Title: State v. Vasquez-Villagomez

State: oregon

Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court

Document:

FILED: February 26, 2009
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON
STATE OF OREGON,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
GERARDO VASQUEZ-VILLAGOMEZ,
aka Gerardo Vasquezvillagomez,
aka Gerardo Vasquez-Villagome,
aka El Negro,
true name Gerard Vazquez Villagomez,
Defendant-Respondent.
(CC 060733947; SC S055774 (Control))
STATE OF OREGON,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
JOSE LUIS ZAMORA-CAMACHO,
aka Jose Cuis Zamoracamacho,
Defendant-Respondent.
(CC 060733949; SC S055775)
En Banc
On appeal from an
order of the Multnomah County Circuit Court under ORS 138.060(2)(a).
Michael J. McShane, Judge.
Argued and submitted January 14,
2009.
Sally L. Avera, Senior Assistant
Attorney General, argued the cause for plaintiff-appellant.  With her on the
brief were Hardy Myers, Attorney General, and Mary H. Williams, Solicitor
General, Salem.
Bert Dupre, Portland, argued the
cause for defendant-respondent Gerardo Vazquez-Villagomez.  
James F. Halley, Portland, argued
the cause for defendant respondent Jose Luis Zamora-Camacho.  With him on the
brief was Laurie Bender, Portland.
DE MUNIZ, C. J.
The order of the
circuit court is reversed, and the case is remanded to the circuit court for
further proceedings.
DE MUNIZ, C. J.
In this aggravated
murder case, the trial court concluded
that the police did not have probable cause to arrest defendants without a
warrant and granted defendants' motion to suppress
certain evidence obtained after their arrest(1)
 For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the police had probable
cause to arrest defendants and therefore reverse the trial court and remand for
further proceedings.
We take the facts from
the record and the trial court's findings of fact.  Defendants were arrested
during the investigation of two east Multnomah County murders.  The first
murder victim, Rodolfo Romero-Lopez, Jr. (Romero), was shot and killed outside
an apartment on Stark Street, near the Portland-Gresham boundary, late at night
on May 31, 2006.  The apartment's occupant told police that, just before the
shooting, Romero and a female companion, Nicole Weber, had knocked on his door
and asked to use his phone.  He said that he had seen a Latino(2) man standing behind
Romero who looked about 22 years old, was six to eight inches taller than the
victim, had a thin or lean build, and weighed between 150 and 160 pounds, with
slightly dark skin and a shaved head.  The apartment occupant handed Romero a
phone and closed the door.  He then heard what he thought were gunshots, went
outside, and saw that Romero had been shot and was lying by the door.
Weber told the
police that she and Romero had been sitting in his car near the apartment
complex smoking marijuana, when two Latino men walked up and stood in front of
the car.  Romero appeared to know them and became concerned.  When the two men
walked away, Weber accompanied Romero to the apartment.  After the apartment's
occupant gave Romero the phone, the two men again approached.  They spoke to
Romero in Spanish.  According to Weber, the taller of the two men then said,
"I'm sorry," in English, and shot Romero.  Weber described the shooter
as a Latino man in his twenties, approximately six feet, three inches tall, of
average build, and with a "relatively" shaved head.  She described
the second man as Latino, in his twenties, five feet eight to five feet nine
inches tall, and skinny, with black spiked hair.
Romero's
ex-girlfriend told the police that Romero and a man called "Choco"
were involved in drugs together and that Choco had been upset with Romero.  She
did not know how to contact Choco but told the police the address of Choco's associate,
"Alex."  Romero's brother later called the police and confirmed that
Romero had associated with a man known as "Choco" and identified
Choco as Joel Sanchez-Jacobo (Jacobo).  Police unsuccessfully attempted to
contact "Alex," who they had determined was Alejandro
Sanchez-Hernandez (Sanchez) and lived at the address provided by Romero's ex-girlfriend. 

