State v. Phillips

459 P.3d 909, 302 Or. App. 618
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedMarch 4, 2020
DocketA164790
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 459 P.3d 909 (State v. Phillips) 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. Phillips, 459 P.3d 909, 302 Or. App. 618 (Or. Ct. App. 2020).

Opinion

Submitted January 15, 2019, affirmed March 4, petition for review denied June 4, 2020 (366 Or 552)

STATE OF OREGON, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. JACQUELINE MARIE PHILLIPS, Defendant-Appellant. Clackamas County Circuit Court 16CR38468; A164790 459 P3d 909

Defendant appeals a judgment of conviction for both unlawful delivery and unlawful possession of methamphetamine, assigning error to the trial court’s denial of her motion to suppress evidence obtained during a search of her res- idence. The search occurred after police officers engaged defendant in conver- sation, during which defendant invited the officers to search her residence. The officers did not provide defendant with Miranda warnings before the search. On appeal, defendant argues that the circumstances became compelling over the course of the conversation such that the searching officers should have given her Miranda warnings and, because they did not, evidence found during the search should have been suppressed. Held: Defendant was not in compelling circum- stances during the conversation that preceded the officers’ discovery of the evi- dence that defendant sought to suppress. Accordingly, the trial court did not err when it denied defendant’s suppression motion. Affirmed.

Katherine E. Weber, Judge. Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate Section, and John P. Evans, Deputy Public Defender, Office of Public Defense Services, filed the brief for appellant. Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General, and Christopher A. Perdue, Assistant Attorney General, filed the brief for respondent. Before DeHoog, Presiding Judge, and Aoyagi, Judge, and Hadlock, Judge pro tempore. HADLOCK, J. pro tempore. Affirmed. Cite as 302 Or App 618 (2020) 619

HADLOCK, J. pro tempore Defendant appeals a judgment of conviction for one count of unlawful delivery of methamphetamine and one count of unlawful possession of methamphetamine, chal- lenging the trial court’s denial of her motion to suppress. For the reasons set out below, we conclude that the trial court correctly denied defendant’s motion. Accordingly, we affirm. We set out the facts consistently with the explicit and implicit findings that the trial court made in the course of denying defendant’s suppression motion, which the record supports. See State v. Dodge, 297 Or App 30, 33, 441 P3d 599, rev den, 365 Or 533 (2019) (“In reviewing the trial court’s denial of defendant’s suppression motion, we are bound by the trial court’s findings of historical fact so long as evidence in the record supports them.”). Police officers found methamphetamine at defen- dant’s residence, a unit in a manufactured-home park, after they visited her while searching for a stolen firearm. Officers were following up on information that another person, DK, had possession of that stolen gun; they also believed that DK, along with his father, RK, were inside another unit in the same manufactured-home park. RK had commented to multiple people that he “was thinking about committing ‘suicide by cop.’ ” Officer Scharmota and several others arrived at the park and attempted repeatedly to contact DK and RK at the residence where police thought they were located, initially without success. The activity drew attention from other peo- ple at the park; officers tried to direct people away from the area and to stay in their homes. Officers also learned that other people inside the residence were acquainted with defen- dant, who lived 50 to 100 yards away. A detective (Meade) went to defendant’s residence to see if she had any informa- tion about RK’s location. Defendant also learned about the police activity from a neighbor who had called to tell her about it. In the meantime, and after about 50 minutes of attempted communication, RK said he would come outside. He and DK were taken into custody without incident. 620 State v. Phillips

Most officers then left the scene, but some, including Scharmota, remained. RK told the officers that he had given the stolen gun to another tenant in the park—defendant— in exchange for methamphetamine. After talking with RK for about 20 minutes, Scharmota walked to defendant’s unit and saw her and Meade standing on the porch outside of her door, talking. Defendant “was very relaxed” and polite; she and Meade were engaged in “non-confrontational,” calm conversation. It was about 4:30 p.m. when Scharmota got to defendant’s unit.

Scharmota told defendant that he had information that RK “had brought the gun to her” and traded it for drugs; he explained that police “were still looking into try- ing to figure out where this gun was.” Defendant denied having any drugs or a gun in her home and invited the officers to come in and search. Scharmota said something like, “we might get to that point,” but he did not tell defen- dant that she could be arrested or charged with a crime. After about 10 to 15 minutes of conversation on the porch, defendant “asked if we could go inside so she could sit down,” inviting Scharmota into the residence. Scharmota described the conversation as “killing time until somebody else could come down there and assist [him] with searching the res- idence.” He and defendant engaged in nonconfrontational, “very mild” and “comfortable” conversation, but Scharmota “did ask her a little bit more about the presence of guns and drugs in the house,” and Scharmota “would imagine” that, in a nonconfrontational way, he had asked defendant to be honest with him or said “that we would appreciate her coop- eration and her being honest.” However, Scharmota did not threaten to arrest defendant; nor did he promise her any leniency. Defendant invited Scharmota to search the resi- dence “several times.” Scharmota did not search the resi- dence at that point because he was alone and without cover (at some point, Meade had left).

After Scharmota had been alone with defendant for about 15 or 20 minutes, two officers (Murphy and Green) arrived. Defendant again invited a search of her home. Murphy testified at the suppression hearing that defen- dant had “a very relaxed demeanor kind of dictated by her Cite as 302 Or App 618 (2020) 621

own willingness” to allow the officers to search; he testified that he did not pressure her by stating that “something else would happen” if she did not consent. Scharmota began to search, starting with the bedroom. Immediately upon enter- ing that room, he saw a baggie with a white substance that he believed to be methamphetamine. Scharmota brought the baggie into the living room and told Murphy what he had found. Murphy then asked defendant if there were any addi- tional drugs, and defendant said she needed to use the bath- room. Murphy asked if any methamphetamine was in that room, and defendant said, “Yes, under the sink.” Defendant’s demeanor had not changed at that point; nor had Murphy threatened her in any way. Murphy described defendant as “kind of nonchalant.” Scharmota testified that defendant “was giving off the demeanor that she was trying to help us and answer our questions and be cooperative with us.”

Scharmota looked under the bathroom sink and found a “methamphetamine bong” but no drugs; he then returned to the living room and asked for more information. Defendant said there was a makeup bag under the sink, giv- ing “pretty specific directions on where to find the drugs.” Scharmota “felt [defendant] was trying to be helpful and be honest with us”; he returned to the bathroom and found a digital scale, plastic baggies, and methamphetamine in the bag that defendant had described. Defendant said that the items had been left there by one of her friends, but she acknowledged that her fingerprints would be on them. Defendant went to use the bathroom after the officers had retrieved the methamphetamine from that room; while she was there, Murphy found additional methamphetamine in the living room.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
459 P.3d 909, 302 Or. App. 618, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-phillips-orctapp-2020.