when the officer activates the cruiser’s blue lights. Binette, 33 S.W.3d at 218. 

In this case, the trial court found that the initial interaction between Trooper Clark 

and the Defendant was not consensual because Trooper Clark approached the Defendant, 

and “[t]he [D]efendant did not seek out nor walk by Trooper Clark.” However, the 

Tennessee Supreme Court has previously held that “the Fourth Amendment is not

implicated and no seizure occurs when police approach an individual, in a public place, 

or in a parked car, ask questions, and request to search, so long as police do not convey a 

message that compliance with their requests is required.” Daniel, 12 S.W.3d at 426 

(footnotes omitted) (emphasis in original). 

Here, the trial court erred by finding that the encounter between the Defendant and 

Trooper Clark was non-consensual on the basis that the Defendant did not approach 

Trooper Clark. Tennessee law clearly holds that an officer may approach an individual 

without violating that individual’s Fourth Amendment rights. Id. In this case, Trooper 

Clark parked his car behind the Defendant’s car in a way that did not block her in. 

Trooper Clark then got out of his patrol car and began walking up to the Defendant’s car. 
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Before Trooper Clark reached the Defendant’s car, she opened her car door. Trooper 

Clark then asked the Defendant how she was doing and how much she had had to drink 

that night. Because Trooper Clark did not block the Defendant’s car or activate his 

emergency lights and because the Defendant opened her car door to speak with Trooper 

Clark as he approached, we hold that the initial interaction between Trooper Clark and 

the Defendant was consensual. 

Reasonable Suspicion

The Defendant further argues that Trooper Clark lacked reasonable suspicion that 

she had committed a crime when Trooper Clark asked the Defendant to step out of her 

car and perform field sobriety tests. The State contends that Trooper Clark had 

reasonable suspicion that the Defendant had been driving under the influence based on 

Trooper Boles’s information and Trooper Clark’s observations of the Defendant’s parked 

car.

Generally, “under both the federal and state constitutions, a warrantless search or 

seizure is presumed unreasonable, and evidence discovered as a result thereof is subject 

to suppression unless the State demonstrates that the search or seizure was conducted 

pursuant to one of the narrowly defined exceptions to the warrant requirement.” State v. 

Yeargan, 958 S.W.2d 525, 629 (Tenn. 1997). A warrant is not required for an 

investigatory stop “when the officer has a reasonable suspicion, supported by specific and

articulable facts, that a criminal offense has been or is about to be committed.” State v. 

Bridges, 963 S.W.2d 487, 492 (Tenn. 1997); see also Terry, 392 U.S. at 21; Binette, 33 

S.W.3d at 218; Yeargan, 958 S.W.2d at 630; State v. Watkins, 827 S.W.2d 293, 294 

(Tenn. 1992). 

Reasonable suspicion is “a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the 

subject of a stop of criminal activity . . . , and it is determined by considering the totality 

of the circumstances surrounding the stop[.]” Binette, 33 S.W.3d at 218 (citing Ornelas 

v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 696 (1996); Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 330 

(1990)). 

Circumstances relevant to [evaluating reasonable suspicion] 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. 
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Yeargan, 958 S.W.2d at 632 (citing Watkins, 827 S.W.2d at 294; United States v. Cortez,

449 U.S. 411, 418 (1981); Terry, 392 U.S. at 21). 

In the current case, Trooper Clark had reasonable suspicion that the Defendant 

was in physical control of a motor vehicle in the Sonic parking lot while under the 

influence of alcohol. Trooper Boles was a citizen informant who was found reliable by 

the trial court. He informed Trooper Clark that the Defendant’s vehicle was irregularlyparked and that he saw her move around and fall back in her car; both of these 

circumstances suggested to Trooper Boles that the Defendant was intoxicated. When 

Trooper Clark arrived at Sonic, he also observed that the Defendant had irregularly

parked her car in such a way to indicate that she pulled into the parking space from the 

wrong direction. After Trooper Clark approached the Defendant’s car, she opened her 

door, and Trooper Clark spoke with her. Trooper Clark testified that the Defendant 

appeared to be intoxicated, that he smelled alcohol on the Defendant’s person, that her 

speech was slurred, and that she admitted to drinking. Trooper Clark’s personal 

observations along with Trooper Boles’ observations relayed to Trooper Clark by 

telephone provided Trooper Clark with reasonable suspicion that the Defendant had been 

driving while under the influence of alcohol. Therefore, Trooper Clark’s “seizure” of the 

Defendant by asking her to exit her vehicle and perform field sobriety tests was supported 

by reasonable suspicion. The Defendant is not entitled to relief.

III. Conclusion

For the aforementioned reasons, the judgment of the trial court is affirmed.

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ROBERT L. HOLLOWAY, JR., JUDGE