State v. Brown

359 P.3d 413, 273 Or. App. 347, 2015 Ore. App. LEXIS 1005
Court of Appeals of Oregon·Decided August 26, 2015·No. CF120153; A154630·Published·Cited by 4 cases

Opinion

LAGESEN, J.

Defendant was convicted in a bench trial of possession and delivery of methamphetamine.1 Police officers found the methamphetamine, and other drug paraphernalia, when — without obtaining a warrant — they searched a McDonald’s bag belonging to defendant. At trial, defendant moved to strike the evidence of the contents of the McDonald’s bag,2 arguing that the officers’ search violated defendant’s rights to be free from “unreasonable searches” under Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution and the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The trial court rejected that argument — and refused to strike the evidence- — concluding that defendant had “abandoned” his McDonald’s bag by the time the officers searched it, relieving the officers of the obligation to obtain a warrant. We reverse. Even when viewed in the light most favorable to the trial court’s ruling, the facts here do not permit the conclusion that “defendant’s statements and conduct demonstrated that he relinquished all constitutionally protected interests” in his McDonald’s bag. State v. Cook, 332 Or 601, 608, 34 P3d 156 (2001). For that reason, the trial court erred in concluding that defendant had abandoned the bag, authorizing the officers to search it without first obtaining a warrant.

As a preliminary matter, the parties agree that defendant’s motion to strike was, for all practical purposes, a motion to suppress. They agree further that we should review the trial court’s ruling under the standard of review that governs our review of a ruling on a motion to suppress. We agree with the parties that that is the appropriate approach. Accordingly, we review the trial court’s ruling to determine whether its findings of historical fact are supported by any evidence, and “whether the trial court applied legal principles correctly to those facts.” State v. Ehly, 317 Or 66, 75, 854 P2d 421 (1993). To the extent that the trial [350]*350court did not make explicit findings of historical fact regarding a pertinent issue, “we will presume that the facts were decided in a manner consistent with the court’s ultimate conclusion” — provided, of course, that the evidentiary record can support those presumed findings of fact. Id.

Here, the pertinent historical facts are not disputed. Defendant sideswiped two parked cars as he was driving his truck over the noon hour, but did not stop. About a block- and-a-half after sideswiping the cars, defendant parked his truck in a parking lot next to a pizza restaurant, and walked across the street to a gas station and convenience store. Defendant took a McDonald’s bag with him into the store, bought a bottle of water, and left the store.

In the meantime, police, responding to reports of the hit-and-run, had located defendant’s truck. One of the officers at defendant’s truck noticed defendant watching from the convenience store parking lot across the street, and asked another officer, Sergeant Palmer, to contact defendant. Palmer pulled his car into the convenience store parking lot, got out of the car, and asked defendant whether he knew anything about the hit-and-run or the truck parked across the street at the pizza restaurant. Defendant was carrying his McDonald’s bag and bottle of water at the time, and had been walking alongside the store in a direction away from Palmer. Defendant told Palmer that the truck was his. He explained that he had not stopped at the scene of the accident because he wanted to get the truck off of the roadway and find a phone to call in the collision. Defendant’s conversation with Palmer took place next to a compressor for the store’s walk-in cooler, and, at some point during the conversation, defendant set his water bottle and McDonald’s bag on top of the compressor, placing them upright and next to each other.

Palmer asked defendant to go across the street with him to the truck so that they could deal with the accident. Defendant agreed, and Palmer drove defendant back across the street to his truck. Defendant left his McDonald’s bag and water bottle on the compressor.

At defendant’s truck, Palmer noticed items and packaging from McDonald’s in the truck. That caused Palmer to wonder why defendant “was still packing around the bag [351]*351and then left it behind where I first contacted him.” Palmer asked another investigating officer, Sergeant Keppinger, to get the McDonald’s bag. Keppinger did so, photographing the bag and bottle of water on the compressor before he took the bag back to Palmer. Palmer opened the bag and removed the contents: a black pouch that contained methamphetamine, packaging materials, a syringe, and a spoon. After looking into the McDonald’s bag, Palmer asked defendant to talk to him about the McDonald’s bag. Defendant responded that he did not know anything about it. At the time that Palmer sent Keppinger to retrieve the McDonald’s bag, Palmer and defendant had been back at defendant’s truck for about 10 to 15 minutes.

As noted, at trial, defendant moved to strike the evidence of the contents of the bag, on the ground that Palmer impermissibly searched the bag without a warrant, in violation of Article I, section 9, and the Fourth Amendment. The trial court denied the motion. It concluded that defendant had abandoned the bag by setting it down on the compressor, leaving it on the compressor when he went back to his truck with Palmer, and then “disavowing] the bag” when Palmer asked him about it. The court concluded further that defendant’s abandonment of the bag meant that Palmer’s search of the bag did not violate defendant’s rights under Article I, section 9, or the Fourth Amendment. The court subsequently convicted defendant of delivery of methamphetamine, possession of methamphetamine, and offensive littering.

In this case, the state does not dispute that defendant had constitutionally protected possessory and privacy interests in the McDonald’s bag at the time that Palmer first confronted him. As a result, whether Palmer’s warrantless inspection of the McDonald’s bag was lawful turns on whether defendant had abandoned his constitutionally protected possessory and privacy interests in the bag at the time that Palmer opened it and inspected its contents.3 Or, more precisely, the question is whether the state proved sufficient facts to permit the legal conclusion that defendant had abandoned [352]*352his constitutionally protected interests in the bag by the time Palmer viewed the bag’s contents. State v. Tucker, 330 Or 85, 88-89, 997 P2d 182 (2000); State v. McKee, 272 Or App 372, 378, 356 P3d 651 (2015) (“The state, as the proponent of the evidence that resulted from the deputy’s warrantless entry onto private property, bore the burden of proving that defendant lacked a protected privacy interest in the property.”). That is, do the facts proved by the state permit the conclusion that “defendant’s statements and conduct demonstrated that he relinquished all constitutionally protected interests” in the McDonald’s bag before the officers searched it? Cook, 332 Or at 608 (articulating standard); see also State v. Brown, 348 Or 293, 302, 232 P3d 962 (2010) (same).4

They do not. Defendant did not say anything to the officers suggesting that he intended to discard the bag before they looked inside of it.5 Defendant did not treat the bag as if it were trash by, say, wadding it up or dropping it on the ground or into a trash can. Contrast State v. Stafford,

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State v. Brown, 359 P.3d 413, 273 Or. App. 347, 2015 Ore. App. LEXIS 1005 (Or. Ct. App. 2015).

359 P.3d 413 (State v. Brown) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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