State v. Harrop

439 P.3d 548, 296 Or. App. 541
Court of Appeals of Oregon·Decided March 20, 2019·No. A164452·Published·Cited by 2 cases

Opinion

ARMSTRONG, P. J.

*543The state appeals an order granting defendant's motion to suppress evidence. It contends that the trial court erred in concluding that the arresting police officer lacked probable cause to believe that defendant had impeded traffic in violation of ORS 811.130 when the officer stopped defendant. The court's conclusion on that point formed the basis of its decision to grant defendant's suppression motion. We conclude that the facts as the officer perceived them did give rise to a reasonable belief by the officer that defendant had violated ORS 811.130. Hence, we reverse and remand.

On review of an order on a suppression motion, we review the order for legal error "and are bound by the trial court's factual findings if there is constitutionally sufficient evidence in the record to support them." State v. Carson , 287 Or. App. 631, 634, 404 P.3d 1017 (2017).

Officer Bartholomew of the Hillsboro Police Department was driving with his supervisor as part of Bartholomew's field training. Bartholomew turned onto Golden Road in Hillsboro, which he described as a "two-way, regular residential road" with "[o]ne lane for each direction." The road has a curb along the edge of the westbound lane of travel, and cars regularly park on the curb side of the road. The road is wide enough that, even when cars are parked along the curb side of the road, there is enough remaining road to accommodate two lanes of travel. There is no curb along the eastbound lane of travel, and private yards extend up to the paved portion of the road. Some of the yards have small dirt patches where drivers can pull off the road to park.

As soon as he turned onto Golden Road into the eastbound lane of travel, Bartholomew saw a line of two or three cars stopped behind defendant's car in the eastbound lane. The cars behind defendant's car proceeded to drive around defendant's car by driving into the oncoming lane of travel to continue down the road. The cars waited behind defendant's car for less than a minute before proceeding around it.

*544After the other cars had gone around defendant's car, Bartholomew could see that defendant's car was stopped in Bartholomew's lane of travel with its brake lights engaged. At that point, Bartholomew believed that defendant was unlawfully impeding traffic, and Bartholomew initiated a traffic stop. Defendant responded by pulling into a driveway on the eastbound side of the road. During the course of the stop, defendant did not offer any explanation for having stopped his car in the road. Bartholomew observed signs of alcohol-induced impairment, which led him to conduct an investigation and, ultimately, to arrest defendant for driving under the influence of intoxicants.

Before trial, defendant moved to suppress all the evidence obtained from the stop on the ground that Bartholomew had lacked probable cause to believe that defendant had committed a traffic violation when Bartholomew stopped defendant. At the hearing on the motion, the trial court stated that it was a close call whether the facts gave rise to *550probable cause to believe that defendant had impeded traffic. However, because there was ample room for other cars to go around defendant, the court concluded that defendant had not impeded traffic and that Bartholomew therefore lacked probable cause to stop defendant. In sum, the court was not persuaded that defendant's act of stopping his car on the side of Golden Road that lacked a curb made it objectively reasonable to believe that defendant had impeded traffic in violation of ORS 811.130. The court therefore granted defendant's suppression motion.

On appeal, the state renews its argument that Bartholomew had probable cause to believe that defendant had impeded traffic when Bartholomew stopped defendant. "Probable cause exists if, at the time of the stop, the officer subjectively believes that [an] infraction [has] occurred and if that belief is objectively reasonable under the circumstances." State v. Isley , 182 Or. App. 186, 190, 48 P.3d 179 (2002). Neither party contends that Bartholomew lacked a subjective belief that defendant had committed a traffic infraction; the sole issue is whether Bartholomew's belief was objectively reasonable.

*545For an officer's belief to be objectively reasonable "the facts, as the officer perceives them , must actually constitute an infraction." State v. Tiffin , 202 Or. App. 199, 203, 121 P.3d 9 (2005) (emphasis added). The officer's belief is objectively reasonable even if it turns out that the officer was mistaken about the facts forming the basis for the stop and that no infraction had occurred. Id.

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State v. Harrop, 439 P.3d 548, 296 Or. App. 541 (Or. Ct. App. 2019).

439 P.3d 548 (State v. Harrop) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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