On July 10, 2006, Sanchez
himself was shot and killed at his apartment.  Sanchez's apartment was about a
mile from where Romero had been killed.  When the police arrived at the scene
of Sanchez's murder, Sanchez's brother and Fidel Garcia-Garcia (Garcia) were at
Sanchez's apartment.  Garcia, who had known Jacobo for six years, and who had
been visiting Sanchez, initially told the police that he had been asleep and
had not seen anything.  However, the next day, he admitted that he had been
awakened by the sound of an argument between Sanchez and Jacobo.  Jacobo had
been speaking to Sanchez in English.  Garcia is not fluent in English, but understood
when Jacobo told Garcia, "If you say anything I'll kill you." 
According to Garcia, two other Latino men, whom Garcia did not know, were also in
the apartment.  Neither man spoke.  The taller of the two men held a gun
pointed at Sanchez.  Garcia was afraid, and he did not want to look at the
faces of any of the men in the apartment for fear he that would be killed as a
witness.  When the argument ceased, Jacobo walked toward the door, then told
the two other men to "take care of it," and said something about
"10 minutes."  About 10 to 15 minutes later, the taller man said,
"I'm sorry," in Spanish, and shot Sanchez twice in the head.  The two
men then left through a sliding glass door in the back of the apartment. 
Garcia described Sanchez's
killer as a male Latino, about five feet, ten inches tall, medium build, around
165 pounds, 20 to 28 years old, short dark hair, not shaved, and wearing a dark
blue t-shirt.  Garcia did not see any facial hair.  He described the other man
as Latino, five feet, three inches tall, thin, about 125 pounds, 20 to 28 years
old, and wearing a gray t-shirt.  Again, Garcia did not see any facial hair.  
Sanchez's brother,
who lived in the same apartment complex, was home in bed and did not witness
the murder.  However, his wife heard gunshots and woke him up.  Soon after,
Garcia knocked on their door to tell him that Sanchez had been shot.  Sanchez's
brother went to check on Sanchez and then ran home.  On his way back to his
apartment, he saw Jacobo in his car in the parking lot and went to talk to him
on the passenger side of the car.  Jacobo told him to tell the other two men in
the apartment to come out.  When Sanchez's brother told Jacobo that the men
were not in the apartment and that Sanchez had been killed, Jacobo immediately
drove away.
On July 12, 2006,
detectives working on the Romero and Sanchez murder cases shared information
regarding their respective investigations and came to believe that the two
murders were related.  The police noted that there were similarities between
the two murders, including the facts that both victims had been shot, Jacobo had
been involved with both victims, the descriptions of the two unknown men were
similar, the taller man was the shooter in both cases, and the shooter had
spoken the phrase, "I'm sorry," before each murder. 
On July 13, 2006, three
days after the Sanchez murder, police contacted a coworker of Jacobo's wife,
Christina.  The coworker told the police that, within the last few days,
Christina had told her that Jacobo had switched cars with Christina and had driven
Christina's car to California with two unidentified men because he was
suspected of being involved in a homicide.  Christina had told the coworker
that she was trying to convince Jacobo to come back and get a lawyer.  The
coworker told the police that that morning, July 13, Christina had called her
at work and explained that Jacobo was back and that the two of them were on
their way downtown to talk to a lawyer.  
At about 2:00 p.m.
that same day, a Multnomah County prosecutor received a call from a lawyer
stating that Jacobo was in the lawyer's office and was prepared to turn himself
in on the Sanchez murder.  The detective supervising the Sanchez investigation,
Peterson, along with other detectives involved in the murder investigations,
thought that, if Jacobo were not in custody, he would contact the two other men
involved in Sanchez's murder.  The detectives thought that Jacobo would want to
share any information obtained from the meeting with the lawyer with the other
men.  At the detectives' direction, the prosecutor told the lawyer that Jacobo
did not have to turn himself in to police.  Police officers then located
Jacobo's car in a parking lot near the lawyer's office and followed Jacobo and
his wife after they left the office.  The couple had a meal at a restaurant and
then drove to Salem, bypassing their residence in Woodburn.  Christina dropped
Jacobo off near an apartment complex on Hawthorne Avenue in Salem.  Jacobo
walked into the complex, but police were unable to determine whom he contacted
there.  Meanwhile, Christina registered at the nearby Red Lion Hotel.  About 20
minutes later, Jacobo left the apartment complex and walked to the hotel, where
he and his wife spent the night.  
