Case Title: State v. Carter

Citation: 

Docket Number: S53014

State: oregon

Court: Oregon Supreme Court

Date: 2006-11-24T00:00:00Z

Document:
FILED: November 24, 2006
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON
STATE OF OREGON,
Respondent on Review,
v.
DANIEL EDWARD CARTER,
Petitioner on Review.
(CC 020195 CR; CA A122768; SC S53014)
On review from the Court of Appeals.*
Argued and submitted September 11, 2006.
David T. McDonald, Portland, argued the cause and filed the
brief for petitioner on review. 
Jonathan H. Fussner, Assistant Attorney General, Salem,
argued the cause and filed the brief for respondent on review. 
With him on the brief were Hardy Myers, Attorney General, and
Mary H. Williams, Solicitor General.
Before De Muniz, Chief Justice, and Carson, Gillette,
Durham, Balmer, and Kistler, Justices.**
KISTLER, J.
The decision of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.  The order
of the circuit court is reversed, and the case is remanded to the
circuit court for further proceedings.
*Appeal from Hood River County Circuit Court, Donald W. Hull, Judge. 200 Or App 262, 113 P3d 969 (2005).
**Riggs, J., retired September 30, 2006, and did not
participate in the consideration or decision of this case. 
Walters, J., did not participate in the consideration or decision
of this case.
KISTLER, J.
The question that this case presents is whether a
warrant that authorized the police to search for specific items
but did not authorize them to seize those items is facially valid
under Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution.  The
trial court held that it was not.  The Court of Appeals reversed,
holding that, under Article I, section 9, a warrant may authorize
only a search or only a seizure; it need not authorize both to be
valid.  State v. Carter, 200 Or App 262, 113 P3d 969 (2005).  We
allowed defendant's petition for review and now affirm the Court
of Appeals decision.
The search warrant in this case authorized the police
to search defendant's house for marijuana, materials used in
manufacturing marijuana, and evidence (such as record books and
ledgers) related to manufacturing and distributing marijuana.  In
executing the warrant, the police seized a number of items.  The
warrant did not authorize the police to seize those items,
however.  Defendant moved to suppress that evidence, claiming
that the warrant was facially invalid because it did not
authorize both a search and a seizure. (1)  The trial court
granted defendant's motion, and the state filed a pretrial
appeal.
The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded, reasoning
that Article I, section 9, permits a warrant that authorizes only
a search.  Carter, 200 Or App at 267-68.  The court also reasoned
that, because the warrant authorized only a search, it provided
no basis for the officers to seize any evidence that they saw
while executing the warrant.  Id.  Rather, the officers could
seize the evidence only if an exception to the warrant
requirement applied.  On that point, the court agreed with the
state that the plain view doctrine potentially applied.  Because
the application of that doctrine turned on evidentiary issues
that the trial court had not resolved, the Court of Appeals
reversed the trial court's pretrial order suppressing the
evidence and remanded for further proceedings.  Id.  We allowed
review to consider whether, under Article I, section 9, a warrant
is facially valid if it authorizes only a search.
Article I, section 9, provides:
"No law shall violate the right of the people to be
secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,
against unreasonable search, or seizure; and no warrant
shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath,
or affirmation, and particularly describing the place
to be searched, and the person or thing to be seized."
Focusing on the participial phrase, "particularly describing the
place to be searched, and the person or thing to be seized,"
defendant argues that a warrant must authorize both a search and
a seizure.  That conclusion follows, he contends, from the
requirement that "no warrant shall issue" unless it particularly
describes the "place to be searched, and * * * the thing to be
seized." (2)  (Emphasis added.)
In analyzing defendant's argument, we consider the
"specific wording [of Article I, section 9], the case law
surrounding it, and the historical circumstances that led to its
creation."  See Priest v. Pearce, 314 Or 411, 415-16, 840 P2d 65
(1992) (stating methodology for interpreting original
constitutional provisions).  The text of Article I, section 9,
does not say that, in order to be facially valid, a warrant must
authorize both a search and a seizure, as defendant argues. 
Rather, the phrase on which defendant relies -- "particularly
describing the place to be searched, and the person or thing to
be seized" -- serves as a limitation on the authority to engage
in either a search or a seizure.
To be sure, the phrase uses the word "and" in listing
the items (places, persons, and things) that warrants must
describe with particularity.  But the function of that phrase is
to identify the various objects to which the warrant requirement
might apply and to make clear that those objects, if applicable,
should be described with particularity.  Identifying the various
objects to which a warrant might apply is not the same thing as
prescribing the necessary contents of each warrant.
The same conclusion follows from the remainder of
Article I, section 9.  Article I, section 9, applies to both
search and arrest warrants.  This court has long recognized that
an arrest warrant will be valid if it authorizes only the seizure
of a person; it need not also authorize a search.  See, e.g.,
State v. Jones, 332 Or 284, 289, 27 P3d 119 (2001) (reaffirming
that warrant may authorize arrest but not search); State v.
Davis, 313 Or 246, 255, 834 P2d 1008 (1992) (same).  However, if
defendant's construction of Article I, section 9, were correct,
"no warrant" could issue, regardless of whether it was an arrest
or a search warrant, unless the warrant authorized both a search
and a seizure.  (Emphasis added.)  Defendant's interpretation of
Article I, section 9, is squarely at odds with this court's
decisions recognizing that an arrest warrant may authorize only a
seizure.
Defendant's interpretation is also difficult to
reconcile with this court's decisions recognizing that the police
can engage in acts that involve only a search.  For instance, an
