State v. A. S. (In re A. S.)

443 P.3d 618, 296 Or. App. 722
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedApril 26, 2018
DocketA163686
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 443 P.3d 618 (State v. A. S. (In re A. S.)) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. A. S. (In re A. S.), 443 P.3d 618, 296 Or. App. 722 (Or. Ct. App. 2018).

Opinion

LINDER, S. J.

*724In this juvenile delinquency case, the juvenile court found youth to be in the court's jurisdiction based on youth's unlawful possession of a firearm. ORS 166.250. On appeal, youth challenges the juvenile court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence of a gun that police found in youth's bedroom when they searched it based on consent given by youth's grandmother, who owned the home where youth was living. Youth argues that his grandmother could not authorize the search as against him because he was present at the time and objected to it. As we will explain, we conclude that the grandmother's consent was valid and, as a result, the search was lawful. We therefore affirm.

Although the parties disagree on the legal significance of the facts in the record, the facts themselves are not disputed. In all events, we state the facts and all reasonable inferences that the record supports in the light most favorable to the juvenile court's denial of the motion to suppress. State v. Beylund , 158 Or. App. 410, 416-17, 976 P.2d 1141, rev. den. , 328 Or. 594, 987 P.2d 515 (1999) (We defer to the trial court's express and implicit findings of fact, but whether those facts establish authority to consent to search is a legal question.).

At the time of the events involved in this case, youth was 16 years old and was living with his grandmother in a home that she owned. Youth, who had his own bedroom in the home, had lived there for two and one-half years. Youth helped with chores by "taking out the garbage, cleaning his own room," and otherwise doing "those kind of things." Youth paid no rent of any kind, however, and his grandmother required him to follow the rules that she set. Youth resisted the idea that his grandmother could go into his room at will, stating "emphatically" in conversations with her that it was his room. But his grandmother, just as emphatically, told him that "it's my house. If I want to go in there, I will go in there." And she did. The door was never locked. Youth's grandmother did not need his permission to enter his bedroom. She regularly went into youth's room to, among other things, wake him up for school, make sure windows were closed, and clean. Throughout the time that youth lived there, his grandmother's position was:

*725"[I]f there's reasons for me to go in [youth's bedroom], I will go in. He's still in our home and still 16 and I will go in if I need to." Even so, she tried to "respect his space" by, for example, knocking on the door if it was shut before entering and not cleaning or picking up in the room right after waking youth if it disturbed him at that time. On those occasions, she would come back later, at which point she would clean and pick up things in the room as she chose.

The search in this case occurred after Officer Culp, a police officer who is also a high school resource officer, received a report that youth and one of his friends (Cameron, a 19-year-old former student) showed up with handguns the day before at an off-campus fight. Culp and two other officers went to *622youth's home to investigate. The grandmother allowed the officers into the house. Then she walked directly back to youth's room and entered, permitting the officers to enter the bedroom with her. At the time, youth, Cameron, and a third friend (a 16 year old) were all asleep in youth's room.1 Culp remained in the bedroom with youth, while the two other officers talked to his friends in other parts of the house. Culp asked youth for permission to search the room, but youth said he did not want the officer to search. Culp then said he would ask youth's grandmother for permission. Youth responded that if he told his grandmother not to allow the officer search, she would refuse. Before the officer could "get the words out" to ask the grandmother for her consent, she walked into the room and, having heard the officer ask for permission to search, said, "Go, look through whatever you want." The grandmother believed that she had the right to permit the search, explaining at the suppression hearing that "[i]t was my home and apparently there was something going on that shouldn't have been going on in my home and I wanted it resolved." Culp found a firearm in youth's room on an open shelf of an entertainment center, beneath a towel.

Youth was charged with committing acts that, if committed by an adult, would constitute unlawful possession *726of a weapon under ORS 166.250. At trial, relying on both state and federal constitutional grounds, youth moved to suppress the evidence of the firearm seized in the search. In support of his motion, youth argued that his grandmother's consent to search was invalid as against him, because youth was physically present and expressly objected to the search. In response, the state argued that youth's grandmother, throughout the time that youth lived there, made it clear that it was "her house, her rules." As a result, the state contended, youth's grandmother retained full control over the premises, including youth's room and, therefore, had lawful authority to consent to the search despite youth's objection.

At the conclusion of the hearing on the motion to suppress, the juvenile court denied the motion, explaining:

"[T]he situation here is that the owner of the property, not even a landlord, basically a grandmother who was letting her grandson live in her home and who had asserted authority always over the room and being able to go in and out freely, really has a superior decision-making authority.
"I don't think it matters [that] the youth was there at the time that she gave consent. So I'm going to deny the motion to suppress."

After that ruling, the case proceeded to trial, and the juvenile court found youth to be in the jurisdiction of the court based on his unlawful possession of a firearm. This appeal followed. On appeal, although their positions are further developed and refined, the parties largely renew the arguments that they made to the juvenile court.2

The pertinent state and federal law principles are sufficiently parallel that we describe them in tandem. Under both Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution and the *727Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution,3 a warrantless search is *623per se

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
443 P.3d 618, 296 Or. App. 722, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-a-s-in-re-a-s-orctapp-2018.