The next morning, July
14, 2006, at about 8:00 a.m., police officers saw Christina leave to go to
work.  At about 1:55 p.m., a woman picked Jacobo up at the hotel and drove him
to a residence.  A short time later, Jacobo dropped the woman off at a Salem
business and drove back to the apartment complex on Hawthorne.  There, he met
two Latino men, later identified as defendants.  The three drove to an auto dealership
in Brooks and then back to the Salem apartment complex, where they went into an
apartment on the second floor.  At least one or two other Latino males also
were in the apartment.  Jacobo left after about 45 minutes.  
As Jacobo and the
two men drove around, the surveillance officers observed the two men in
Jacobo's company.  Peterson asked Officer Hernandez, who had received and
translated Garcia's descriptions of the murder suspects, to talk to the surveillance
officers to confirm that the two men matched those descriptions.  After
conversing with the surveillance officer, Hernandez told Peterson that the men
did match Garcia's descriptions.  Based on the description match and the other
information that he knew from the investigation, Peterson believed that he had
probable cause to arrest the two men, and he directed the officers in Salem to make
the arrest.  By that time, however, Jacobo had left the two men at the
apartment complex.  As the police gathered in an area near the apartment complex
to prepare to arrest defendants, another Latino male, Antonio Martinez
(Martinez), came out of the apartment and walked down the stairwell and toward
the police.  The police became concerned that they had been compromised and
took Martinez into custody.  He had an outstanding warrant and was arrested. 
Martinez was five feet, four inches tall, 130 pounds, clean shaven, and had a
shaved head.  Subsequently, as the police approached the apartment, defendants
exited and were arrested.  
Defendant Vasquez-Villagomez
is Latino and is five feet, nine inches tall.  At the time of the arrest, he
was 25 years old, weighed 160 pounds, and had "short cropped hair"
and a goatee.  Defendant Zamora-Comacho is Latino and is five feet, five inches
tall.  At the time of the arrest, he was 21 years old, weighed 140 pounds, had
a shaved head, and wore a "soul patch."(3)
Before trial, defendants
moved to suppress evidence obtained after their arrest, arguing that the eyewitness
descriptions of the suspects were insufficient to provide the police with
probable cause to arrest them without warrants.  The trial court granted
defendants' motion.  The trial court determined that there was nothing distinctive
about the descriptions provided by the witnesses.  According to the trial court,
the descriptions were general in nature, describing typical young Latino males
in their twenties.  In the trial court's view, there was nothing specific in
the witness descriptions to lead to the belief that defendants were the men
being sought and to establish probable cause to believe that defendants had committed
either murder.  Moreover, the trial court found it unlikely that both
defendants could have grown facial hair in the four days between the Sanchez
murder and their arrests.  In addition, the trial court noted, defendants were
observed by the police in a city different from the one in which the murders
had occurred and, moreover, were seen there four days after the Sanchez murder and
45 days after the Romero murder.  Finally, the trial court noted that the
association between defendants and Jacobo, as witnessed by the police, was
benign in nature.  The trial court therefore concluded that the police did not
have probable cause to arrest defendants.  Accordingly, the trial court granted
defendants' motions and suppressed certain evidence.(4)  The state appealed that order directly to this court.