officer would engage in a search but no seizure if he or she used
a parabolic listening device to overhear an otherwise private
conversation.  See State v. Smith, 327 Or 366, 374, 963 P2d 642
(1998) (recognizing that such an action would invade protected
privacy interests); State v. Owens, 302 Or 196, 207, 729 P2d 524
(1986) (explaining that "[a] 'seizure' occurs when there is a
significant interference with a person's possessory or ownership
interests in property").  Engaging in such a search would be
constitutionally permissible only if the officer either first
obtained a warrant or an exception to the warrant requirement
applied.  See Owens, 302 Or at 206 (recognizing terms on which
officers may invade constitutionally protected privacy
interests).  Contrary to defendant's interpretation of Article I,
section 9, those decisions rest on the premise that a court may
issue a warrant to engage in only a search.
Finally, we look to the history of Article I,
section 9.  As this court has explained,
"the historical motivation for this constitutional
mandate was a fear of general warrants, giving the
bearer an unlimited authority to search and seize. 
More specifically, the aim of the requirement of
particularity is to protect the citizen's interest in
freedom from governmental intrusion through the
invasion of his privacy.  If the search warrant
describes the premises in such a way that it makes
possible the invasion of this interest in privacy
without the foundation of probable cause for the
search, the warrant is too broad and therefore
constitutionally defective.
"In testing a warrant for definiteness it is
enough if the description is such that the officer with
a search warrant can with reasonable effort ascertain
the identity of the place intended.  The description
must be sufficiently clear so that the property to be
searched is recognizable from other neighboring
properties.  If, however, a warrant purporting to
authorize a search is sufficiently ambiguous that it is
impossible to identify with a reasonable degree of
certainty the particular premises authorized to be
searched, the warrant may not be executed and any
search pursuant to it is illegal, whether of the
premises actually intended or not, because of the
danger that the privacy of unauthorized premises will
be invaded."
State v. Reid, 319 Or 65, 69-70, 872 P2d 416 (1994) (quoting
State v. Ingram, 313 Or 139, 144, 831 P2d 674 (1992)) (internal
quotation marks omitted; emphasis deleted); see also State v.
Bridewell, 306 Or 231, 241-47, 759 P2d 1054 (1988) (Peterson,
C.J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (describing
historical events that gave rise to Article I, section 9). (3)
The history confirms what the text of Article I,
section 9, and this court's cases construing it demonstrate.  The
purpose of the particularity requirement was to prevent the use
of general warrants -- to ensure that a warrant described with
particularity the person to be seized, the place to be searched,
or the thing to be seized.  Nothing in that history suggests that
the framers intended to require that every warrant authorize both
a search and a seizure, as defendant argues.  Considering the
text of Article I, section 9, this court's cases construing that
provision, and its history, we conclude that a warrant that
authorizes only a search or only a seizure is facially valid
under Article I, section 9.
Defendant raises a second argument.  He contends that,
unless a warrant authorizes a seizure as well as a search, it
will be an impermissible general warrant.  The question, however,
whether a warrant authorizes both a search and a seizure has
nothing to do with the question whether it is a general warrant. 
A warrant that authorized both a search and a seizure could do so
in the most general terms and thus could run afoul of the
particularity requirement.  See Reid, 319 Or at 69-70 (describing
vice of general warrants); Joseph Story, 3 Commentaries on the
Constitution of the United States 748-50 (1833) (same). 
Conversely, a warrant that authorized only a search or only a
seizure may be sufficiently particular -- a proposition that the
warrant in this case illustrates.  The warrant in this case
authorized the officers to search only for specific types of
evidence in defendant's home.  It thus limited the areas in which
they could search and avoided the vice inherent in general
warrants.
The Court of Appeals correctly held that the warrant at
issue here was facially valid.  Given the state's concession that
the warrant does not authorize a seizure as well as a search, the
Court of Appeals permissibly remanded the case to the trial court
to determine whether the officers could seize the evidence (that
they did seize) under the plain view doctrine.  In the context of
this case, that doctrine permitted the officers to seize evidence
without a warrant if, in the course of executing this search
warrant and while they were in a place where they had a right to
be, they had probable cause to believe that evidence that they
saw was either contraband or evidence of a crime.  See State v.
Sargent, 323 Or 455, 463 n 5, 918 P2d 819 (1996) (evidence of a
crime in plain view); State v. Lippert, 317 Or 397, 403, 856 P2d
634 (1993) (contraband in plain view).
The decision of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.  The
order of the circuit court is reversed, and the case is remanded
to the circuit court for further proceedings.
1. Defendant has not argued that the warrant is invalid in any other respect.
2. In his brief on the merits, defendant observes that "ORS 133.565(2) codifies the
particularity requirements of Article I, § 9."  Not only does he make no separate argument under
that statute in his brief, but this court has recognized that a violation of such a statute would not
provide a basis for suppression.  See State v. Henderson, 341 Or 219, 223 n 3, 142 P3d 58 (2006)
(explaining that, under ORS 136.432, unless statutory violation has constitutional dimensions,
violation of ORS 133.575 did not warrant suppression).
3. Judge Deady, who participated in drafting the Oregon Constitution, later
explained that
"[Article I, section 9] is copied from the fourth amendment to the
constitution of the United States, and was placed there on account
of a well-known controversy concerning the legality of general
warrants in England, shortly before the revolution, not so much to
introduce new principles as to guard private rights already
recognized by the common law."
Sprigg v. Stump, 8 F 207, 213 (CCD Or 1881).