State v. Higley

237 P.3d 875, 236 Or. App. 570, 2010 Ore. App. LEXIS 929
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedAugust 11, 2010
Docket061079; A138449
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 237 P.3d 875 (State v. Higley) 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. Higley, 237 P.3d 875, 236 Or. App. 570, 2010 Ore. App. LEXIS 929 (Or. Ct. App. 2010).

Opinion

*572 SCHUMAN, J.

A Columbia County deputy sheriff stopped defendant for driving a pickup truck “so as to cause any greater noise or sound than is reasonably necessary for the proper operation of the vehicle.” ORS 815.025(1). During the stop, the deputy developed probable cause to believe that defendant was guilty of driving under the influence of intoxicants (DUII) and driving while his license was revoked. At trial, defendant moved to suppress the evidence discovered during and after the stop, arguing that the stop was unlawful because the statute purportedly authorizing it, ORS 815.025, was unconstitutionally vague. He also argued that, by asking him to take a breath test after he had invoked his right to counsel, the officer violated Article I, section 12, of the Oregon Constitution and the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The trial court denied defendant’s motion, and he was convicted of DUII after entering a conditional guilty plea and reserving his right to appeal. We affirm.

The relevant facts are few and undisputed. Columbia County Deputy Ritchie stopped his patrol car at a four-way stop sign shortly after midnight. Defendant drove by the deputy and proceeded through the intersection. The deputy believed that defendant’s truck made “excessive noise,” as if the truck lacked a muffler or the muffler was disconnected, and decided to pull defendant over for the excessive noise violation.

After the deputy activated his overhead lights, defendant drove a few hundred feet before pulling over. Defendant briefly attempted to walk away from his truck, but the deputy succeeded in detaining him. When he did so, he noticed that defendant’s eyes were watery and bloodshot, his speech was slurred, and he smelled of alcohol. The deputy asked for identification; defendant responded that he did not have a driver’s license but that he had an identification card in his wallet. A records check disclosed that defendant was on probation, with an alcohol restriction, and that his license was “felony revoked.” The deputy cited defendant for DUII and driving while revoked.

*573 After defendant was cited, Mirandized, and taken to the local jail, the deputy asked defendant to complete a field sobriety test. Defendant asked to consult an attorney first. The deputy noted this as a refusal and then asked defendant to submit to a breath test. Again, defendant requested to speak to an attorney. The deputy gave defendant 20 minutes to do so. When defendant could not reach one, he told the deputy to record a refusal. The deputy then contacted defendant’s probation officer, who also asked defendant to take a breath test; defendant again refused to do so without a lawyer. As noted above, defendant at trial sought suppression of “all observations of the accused, statements, admissions and/ or confessions * * * and the fruits thereof’ on the grounds that the stop resulted from enforcement of an unconstitutional statute and that the refusals to take field sobriety and breath tests resulted from violation of his right to counsel. Defendant renews those arguments on appeal.

Defendant’s “right to counsel” argument under the United States and Oregon constitutions depends on the proposition that asking a person to take field sobriety or breath tests is “interrogation.” That argument has been unequivocally rejected, South Dakota v. Neville, 459 US 553, 564 n 15, 103 S Ct 916, 74 L Ed 2d 748 (1983); State v. Gardner, 236 Or App 150, 155, 236 P3d 742 (2010); State v. Cunningham, 179 Or App 498, 502, 40 P3d 535, rev den, 334 Or 327 (2002), and we reject it again with no further discussion.

Defendant’s “void for vagueness” argument focuses on the phrase “greater noise * * * than is reasonably necessary for the proper operation of the vehicle.” ORS 815.025(1). Under the Oregon Constitution,

“[t]he terms of a criminal statute must be sufficiently explicit to inform those who are subject to it of what conduct on their part will render them liable to its penalties. In addition to its function of giving fair notice of the forbidden conduct, criminal statute must not be so vague as to permit a judge or jury to exercise uncontrolled discretion in punishing defendants, because this offends the principle against ex post facto laws embodied in Article I, section 21, of the Oregon Constitution. The equal privileges and immunities clause is also implicated when vague laws give unbridled discretion to judges and jurors to decide what is *574 prohibited in a given case, for this results in the unequal application of criminal laws. A criminal statute need not define an offense with such precision that a person in every case can determine in advance that a specific conduct will be within the statute’s reach. However, a reasonable degree of certainty is required by Article I, sections 20 and 21.”

State v. Graves, 299 Or 189, 195, 700 P2d 244 (1985) (citations and footnote omitted). Under the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution, a statute is unconstitutionally vague “if it either contains no identifiable standard, Kolender v. Lawson, 461 US 352, 358, 103 S Ct 1855, 75 L Ed 2d 903 (1983), or employs a standard that relies on the shifting and subjective judgments of the persons who are charged with enforcing it, City of Chicago v. Morales, 527 US 41, 62, 119 S Ct 1849, 144 L Ed 2d 67 (1999).” State v. Illig-Renn, 341 Or 228, 240, 142 P3d 62 (2006).

The state contends that this case cannot meaningfully be distinguished from State v. Marker, 21 Or App 671, 536 P2d 1273 (1975). In that case, this court confronted a vagueness challenge to the phrase “unreasonable noise” in ORS 166.025(l)(b), a “disorderly conduct” statute. After surveying case law from other jurisdictions and noting our obligation to uphold statutes if possible, Marker, 21 Or App at 673, we concluded

“that the action element of ORS 166.025(l)(b) [including the term ‘unreasonable noise’] is described with words of common usage with a well defined, well understood and generally accepted meaning, and, as written, enables [persons] of common intelligence to understand what conduct is prohibited. We are satisfied that the language of ORS 166.025(l)(b) is not vague, and that it contains the requisite specificity for a penal statute.”

Id. at 677. Defendant argues that Marker is distinguishable because the disorderly conduct statute in that case contained a mens rea

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
237 P.3d 875, 236 Or. App. 570, 2010 Ore. App. LEXIS 929, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-higley-orctapp-2010.