As noted, ORS 138.060(2) authorizes
the state to prosecute to this court an expedited appeal of a pretrial order
suppressing evidence in a murder or aggravated murder case.  On appeal, the
state asserts that the trial court erred in granting defendants' motions to
suppress evidence because the police, in the state's view, had probable cause
to arrest defendants absent any warrant, based on all the information known to
them at the time of the arrests.  The state contends that, at the time that he
instructed the officers in Salem to arrest defendants, the decision-making
officer, Peterson, knew that (1) the police had probable cause to arrest
Jacobo; (2) Jacobo had been involved with both victims and had been present
just before the second murder; (3) two unidentified men with similar physical
descriptions had committed each murder under similar circumstances, including
the utterance of the phrase "I'm sorry"; (4) Garcia had been present
in the apartment when the second murder had occurred and had seen both men; (5)
the men seen with Jacobo in Salem on July 14, 2006, matched Garcia's
descriptions of the taller shooter and his shorter companion; and (6) Jacobo
had been aware that he was a suspect in the second murder and purportedly had
left the state in the company of two men shortly after its occurrence, and,
after he returned and contacted a lawyer, he did not go home but instead drove
to Salem and contacted defendants, who were together.  
Based on the foregoing, the state
argues that 
The state acknowledges that mere propinquity or proximity to
a person for whom the police have probable cause to arrest -- in this case,
Jacobo -- does not alone support probable cause to arrest defendants.  See
Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 US 85, 91-92, 100 S Ct 338, 62 L Ed 2d 238 (1979)
("[A] person's mere propinquity to others independently suspected of
criminal activity does not, without more, give rise to probable cause to search
that person.").  However, the state argues that propinquity is a
significant factor to be considered in combination with the fact that
defendants, who matched the description that Garcia had provided, met with
Jacobo "at a time when it was reasonable for experienced officers to
believe that Jacobo[] would contact the two men [that] he had directed to
murder Sanchez."  The state explains that it was reasonable for the police
to think that Jacobo would share what he had learned from the lawyer with the
others involved in the murders.  Although the police were not able to determine
who Jacobo had contacted at the Salem apartment complex on July 13, 2006, the
police knew that he had met defendants at that same complex the following day. 
Moreover, although the state acknowledges that Garcia did not see facial hair
on either the shooter or his companion and, when arrested four days later,
defendants had a goatee and a soul patch, the state argues that that
discrepancy is "slight and explicable."  The state concludes that,
under the totality of the circumstances, the temporal circumstances of the
contact between Jacobo and defendants and the fact that they were a pair whose
appearance was similar to Garcia's description, established probable cause and that
the trial court therefore erred in suppressing evidence gained from defendants'
arrests.
Defendants counter that the descriptions
of the perpetrators that Garcia had provided had been too general to support
probable cause.  In addition, defendants argue that, to the extent that Garcia's
descriptions had been specific as to the perpetrators' lack of facial hair,
both defendants, when arrested, had either a goatee or a soul patch and, as the
trial court found, it was unlikely that either could have grown the hair in
only four days.  They assert that Martinez, the first man to come out of the apartment
on July 14, 2006, and be arrested, was a better match for Garcia's description
of the shooter's shorter companion.  Defendants assert that the police merely
arrested everyone that they thought might have some connection to the homicides
and used those arrests to conduct further investigation.  Finally, defendants
argue that, when the police observed them with Jacobo, there had been no
ongoing criminal activity, or even suspicious behavior, as far as the police could
ascertain.  Defendants were seen with Jacobo days after, and more than 50 miles
from, the scene of the murders.  Consequently, defendants assert that the
police lacked probable cause to arrest defendants and the trial court therefore
properly granted their motions to suppress evidence.  
We begin with the standard of
review.  On review of a motion to suppress evidence, this court reviews for
errors of law, ORS 138.220, and is bound by the trial court's findings of
historical fact if there is evidence in the record to support them, State v.
Dahl, 323 Or 199, 205, 915 P2d 979 (1996).  Whether probable cause exists
to support  an arrest is a question of law, not fact.  State v. Miller,
345 Or 176, 187, 191 P3d 651 (2008).  A police officer may arrest a person
without a warrant if the officer has probable cause to believe that the person
has committed a felony.  ORS 133.310(1)(a).  ORS 131.005(11) defines "probable
cause" to arrest as a substantial objective basis for believing that more
likely than not an offense has been committed and that the person to be
arrested has committed it.  
