State v. Tyon

204 P.3d 106, 226 Or. App. 428, 2009 Ore. App. LEXIS 141
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedMarch 11, 2009
Docket05116699C; A134110
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 204 P.3d 106 (State v. Tyon) 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. Tyon, 204 P.3d 106, 226 Or. App. 428, 2009 Ore. App. LEXIS 141 (Or. Ct. App. 2009).

Opinion

*430 ROSENBLUM, P. J.

Defendant appeals his convictions for driving under the influence of intoxicants (DUII), ORS 813.010, and refusal to take a breath test, ORS 813.095. Defendant assigns error to the trial court’s exclusion of evidence of the arresting officer’s alleged bias. Defendant also asserts that he was denied a reasonable opportunity to consult with counsel in private before deciding whether to submit to an Intoxilyzer (breath) test and, thus, that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence of his refusal. We conclude that the trial court did not err in denying defendant’s motion to suppress his refusal to submit to a breath test; however, we conclude that the court erred in excluding evidence of the arresting officer’s alleged bias. Accordingly, we reverse defendant’s conviction for DUII and affirm his conviction for refusal to take a breath test.

We take the following facts from the record of the suppression hearing and the trial, which includes a DVD created by the arresting officer, Trooper Morehead of the Oregon State Police, by means of a dashboard camera, a video camera at the Malheur County Jail, and a microphone worn on Morehead’s uniform.

In November 2005, Morehead stopped defendant after observing him speeding. Morehead approached the driver’s side window of defendant’s vehicle and informed him that he was being recorded. Morehead testified at trial that he smelled the odor of an alcoholic beverage coming from the vehicle, that defendant fumbled with his paperwork, and that he had slurred speech and bloodshot, watery eyes. Defendant denied having consumed any alcohol.

Despite defendant’s denial, Morehead believed that he had been driving under the influence of intoxicants and asked defendant if he would be willing to perform field sobriety tests. Defendant agreed, and Morehead administered the horizontal gaze nystagumus (HGN) test. Morehead testified at trial that defendant displayed all six signs of being under the influence that the HGN tests for. Morehead arrested defendant for DUII, and defendant immediately requested to speak with his attorney, Rader.

*431 Rader had represented defendant in a different DUII proceeding a few years earlier that resulted in an acquittal. Apparently, Rader had given defendant his home phone number and had told him to call if he had any problems in the future. Morehead had served as the back-up security officer to the officer who had arrested defendant in that case. Morehead had had only minimal contact with defendant at that time, but, when questioned later, Morehead testified that he believed that defendant had been under the influence of intoxicants when he was arrested in that case.

At 12:22 a.m., defendant and Morehead arrived at the Malheur County Jail, where Morehead placed defendant in a holding cell with a telephone and a phone book. Morehead then told defendant that he could call his attorney. Morehead recorded the events at the jail by setting up a video camera that faced the room adjacent to defendant’s holding cell and continuing to wear the microphone on his uniform. Morehead turned off or muted the microphone for approximately 15 minutes of the 45-minute period that he gave defendant to attempt to contact an attorney. Morehead testified at trial that defendant was profane, belligerent, and loud at the jail.

Morehead and the jail staff, Deputy Harnden and Sergeant Gates, left defendant alone in the holding cell for almost all of the approximately 45 minutes that Morehead gave defendant to attempt to contact an attorney. Morehead told Harnden and Gates that he intended to give defendant 20 minutes to call an attorney. At 12:56 a.m., Morehead stated that he would give defendant an additional 10 minutes because the jail staff had, for a brief period, entered the holding cell and taken the jail phone to make sure that it was working and to help defendant make his phone calls. Morehead told another individual (not defendant or the jail staff) that he wanted to give defendant another 10 minutes to ensure that he had at least 20 minutes alone with the phone and phone book.

The phone provided by the jail staff was capable of making only collect calls. Defendant used the phone to call Rader’s office, but he reached the after-hours recording. Defendant told Morehead and the jail staff that he wanted to *432 call Rader’s home phone but that the phone number was in his girlfriend’s purse. Defendant tried to call his girlfriend’s cell phone but was unable to reach her. 1 At one point, defendant told the jail staff that he was unable to find Rader’s home phone number in the phone book because he could not read the small print without his reading glasses. Harnden responded by offering to help defendant and entered the holding cell to do so, but Rader’s home phone number was not listed. Hamden reminded defendant that he could call a different attorney, but defendant told him that he wanted to speak with Rader and that he did not want another attorney.

Defendant asserts on appeal that he told Morehead and the jail staff that the jail phone was unable to call cell phones. However, defendant’s complaints were not — at least initially — sufficient to convey to the jail staff that he believed that his difficulties reaching his girlfriend and his attorney were related to the fact that the jail phone could only make collect calls. At 12:37 a.m., he told them that he was not able to call his girlfriend because she was “on a cell phone only.” At 12:48 a.m., defendant stated, “I don’t have [Rader’s] phone number on me and I can’t call his cell phone.” At 12:49 a.m., defendant stated that he could not call his girlfriend because she was “on a cell phone and that’s the only phone I got.” At 1:06 a.m., defendant again told the jail staff that he wanted to contact his girlfriend to get his attorney’s home phone number but that “it’s a cell phone number and that’s the only way I can get it.”

In response, at 1:06 a.m., Gates offered to call defendant’s girlfriend on a different phone. By that point, defendant had been in the holding cell with a phone and phone book for approximately 45 minutes. When Gates finally reached defendant’s girlfriend on her cell phone, defendant acknowledged that the phone number was not in his girlfriend’s purse but was instead “somewhere in the house.” At that point, at approximately 1:08 a.m., Morehead called, *433 “Time.” Gates told defendant’s girlfriend, “Never mind,” and hung up the phone.

During the approximately 45-minute period, Morehead and the jail staff remained near the holding cell, in an adjacent room and another room connected to the adjacent room. The door between the holding cell and the adjacent room was closed, but there was an open cuff port (slot) in the door. The DVD recording reveals that, throughout the entire period, defendant, Morehead, and the jail staff were able to hear one another other through the door slot. Defendant shouted at times and spoke in a normal voice at times. Morehead and the jail staff murmured and whispered to each other.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
204 P.3d 106, 226 Or. App. 428, 2009 Ore. App. LEXIS 141, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-tyon-orctapp-2009.