State v. Breedwell

522 P.3d 876, 323 Or. App. 172
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedDecember 14, 2022
DocketA170050
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 522 P.3d 876 (State v. Breedwell) 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. Breedwell, 522 P.3d 876, 323 Or. App. 172 (Or. Ct. App. 2022).

Opinion

Argued and submitted April 16, 2021, affirmed December 14, 2022, petition for review denied May 18, 2023 (371 Or 106)

STATE OF OREGON, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. EDDIE BREEDWELL, Defendant-Appellant. Multnomah County Circuit Court 18CR33103; A170050 522 P3d 876

Defendant appeals from a judgment of conviction, assigning error to the trial court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence discovered in his apartment during a warranted search. The warrant specified the address of defendant’s apartment building but not his name or apartment number, and, although a sup- porting affidavit that accompanied the warrant at the search did include that information, it was not physically attached to the warrant or incorporated into the warrant by express reference. Defendant challenges the warrant as insuf- ficiently particular under Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution and the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Held: For a defendant to establish that an affidavit cannot be considered in construing the warrant it supports, the defendant must show that, under the totality of the circumstances, there was not a sufficient connection between the warrant and the affidavit for the executing officers to have reasonably believed that the warrant and affidavit were functionally one document, such that it was not appropriate for the officers to rely on the contents of the affidavit in limiting their search. Applying that standard to the facts, the Court of Appeals concluded that defendant did not meet his burden to establish that the affidavit lacked the requisite connection to the warrant. Considering the supporting affidavit as part of the search warrant, the court concluded that the warrant met the particularity requirement of Article I, section 9. Turning to defendant’s arguments under the Fourth Amendment, the court concluded that, although the warrant was facially invalid under Fourth Amendment law, the good faith exception to the federal exclusionary rule applied. Thus, the trial court did not err in denying defendant’s suppression motion. Affirmed.

Eric J. Bergstrom, Judge. Zachard Lovett Mazer, Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant. Also on the brief was Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate Section, Office of Public Defense Services. Joanna Hershey, Assistant Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent. Also on the brief were Ellen F. Cite as 323 Or App 172 (2022) 173

Rosenblum, Attorney General, and Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General. Before Ortega, Presiding Judge, and Shorr, Judge, and Powers, Judge. SHORR, J. Affirmed. Powers, J., concurring. 174 State v. Breedwell

SHORR, J. Defendant appeals from a judgment of conviction, assigning error to the trial court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence discovered in his apartment during a warranted search. The warrant specified the address of defendant’s apartment building but not his name or apart- ment number. And, although a supporting affidavit that accompanied the warrant at the search did include that information, it was not physically attached to the warrant or incorporated into the warrant by express reference. Defendant challenged the warrant as insufficiently particu- lar under Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution and the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The trial court denied the motion, and defendant appeals. For the reasons that follow, we agree with the trial court’s conclusions. Beginning with defendant’s Article I, section 9, arguments, we conclude first that we may con- strue the warrant with reference to the supporting affidavit. Second, considering those documents together, we conclude that the warrant was sufficiently particular in describing the place to be searched. Finally, considering defendant’s arguments under the Fourth Amendment, although the warrant failed to incorporate the affidavit and was over- broad, the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies. We therefore conclude that the trial court did not err and affirm. FACTS In reviewing the trial court’s denial of defendant’s motion to suppress, we are bound by the court’s findings of historical fact that are supported by constitutionally suffi- cient evidence in the record. State v. Kauppi, 277 Or App 485, 488, 371 P3d 1264, rev den, 360 Or 465 (2016). Here, the trial court made detailed written factual findings that were supported by constitutionally sufficient evidence in the record. Accordingly, we draw our statement of the facts pri- marily from those findings. On a morning in May 2018, Portland Police Officer Green and three other officers (Jacobson, Martley, and Honel) went to defendant’s apartment unit in a four-story Cite as 323 Or App 172 (2022) 175

apartment building in downtown Portland to follow up on an anonymous tip that defendant was accepting stolen prop- erty as payment for heroin and methamphetamine. The tip included pictures, which purportedly showed the stolen property in defendant’s apartment, as well as descriptions of that property. Anticipating that he would seek a search warrant, Green had already drafted sections of a warrant affidavit detailing the tip and his investigation thus far. Green also led a “mission plan” meeting with the other offi- cers where he summarized the information in the partial affidavit and detailed “why we were there in the first place [and] what items we were looking for.” When the officers arrived, Green confirmed that defendant’s name appeared on a registry at the building’s entrance as the resident of unit 38, the same unit specified in the tip. Defendant answered the door and agreed to speak to officers. Through the cracked-open door, Jacobson could see inside the apartment and saw what he identified as a small black scale covered in white residue. Based on his belief that he possessed probable cause to arrest defendant for posses- sion of methamphetamine, Green arrested defendant. Green then left to obtain a warrant to search defen- dant’s apartment while Jacobson and Martley remained outside of apartment 38. At the station, Green added a sum- mary of his contact with defendant to his partial affidavit draft and had both his sergeant and a deputy district attor- ney review the affidavit and warrant. Green then presented the affidavit and warrant to a judge at the courthouse. The judge signed and dated the affidavit, indicating that it had been subscribed and sworn before the court. Finally, the judge signed and dated the warrant itself. Altogether, that process took a couple of hours. Although Green’s affidavit in support of the war- rant specifically identified the residence to be searched as 333 NW 6th Avenue #38, the signed warrant authorized “any police officer in the state of Oregon” to search “the premises of 333 NW 6th Avenue, City of Portland, County of Multnomah, State of Oregon,” mistakenly omitting defen- dant’s specific apartment number. The warrant did not incorporate or otherwise reference the affidavit and did not 176 State v. Breedwell

identify defendant by name. Green testified that the omis- sion was an “oversight,” rather than a measure to secure authorization to search the entire building, and that he was “not experienced in warrant writing.” After the warrant was signed, Green put both the warrant and affidavit into a single manila case file folder. The affidavit was not stapled, paperclipped, or otherwise physically appended to the warrant, but was side by side with the warrant in the folder.1 Green returned to the sta- tion, where defendant was by then in custody in a holding cell, and read the contents of the warrant out loud to defen- dant. Green did not read the affidavit to defendant, however. Green then returned to defendant’s apartment with the case folder to execute the warrant, where he met Jacobson and Martley, who were still stationed outside apartment 38.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
522 P.3d 876, 323 Or. App. 172, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-breedwell-orctapp-2022.