Under Article I, section 9, of the
Oregon Constitution,(5)
two components comprise probable cause: "[a]n officer must subjectively
believe that a crime has been committed and thus that a person or thing is
subject to seizure, and this belief must be objectively reasonable in the
circumstances."  State v. Owens, 302 Or 196, 204, 729 P2d 524
(1986).  The subjective component of the probable cause inquiry is satisfied if
an officer believes that he or she has lawful authority to restrain the
individual's liberty.  Miller, 345 Or at 185.  The state also must
establish that the facts objectively are sufficient to establish probable
cause.  Id. at 186.  In determining whether the state has established
that the facts are objectively reasonable, the court looks at the totality of
the circumstances, including the officer's training and experience.  See
State v. Martin, 327 Or 17, 22, 956 P2d 956 (1998) (applying standard). 
Subsequent validation of the officer's subjective or objective belief as to the
existence of probable cause to arrest is irrelevant to the inquiry.  State
v. Esplin, 314 Or 296, 304-05, 839 P2d 211 (1992).
As noted, in determining whether the
state established facts that are objectively sufficient to support a finding of
probable cause to arrest defendants for the Romero and Sanchez murders, we
consider the totality of the circumstances.(6) 
Here, Jacobo was associated with both victims, and each murder was committed by
a pair of men, one tall, one short.  The witness to the second murder, Garcia,
who had been in the room with the men for about 15 minutes, described the shooter as a male Latino, around five feet, ten inches tall, medium
build, around 165 pounds, 20 to 28 years old, and with short dark hair, not
shaved.  Defendant Vasquez-Villagomez is Latino and is five feet, nine inches
tall.  The trial court found that, at the time of his arrest he was 25 years
old, weighed 160 pounds, and had "short cropped hair" and a goatee.  Garcia
described the other man as Latino, five feet, three inches tall, about 125
pounds, and 20 to 28 years old.  Defendant Zamora-Comacho is Latino and is five
feet, five inches tall.  The trial court found that, at the time of his arrest,
defendant Zamora-Camacho was 21 years old, weighed 140 pounds, had a shaved
head, and wore a soul patch.  Except for the fact that Garcia did not see
facial hair on either of the two men in Sanchez's apartment, and both defendants
had facial hair at the time that they were arrested, defendants fit the
descriptions that Garcia provided.  The trial court concluded that it was
"possible [that] Vazquez could have grown his goatee between the time the
homicide witnesses provided descriptions and the arrest.  It is less likely,
given the thickness of Mr. Zamora Camacho's beard at the time of his arrest,
that he grew the beard between July 10 and July 15."  However, the presence
or lack of facial hair on defendants is not dispositive -- rather, it is only
one fact considered in the totality of the circumstances 
Defendants assert that the first man
arrested at the apartment complex,  Martinez, was a better match for Garcia's
description and that the police were merely collecting people that they thought
might have some connection to the homicides.  To support that assertion,
defendants point out that, although the warrant for Martinez's arrest was
issued in Marion County, he was taken to the Gresham Police Department at the
same time as defendants, before being transported back to Salem.  However, Peterson
testified that Martinez had been arrested because he had come near the arrest
team gathering outside the apartment complex and the police had been concerned
that Martinez would expose their presence.  Peterson testified that Martinez had
not been seen with Jacobo and that Peterson had become aware of Martinez only
after his arrest.  Peterson also testified that Martinez never had been a murder
suspect, but was taken to Gresham to be questioned about his relationship to
Jacobo and defendants.  The police also wanted to question Martinez about anything
that he might have heard defendants say inside the apartment or anything that he
might have seen in defendants' possession at the time of their arrest.  Peterson
testified that he made the decision to arrest defendants while they were driving
around Salem with Jacobo.  
Defendants appear to be arguing that
the police should have negated every other possible suspect before they arrested
defendants.  We disagree.  The possibility that one of the other men discovered
in the apartment in Salem could have ridden around in the car with
Jacobo does nothing to negate a finding of probable cause as to defendants.
