State v. Blasingame

873 P.2d 361, 127 Or. App. 382, 1994 Ore. App. LEXIS 610
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedApril 20, 1994
DocketL91-0440CR; CA A75914
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 873 P.2d 361 (State v. Blasingame) 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. Blasingame, 873 P.2d 361, 127 Or. App. 382, 1994 Ore. App. LEXIS 610 (Or. Ct. App. 1994).

Opinions

[384]*384RIGGS, J.

Defendant was charged with first degree manslaughter and felon in possession of a firearm. ORS 163.118; ORS 161.610. The state appeals a pretrial order suppressing evidence. ORS 138.060(3). We reverse.

We take the facts from the trial court’s findings and the evidence that is consistent with those findings. State v. Davis, 313 Or 246, 250, 834 P2d 1008 (1992); State v. Huckaba, 115 Or App 728, 730, 839 P2d 768, rev den 315 Or 272 (1992). On June 14, 1991, Lake County Sheriff Reed and Deputy Cates, both of whom are also deputy medical examiners, went to defendant’s home in Paisley, Oregon, to investigate a reported suicide. They approached the residence, knocked and, after receiving no answer, opened the unlocked front door.

They entered as medical examiners to see if the victim was alive and to render aid, if necessary. They found the victim lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen. Reed checked the victim’s vital signs, which revealed that he was dead, while Cates made a cursory search for weapons, and found none. After two or three minutes they heard defendant and a companion in the back yard. Reed and Cates left the house through the kitchen door and met defendant.

Defendant, who was victim’s father and resided in the house, told Reed and Cates that he had found his son dead on the floor that morning. Defendant also said he had not touched the body and had not seen a weapon. Reed then asked if he could re-enter the house to use the phone, and defendant consented.1 He went back into the house through the kitchen door and, at some point, rolled the victim’s body over and saw that there was no weapon under the body. The discovery of [385]*385this evidence, or lack of evidence, led Reed to suspect, for the first time, that the death was not a suicide.

Reed then called Detective Sergeant Stroup and asked Stroup to prepare a search warrant to search defendant’s residence, and for, inter alia, hair, blood samples, fingernail scrapings and gunshot residue from defendant. Both the Lake County District Attorney and the Lake County Circuit Court judge were unavailable, so Stroup requested a search warrant from a Klamath County District Court judge who was acting as a Lake County Circuit Court judge pro tempore.

Later that same day, Officer Lee went to defendant’s home and requested that defendant accompany him to Lake District Hospital so that the search warrant could be executed. Lee did not have a copy of the search warrant with him and did not read or give a copy of the warrant to defendant, as required by ORS 133.575(3).2 However, Lee did tell defendant a search warrant had been issued and informed him of what was in the warrant. Defendant voluntarily accompanied Lee to the hospital, where defendant was held overnight for medical reasons unrelated to the search.

When defendant was released from the hospital the following morning, Lee met defendant, brought him to the sheriffs office and advised him of his Miranda3 rights. Defendant was interviewed for a few hours, culminating in a taped statement made at approximately 1:30 p.m.

Defendant moved to suppress all evidence discovered as a result of the warrantless entries into his house. The trial court found that ORS 146.1074 authorized the first entry into [386]*386defendant’s home,5 but found that the second entry resulted in an unlawful search. The state conceded that all other evidence in this case would not have been found without the discovery during the second entry that there was no weapon under the body. Therefore, the court suppressed all evidence discovered during and after the second entry, including the absence of a weapon under the body, the gun used in the homicide, defendant’s later statements to the police, physical evidence seized at defendant’s home, test results and other evidence discovered through the search warrant.

The trial court found that the officer’s re-entry in order to search was illegal. However, the trial court also found that Reed asked for, and received, consent before he reentered the house. When Reed re-entered the house, he stepped directly into the kitchen where the victim’s body lay on the floor. Once lawfully on the premises through defendant’s consent, any observations Reed made, without intruding further into defendant’s privacy, were permissible and could properly form the basis for a search warrant. State v. Paulson, 313 Or 346, 352, 833 P2d 1278 (1992). Those lawful observations would also have allowed Reed to seize any evidence in plain view. State v. Dowdy, 117 Or App 414, 419, 844 P2d 263 (1992).

ORS 146.103(3),6 which requires a medical examiner to “take custody of or exercise control over the body,” provided authority for Reed to roll the body over. Defendant argues that, under State v. Brothers, 4 Or App 253, 478 P2d 442 (1972), the medical examiner statute does not, and cannot, authorize searches by medical examiners. However, the [387]*387statute at issue in Brothers was former ORS 146.450 (renumbered ORS 146.107 in 1973),7 which addresses the authority of the medical examiner to “enter any room, dwelling, building or other place” in which the medical examiner believes a body or evidence of the circumstances of death may be found. In this case, the medical examiner had already entered, with consent, the room in which the body lay. The issue is whether the medical examiner, who saw a dead body in plain view from a place where he is entitled to be, was authorized to take charge of the body. We hold that a medical examiner may “take custody of or exercise control over” a dead body in plain view in the same way that a police officer may seize evidence that is in plain view from a lawful vantage point. See State v. Wyman, 59 Or App 542, 546, 651 P2d 195 (1982); State v. Eacret, 40 Or App 341, 345, 595 P2d 490, rev den 287 Or 409 (1979). Therefore, the second entry was lawful based on defendant’s consent, and the rolling over of the body was authorized by ORS 146.103, the observations made thereby were permissible.

The dissent disagrees with our conclusion that ORS 146.103(3) authorized Reed to roll the body over and that the resulting observations were admissible.

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Related

State v. Henderson
113 P.3d 944 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2005)
State v. Blasingame
873 P.2d 361 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 1994)

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Bluebook (online)
873 P.2d 361, 127 Or. App. 382, 1994 Ore. App. LEXIS 610, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-blasingame-orctapp-1994.