State of Tennessee v. Orson Wendell Hudson

The defendant, Orson Wendell Hudson, pled guilty in Sumner County Criminal Court to possession with the intent to sell more than twenty-six grams of cocaine, a Class B felony, and the trial court sentenced him as a Range I, standard offender to eight years in the Department of Correction. The defendant appeals upon certified questions of law from the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence seized pursuant to a traffic stop. He claims the trial court should have granted his motion because (1) the arresting officer's stated justification for stopping his car was pretextual, (2) the officer did not have probable cause to stop his car for following too closely, (3) the officer's questioning transformed his detention into an unreasonable seizure, (4) the officer's questioning of his six-year-old daughter outside his presence was illegal, and (5) the officer coerced his consent to search. We affirm the trial court.