Tennessee DUI Case Dismissed Due to Illegal Traffic Stop
Once you see blue lights on a police car come on , you know someone is in trouble. The Tennessee Court of Criminal appeals reversed a lower court and dismissed a DUI conviction based on a illegal traffic stop. The court held that once the blue lights come on the driver is seized for Fourth Amendment purposes.Here is a portion of the court's ruling ;
the defendant’s encounter with the officer was not voluntary, but rather
occurred under a show of authority—the activation of the blue emergency
lights—from which a reasonable person would not have felt free to leave.
“Few, if any, reasonable citizens, while parked, would simply drive away and
assume that the police, in turning on the emergency flashers, would be
communicating something other than for them to remain.”
This case is a reminder that the primary defense in most drunk driving cases in Tennessee is to examine the reason the police pulled you over .Also , blue lights equal a seizure under the Fourth Amendment.
