State v. Ayles

237 P.3d 805, 348 Or. 622, 2010 Ore. LEXIS 595
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedAugust 12, 2010
DocketCC 051228; CA A132029; SC S056577
StatusPublished
Cited by41 cases

This text of 237 P.3d 805 (State v. Ayles) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Ayles, 237 P.3d 805, 348 Or. 622, 2010 Ore. LEXIS 595 (Or. 2010).

Opinions

[624]*624GILLETTE, J.

In this criminal case, a police officer unlawfully detained defendant, a passenger in a car that the officer lawfully had stopped for a traffic violation, and then sought and obtained defendant’s consent to search his person. The case requires us to consider whether defendant established a minimal factual link between the illegal detention and his consent to a search of his person during that illegal detention. If he did establish the required link, then the burden shifted to the state to demonstrate that contraband seized during that search was not obtained as a result of an exploitation of the illegal detention. The case presents a further question: Must evidence found and incriminating statements made after defendant was arrested and advised of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 US 436, 86 S Ct 1602, 16 L Ed 2d 694 (1966), be suppressed because they also were the product of the preceding illegal detention? We hold that defendant has shown the required minimal factual connection between the illegal detention and his consent. We also hold that the later administration of Miranda warnings did not sufficiently attenuate the taint of the illegal detention to permit this court to conclude that the defendant’s subsequent incriminating statements, and the evidence found as a result of those statements, were not the product of the prior illegality. We therefore affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals, State v. Ayles, 220 Or App 606, 188 P3d 378 (2008), to that effect.

The following facts are undisputed. On June 7,2005, at 9:47 a.m., state police trooper Hunt observed a car driving 67 miles per hour in 55 miles-per-hour zone on Highway 26. He also noticed that the car did not have a front license plate. Hunt stopped the car for the two violations. The stop occurred some 15 miles east of Seaside, Oregon, and about two miles from the nearest gas station-convenience store. The area was wooded and there were no residences nearby. Hunt approached the driver and noticed that she appeared to be under the influence of methamphetamine. Defendant was sitting in the front passenger seat. Three other people were sitting in the back seat of the car.

[625]*625Hunt explained to the driver why he had stopped the car. When Hunt then asked the driver if there was any methamphetamine in the car, defendant interrupted, asking the trooper how to rectify the license plate situation so that they could avoid being stopped again. Hunt answered defendant’s question. Although defendant had not done anything to cause Hunt to believe that defendant had committed a crime, Hunt found it suspicious that defendant had spoken up while Hunt was questioning the driver about methamphetamine. Hunt’s suspicions also were aroused by defendant’s demeanor, which Hunt described as “over friendly.”

Hunt asked defendant for his identification. Defendant handed Hunt a Department of Veterans’ Affairs identification card. Hunt took it and put it in his patrol car. He then had the driver get out of the car and told her that he suspected that she was under the influence of methamphetamine. He patted her down, did not find weapons or contraband, and told her to sit on the rear bumper of her car. He returned to the patrol car and ran a computer check on defendant and the driver. That check did not reveal anything of interest. Nonetheless, Hunt continued to retain defendant’s identification.

Hunt returned to the car and asked defendant to step out. Defendant did so. Hunt asked defendant if he had any weapons, and defendant replied that he did not. Hunt then asked defendant for consent to pat him down, which defendant gave. Hunt had defendant interlace his fingers and put them to the back of his neck, and then Hunt put one hand on defendant’s hands in preparation for the patdown. From his vantage point at that moment, Hunt could see down into defendant’s right breast pocket, where he observed an unlabeled prescription pill bottle that contained something wrapped in plastic. From Hunt’s training and experience, he believed that the pill bottle contained illegal drugs. He took the bottle out of defendant’s pocket and asked defendant, “Is that the meth?” Defendant admitted that it was. Hunt arrested defendant, handcuffed him, advised defendant of his Miranda rights, searched him more thoroughly, and placed him in the back seat of the patrol car.

[626]*626Hunt then conducted field sobriety tests on the driver and arrested her for driving under the influence of intoxicants. He asked the three remaining passengers to step out of the car. As they were getting out, one of the passengers told Hunt that there was a blue backpack in the car that belonged to defendant. Hunt then went back to the patrol car and asked defendant to step out again. He asked defendant if the backpack was his, and defendant admitted that it was. Hunt then asked defendant if there was any additional methamphetamine in the backpack; defendant replied that there was and described in detail what Hunt would find in the backpack. Hunt searched the backpack and found the methamphetamine as defendant described, as well as other drug paraphernalia.

Defendant was charged with possession and manufacture/delivery of methamphetamine. Before trial, he moved to suppress all of his statements and the evidence obtained after Hunt took his identification. He argued that he was seized in violation of Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution, when Hunt took and retained his identification, because Hunt had no reasonable suspicion at that time that defendant either had committed a crime or posed a threat to Hunt’s safety. The trial court denied the motion. The court ruled that defendant was not illegally seized when Hunt took defendant’s identification. In light of that ruling, the trial court concluded that defendant’s consent to search his person was voluntary, his subsequent arrest was lawful, and the statements that he made after receiving Miranda warnings also were voluntary.1 The trial court then conducted a stipulated facts trial and convicted defendant of the possession offense.

Defendant appealed his conviction to the Court of Appeals, assigning error to the trial court’s denial of his [627]*627motion to suppress. In the Court of Appeals, the state conceded that the taking and retaining of defendant’s identification amounted to an unlawful seizure under Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution. The Court of Appeals accepted that concession as well founded and held that the trial court erred in ruling to the contrary. Ayles, 220 Or App at 611.

The court then turned to the state’s arguments that defendant’s consent to search was not the result of an exploitation of the unlawful seizure, and that the giving of Miranda warnings attenuated the taint of the preceding unlawful police conduct. Id. The court quoted a statement from this court’s opinion in State v. Hall, 339 Or 7, 115 P3d 908 (2005), explaining that a defendant who seeks suppression of evidence obtained from a consensual search on the ground that the search was the product of illegal police conduct bears an initial burden to show a “ ‘minimal factual nexus between the unlawful police conduct and the defendant’s consent.’ "Ayles, 220 Or App at 611-12 (quoting Hall, 339 Or at 34-35). Under Hall,

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
237 P.3d 805, 348 Or. 622, 2010 Ore. LEXIS 595, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-ayles-or-2010.