Defendants next
argue that, as the trial court determined, Garcia's descriptions were too
general to support probable cause because they could describe a large segment
of the population based on race, gender, age, height, and weight.  They point
out that the trial court determined that "there is nothing specific about
[Garcia's] description that would lead one to believe that [defendants] were
the people being sought."  Defendants rely on State v. Gressel,
276 Or 333, 335, 554 P2d 1014 (1976), in which a burglar was described as a
"white male adult wearing a dark hip-length jacket," a description that
the court found was "so general that it would fit the vast majority of men
out on a May night in Oregon.  They will be white and have jackets of hip
length which will appear to be dark at night[.]"  Id. at 335-38.  
Here, we agree that, if the
descriptions that Garcia had provided were the only basis upon which the police
had arrested defendants, then their arrests -- like the search in Gressel
-- might not have been supported by probable cause.  However, neither the
generality of Garcia's physical descriptions of the perpetrators nor some of
the indisputable differences between those descriptions and the appearance of
defendants at the time of their arrests is significant here.  Instead, the
significance lies in the reported similarities between Garcia's descriptions
and defendants' appearances, coupled with the uniting effect of the series of
corroborating circumstances.
Simply stated, the descriptions that
Garcia provided (a taller shooter and his shorter companion -- both identified
by race, gender, age, weight, and height) must be considered in the context of
the ongoing investigation, which we summarize as follows.  The police knew that
two men, one tall and one short, and both associated with Jacobo, had committed
each murder.  Christina Sanchez's coworker had conveyed to the police
conversations with Christina respecting (1) Jacobo's trip to California with
two unidentified men; (2) Christina's attempts to convince Jacobo to come back
and get a lawyer (because he was suspected of being involved in a murder); and
(3) Jacobo's return from California and Jacobo's and Christina's immediate plan
to speak to a lawyer.  Jacobo's meeting with a lawyer occurred on July 13,
2006, and the lawyer immediately contacted the district attorney's office,
suggesting that Jacobo wished to surrender to police in connection with the
Sanchez murder.  At that point, the police reasonably could have believed that
Jacobo wanted to share any information obtained from the lawyer with the other
men involved in the murders.  After Jacobo bypassed his home in Woodburn on
that same day and drove to Salem instead, the police reasonably could have
believed that Jacobo had driven to Salem to meet the other two men involved. 
Moreover, the police reasonably could have believed that Jacobo had contacted
defendants at the apartment complex on the night of July 13, in view of the
fact that he then picked up defendants at the same apartment complex the
following day.
The totality of the circumstances
just described provided an objectively reasonable basis for Peterson to believe
that defendants were the two men who had committed the Sanchez murder.  We
therefore conclude that defendants' arrests did not contravene Article I,
section 9, of the Oregon Constitution and that the trial court erred in
concluding otherwise.
Because we have determined that
defendants' rights were not violated under the Oregon Constitution, we next consider
whether their arrests were unlawful under the United States Constitution.  See
State v. Kennedy, 295 Or 260, 262, 666 P2d 1316 (1983) (court considers all
questions of state law before reaching federal constitutional claims).  Under the
Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution,(7)
a warrantless arrest requires objective probable cause.  Devenpeck v. Alford,
543 US 146, 152, 125 S Ct 588, 160 L Ed 2d 537 (2004).  A warrantless arrest is
reasonable if there is probable cause to believe that a criminal offense has
been or is being committed.  Dunaway v. New York, 442 US 200, 208 n 9,
99 S Ct 2248, 60 L Ed 2d 824 (1979).  "[S]ufficient probability, not
certainty, is the touchstone of reasonableness under the Fourth
Amendment[.]"  Hill v. California, 401 US 797, 804, 91 S Ct 1106,
28 L Ed 2d 484 (1971).  Whether probable cause exists depends upon the totality
of the circumstances and the reasonable conclusion to be drawn from the facts
known to the arresting officer at the time of the arrest.  Maryland v.
