State v. Lowry

588 P.2d 623, 37 Or. App. 641, 1978 Ore. App. LEXIS 2282
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedDecember 18, 1978
Docket78-2-298, CA 11152
StatusPublished
Cited by22 cases

This text of 588 P.2d 623 (State v. Lowry) 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. Lowry, 588 P.2d 623, 37 Or. App. 641, 1978 Ore. App. LEXIS 2282 (Or. Ct. App. 1978).

Opinion

*643 JOSEPH, J.

Defendant was charged with robbery in the first degree. ORS 164.415. Prior to trial he became aware of statements given to the police by Leo Danby Reed, a one-time cellmate of defendant in the Clackamas County Jail. In his statements Reed related numerous admissions made to him by the defendant. Defendant moved for an order "suppressing as evidence the confession/admission allegedly made to Leo Danby Reed, an agent of the State.” After a lengthy hearing, the trial court granted the motion to suppress. The state moved for reconsideration or, in the alternative, for more complete findings of fact and conclusions of law. Those motions were denied. The state appeals.

The evidence was conflicting and puzzling in several key respects. The trial court made written findings of fact, set forth below. Insofar as those findings concern "historical facts” and are supported by evidence, we are bound by them. Where there is conflicting evidence on an issue of historical fact, but no finding, we must resolve the conflict for the purpose of review in the manner which supports the court’s order. Ball v. Gladden, 250 Or 485, 443 P2d 621 (1968); see also State v. Warner, 284 Or 147, 585 P2d 681 (1978).

Leo Danby Reed is a dedicated and accomplished "stool pigeon.” He has survived for years by (and in spite of) providing information to various police and penal authorities. The breadth of his activities as an informant is remarkable. In at least three felony cases which have reached this court in the last eight years he has been an informant. In two of those cases we upheld murder convictions based largely on confessions made to him. State v. Brown, 33 Or App 286, 576 P2d 387 (1978); State v. Williams, 2 Or App 367, 468 P2d 909 (1970). 1 During the period from December, *644 1977, to March, 1978, Reed provided information in at least four homicide cases.

In return for his information Reed has received a variety of rewards. He has been given cash and cigarettes; authorities have refrained from charging him with crimes he has committed; charges pending against him have been dismissed; sentencing concessions have been recommended and apparently granted; various benefits have been conferred and penalties withheld by penal officials. There is no evidence that Reed has ever been paid a salary by any police agency; instead he has either approached the police with information in the hope of being compensated or offered to inform on others when he found himself in trouble.

In February, 1978, Reed was in the Rocky Butte Jail in Multnomah County awaiting sentencing on a federal bank robbery conviction. On February 13, he sent a message through a jailer to Detective Forristall of the Clackamas County Sheriffs Department, saying he wanted to talk to Forristall about a homicide. Reed had previously given Forristall information in another homicide case; and, according to Forristall, he and Reed had a "very close friendship.” Forristall called Reed, who told him that another Rocky Butte inmate had admitted committing an unsolved murder of a teenage girl nearly two years before. Reed said he wanted to discuss the matter with Forristall.

On February 14, Forristall and his partner went to Rocky Butte and met with Reed. He gave the detectives further information about the homicide and asked to be transferred to the Clackamas County Jail because the purported murderer, referred to throughout the hearing as "Mr. X,” had been sent there. Forristall replied that he would see what could be *645 done. He conveyed Reed’s request to a Portland Police Bureau detective with whom he and Reed had previously cooperated, but he did nothing further to arrange a transfer.

On February 27, Reed was given a 15-year sentence on the federal charge. That afternoon he was transferred by federal marshals to the Clackamas County Jail. The evidence does not disclose the arrangements behind that transfer, but everyone involved assumed that it must have been related to Reed’s request to be put next to Mr. X.

In the Clackamas County Jail Reed was placed in a large dormitory with Mr. X. The evening of his first day there he called Forristall, told him where he was and asked to see him. Forristall went to the jail. Reed complained that he was not able to talk to Mr. X about the homicide because of a lack of privacy in the dormitory. He asked that he and Mr. X be transferred to a smaller "felony cell.” Forristall arranged that transfer late on February 27.

Defendant was indicted for robbery on February 23, 1978. He was arrested February 26 and placed in the Clackamas County Jail. On February 27 he was arraigned and requested counsel. The arraignment was continued to the morning of February 28, when counsel was appointed.

Defendant was one of the men in the felony cell when Reed and Mr. X were placed there on February 27. The precise time and content of the initial conversation between Reed and defendant concerning the charges against defendant is not clear. Reed did testify, however, that he talked with defendant several times about his involvement in the robbery and that each time he got a little more information. Reed explained why he talked to the defendant:

"Oh, usually when you go into jails like that, you find the majority of people in there, they try to impress you. If you have been to the penitentiary, you know, they tell *646 you about their crime and I felt like talking to Mr. Lowry or whoever else I might have been talking to in there. Couldn’t hurt me any. It could only better the position I was in, which it didn’t end up that way but that was why I started talking to him * *
"Well, it was on a friendly basis but when we first started talking, I had in my mind all the time to find out all I could find out about the crime.”

On February 28, Reed again called Forristall and said he wanted to meet. They met in the jail at 9:30 p.m. that day. According to Forristall, Reed told him that defendant had admitted he had been the "wheel man” in the robbery for which he was charged and that his partner "Pat,” who had wielded the shotgun, was also in the Clackamas County Jail. Reed testified that he told Forristall during their February 28 meeting that he had had conversations with the defendant. His testimony did not, however, touch on the extent of his disclosures to Forristall at that time.

During the February 28 meeting, Reed and Forristall also discussed Mr. X, who had by then been transferred to a state mental hospital. It was with Mr. X and the homicide that Forristall was primarily officially concerned. After Reed related on his own initiative the information concerning defendant and the armed robbery, Forristall warned him that he "could not act as an agent” for Forristall and that the detective "didn’t want him to go in there and start asking a whole bunch of questions of anybody from then on.”

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
588 P.2d 623, 37 Or. App. 641, 1978 Ore. App. LEXIS 2282, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-lowry-orctapp-1978.