State v. Tegland

344 P.3d 63, 269 Or. App. 1, 2013 Ore. App. LEXIS 1580
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedFebruary 11, 2015
Docket101134266; A148797
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 344 P.3d 63 (State v. Tegland) 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. Tegland, 344 P.3d 63, 269 Or. App. 1, 2013 Ore. App. LEXIS 1580 (Or. Ct. App. 2015).

Opinion

HASELTON, C. J.

Defendant appeals a judgment of conviction for one count of possession of methamphetamine, ORS 475.894, and one count of erecting a structure on a public right of way, in violation of Portland City Code (PCC) 14A.50.050. He assigns error to the trial court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence found after a police officer lifted a tarp to defendant’s makeshift shelter that partially blocked a public sidewalk. We conclude that the officer’s action did not effect an unlawful search in that defendant had no constitutionally protected privacy interest associated with the structure. Accordingly, we affirm.

We review the trial court’s ruling on the motion to suppress for legal error and are bound by the trial court’s findings of historical facts “if there is constitutionally sufficient evidence in the record to support those findings.” State v. Ehly, 317 Or 66, 75, 854 P2d 421 (1993). Where the trial court has made no express findings on disputed issues of fact, “we will presume that the facts were decided in a manner consistent with the court’s ultimate conclusion.” Id.

Defendant was homeless at the time of his arrest. Using the recessed alcove of an entrance to a private business building located in southeast Portland, defendant had built a shelter out of a grocery cart, a wooden pallet, and multiple tarps. The tarps covered the top of the shelter and the sides of the shelter and were attached to the building door, as well as to other parts of the alcove area. The shelter extended out onto the public sidewalk about two feet— roughly one-quarter of the width of the sidewalk.

On November 14, 2010, at about 9:00 a.m., Portland Police Officers Kofoed and Lowry were on patrol together and saw defendant’s structure blocking part of the public sidewalk. The officers had seen other makeshift structures in the same location before, built and inhabited by various people, and the officers had removed such structures in the past. They had seen defendant there a week earlier and, at that time, they told him that he needed to remove his structure.

[4]*4On the morning of defendant’s arrest, the officers approached the structure to “see if there was anyone there” and, “because it was blocking the sidewalk, *** we were thinking about removing it.” Because the tarps covered the structure’s sides, the officers could not see anything that was inside the structure, except for defendant’s feet and some bedding. Kofoed lifted one of the tarps to peer inside the structure, and Lowry saw defendant with a glass methamphetamine pipe and a lighter. The officers arrested defendant for violating the city’s code against erecting a structure on a public right of way, PCC 14A.50.0501 and, in the process of that arrest, the officers found further evidence that led to defendant’s arrest for possession of methamphetamine. Defendant was eventually charged with one count of each offense.

In a pretrial motion, defendant moved to suppress all evidence of Lowry’s observations after lifting the tarp to the structure and all evidence derived from those observations. Defendant argued that Kofoed’s action constituted an unreasonable search under both Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution and the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The trial court, although determining that the structure was defendant’s “residence,” denied the motion to suppress:

“[M]y legal conclusion is that lifting of the tarp flap did not constitute an unlawful search.
[5]*5“[PCC 14A.50.050] provides that such structures are declared a public nuisance and authorizes, among other people, the Chief of Police to summarily abate any such obstruction, which leads me to conclude on probably a couple of alternative grounds that [defendant] had no right to privacy in an illegal structure on the public right-of-way, whether he lived there and that would otherwise — or for other purposes — be considered his residence or not.
“*** I don’t think lifting a flap of an unauthorized structure such as this could be considered an unlawful search when the police have the authority summarily to simply remove it.
“Therefore, I conclude that Officer Lowry was in a place where he had a right to be, including with the tarp flap lifted by Officer Kofoed when Officer Lowry saw the glass pipe and the lighter in [defendant’s] hands, in plain view at this point.”

After waiving his right to a jury trial, defendant was convicted on both charges. He now appeals, assigning error to the denial of his motion to suppress.

The disposition of this appeal turns on whether, in lifting the tarp to the structure, revealing its interior, Kofoed invaded a constitutionally protected privacy interest, rendering that action an unlawful warrantless search. In disputing that matter, the parties reprise their contentions before the trial court: Defendant argues that the structure was his residence and, consequently, he necessarily had a protected privacy interest associated with that structure. The state counters that, because the structure was erected in violation of city code provisions2 that authorized police to “summarily abate” the illegal structure, defendant had no cognizable privacy interest under either the state or federal constitutions.

Adhering to the requisite “first things first” construct, State v. Kennedy, 295 Or 260, 262, 666 P2d 1316 (1983), we begin with defendant’s argument under Article I, [6]*6section 9, which provides, in part, “No law shall violate the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable search, or seizure [.]” “If the government conduct did not invade a privacy interest, then no search occurred; Article I, section 9, is not implicated, and the inquiry is concluded.” State v. Davis, 237 Or App 351, 355, 239 P3d 1002 (2010).

Defendant argues that the officer’s conduct of lifting up the tarp did invade his privacy interest. He posits that, because (as the trial court determined) the structure constituted his residence and he had erected physical barriers “to establish a zone of privacy,” any invasion of that space implicated the same privacy interests as those associated with more “traditional” residential structures, such as homes or apartments. See, e.g., State v. Tanner, 304 Or 312, 321, 745 P2d 757 (1987) (“Residence in a house is uniformly deemed to be a sufficient basis for concluding that the violation of the privacy of the house violated the residents’ privacy interests.”); State v. Louis, 296 Or 57, 60, 672 P2d 708 (1983) (“[L]iving quarters *** are the quintessential domain protected by the constitutional guarantee against warrantless searches.”).

There is undeniable appeal — and merit — to the proposition that constitutional protections of privacy cannot vary, categorically, depending on whether living space is “permanent” or “transient” and “makeshift.”3 Nevertheless, just as the “permanent” versus “makeshift” character of residential space cannot be categorically conclusive of the constitutional inquiry, neither can the “residential” character of the space.4 That is, although the fact that the referent space was someone’s residence is highly significant, it is not per se dispositive.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
344 P.3d 63, 269 Or. App. 1, 2013 Ore. App. LEXIS 1580, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-tegland-orctapp-2015.