Court Opinion

ID: 9499456
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:48:37.008823+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:30.690456
License: Public Domain

MERRITT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The question in this case is whether Tennessee’s statute on following too closely creates a rule for motorists or a broad *397standard giving police officers a wide discretion to interpret it as they see fit. I do not believe that Officer Pruitt had probable cause or any reasonable ground to believe that a traffic offense had occurred under Tenn.Code Ann. § 55-8-124(a) (1998), which forbids a motorist from following too closely. Rather, the Officer stopped this car with New York plates occupied by two black males a few minutes after the car had braked to avoid an accident. Officer Pruitt stopped the car because he had a hunch, in my judgment, that the two men might have some drugs.
The language of the Weaver case — the Tennessee case quoted by the majority— seems on point. In the instant case, Hill, the driver, complied with the statute which the case interprets to require simply that drivers “make an emergency stop without striking the forward vehicle where the vehicles had been proceeding in the same direction,” Helms v. Weaver, 770 S.W.2d 552, 553 (Tenn.Ct.App.1989). Under this case, the Tennessee statute means that there is no violation if the following ear can brake and avoid “striking the forward vehicle.”
Although the Rule of the road found in this statute is not quite so narrow as rules regarding the speed limit or red lights, it is clear, as interpreted by Tennessee courts, that it was not breached here. There was no basis in Tennessee law for the officer to go beyond the rule and exercise his own discretion even though Hill was able to brake and “avoid striking the forward vehicle where the vehicles had been proceeding in the same direction.” A broad, discretionary “reasonable suspicion” or “probable cause” standard does not fit such rules. “Reasonable suspicion” of what? What is it that the officer “suspects?” There is no motive or intention or undisclosed fact to “suspect” or believe to be “probable.” The Fourth Amendment should apply the same libertarian principle here that would apply if the officer had stopped a driver for speeding who was going 68 in a 70 mile an hour zone. This ability to avoid an accident by braking is what Tennessee law requires. A crime does not occur every time a car speeds up to pass and then has to brake quickly in order to avoid an accident when cut off by another car coming up fast in the passing lane; nor does a crime occur when a motorist must brake quickly because the car in front brakes or slows quickly. A great many drivers in America face this same problem everyday. See also State v. McCramey, 2003 Tenn.Crim.App. Lexis 722 (Aug. 22, 2003). In that case the Tennessee Court of Appeals suppressed the drug fruits of the same kind of claimed violation by the police of the same statute. The drug dealer’s car had to brake and stop quickly in order to avoid striking the slow moving car in front of it. The Court held that the “drug dealer’s actions in applying his brakes to avoid a collision did not give the police officer probable cause or reasonable suspicion to lawfully make the traffic stop.” Id. at 6.