Pringle, 540 US 366, 371, 124 S Ct 795, 157 L Ed 2d 769 (2003).  However, unlike
our analysis under the Oregon Constitution, an arresting officer's state of
mind (except for the facts that he or she knows) is irrelevant to the existence
of probable cause under the United States Constitution.  Devenpeck, 543
US at 153.  
Here, in addition to knowing that he
had probable cause to arrest Jacobo, Peterson knew the following facts: (1) two
unidentified men with similar physical descriptions had committed each murder
under similar circumstances, including the utterance of the phrase "I'm
sorry"; (2) the men seen with Jacobo in Salem on July 14, 2006, matched
Garcia's descriptions of the shooter and his shorter companion; and (3) Jacobo had
been aware that he was a suspect in the second murder and had contacted
defendants shortly after attempting to turn himself in to the authorities.  The
United States Supreme Court has stated that "the probable-cause standard
is a practical, nontechnical conception that deals with the factual and
practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men,
not legal technicians, act."  Pringle, 540 US at 370 (quotations
omitted).  Under the totality of the circumstances, we conclude that it was
reasonable to believe that, where defendants matched the descriptions that
Garcia had provided, and where Jacobo had contacted them shortly after
attempting to turn himself in, defendants were the two men who had committed
the Sanchez murder.  Thus, it was reasonable for Peterson to determine that
probable cause supported defendants' warrantless arrests.  
In sum, the trial court erred when it
concluded that the police did not have probable
cause to arrest defendants without a warrant, and it therefore should have
denied defendants' motions to suppress evidence
obtained after their arrests.
The order of the circuit court is
reversed, and the case is remanded to the circuit court for further
proceedings.
1. ORS
138.060 provides, in part: 
"(1) The state may take an appeal from the
circuit court to the Court of Appeals from:
"* * * * *
"(c) An order made prior to trial
suppressing evidence[.]
"* * * * *
"(2) Notwithstanding subsection (1) of this
section, when the state chooses to appeal from an order listed in paragraph (a)
or (b) of this subsection, the state shall take the appeal from the circuit
court to the Supreme Court if the defendant is charged with murder or
aggravated murder.  The orders to which this subsection applies are:
"(a) An order made prior to trial
suppressing evidence; and
"(b) An order made prior to trial
dismissing or setting aside the accusatory instrument."
2. Below,
witnesses and the trial court used the terms "Hispanic" and
"Latino" interchangeably.  On appeal, the parties do not make a
distinction between the two terms.  For purposes of uniformity, we use the term
"Latino" throughout this opinion.  See, e.g.,
Hernandez v. New York, 500 US 352, 355, 111 S Ct 1859, 114 L Ed 2d 395 (1991) ("Petitioner
and respondent both use the term 'Latino' in their briefs to this Court. The amicus
brief employs instead the term 'Hispanic,' and the parties referred to the
excluded jurors by that term in the trial court.  Both words appear in the
state-court opinions.  No attempt has been made at a distinction by the parties
and we make no attempt to distinguish the terms in this opinion.  We will refer
to the excluded venire persons as Latinos in deference to the terminology
preferred by the parties before the Court.").
3. The
term "soul patch" refers to a small growth of beard under a man's
lower lip.  
Merriam-Webster's Unabridged Collegiate Dictionary, (last visited Feb 9, 2009).  
4. The
trial court suppressed defendants' in-custody statements,
booking photos, photo montages created from booking photos, identification and
personal information obtained during the booking process, all out-of-court
identifications by certain witnesses, and property seized from defendants at
the time of their arrests.  
5. Article
I, section 9 of the Oregon Constitution 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."
6. Because
ORS 136.432 generally precludes courts from excluding evidence for violation of
a statute, we determine whether the police had probable cause to believe that
defendants had committed the Romero and Sanchez murders under the standard
established under Article I, section 9. 
7. The
Fourth Amendment provides: 
"The right of the people to be secure in
their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable
cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place
to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."