Title: State v. Dinsmore

State: oregon

Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court

Document:

FILED: November 24, 2006
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON
STATE OF OREGON,
Petitioner on Review,
v.
KAREN RUTH DINSMORE,
Respondent on Review.
(CC 9909234CR; CA A122052; SC S53033)
On review from the Court of Appeals.*
Argued and submitted September 6, 2006.
Doug M. Petrina, Assistant Attorney General, argued the
cause for petitioner on review.  With him on the briefs were
Hardy Myers, Attorney General, and Mary H. Williams, Solicitor
General, Salem.
Robert M. McCrea, McCrea, PC, Eugene, argued the cause and
filed the briefs for respondent on review.
Before De Muniz, Chief Justice, and Carson, Gillette,
Durham, and Balmer, Justices.**
DE MUNIZ, C. J.
The decision of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.  The
judgment of the circuit court is reversed, and the case is
remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings. 
*Appeal from Harney County Circuit Court, W. D. Cramer, Jr., Judge. 200 Or App 432, 116 P3d 226 (2005).
**Riggs, J., retired September 30, 2006, and did not
participate in the consideration or decision of this case. 
Kistler and Walters, JJ., did not participate in the
consideration or decision of this case.
DE MUNIZ, C. J.
This criminal case requires that we resolve two issues: 
(1) whether the trial court erred in reinstating charges that it
previously had dismissed pursuant to a plea agreement between
defendant and the state; and (2) whether breath test evidence
that is inadmissible in a prosecution for driving under the
influence is also inadmissible in a homicide prosecution arising
from the same incident.  Under the circumstances of this case, we
answer both of those questions in the affirmative.
We take the facts from the record and the Court of
Appeals' prior opinions in this case.  In June 1999, defendant
was driving her vehicle late at night on Highway 20 in Harney
County when she collided with two other vehicles that were
stopped on the highway waiting to turn left at an intersection. 
That collision killed the driver of one vehicle and severely
injured the occupants of the other vehicle.  At the on-scene
investigation that followed, a police officer approached
defendant to ask her about the collision and noticed a faint odor
of alcohol on her breath.  The officer began questioning
defendant without first advising her of her Miranda rights, and
defendant told the officer that she had consumed one beer
approximately nine hours earlier.  She also said that she had
been using medications for high blood pressure and allergies. 
Shortly thereafter, the officer arrested defendant for reckless
driving and driving under the influence of intoxicants (DUII). 
He then informed defendant of her Miranda rights.  Defendant
subsequently agreed to perform some field sobriety tests at the
crash site and answered additional questions about the collision. 
The officer then drove defendant to the police station where she
agreed to take a Breathalyzer test to establish the alcohol
content of her blood.  Although defendant asked to speak to an
attorney and did so by telephone before taking the test, a police
officer nevertheless remained within defendant's sight and
hearing while that conversation took place.  The Breathalyzer
test showed, approximately four hours after the accident, that
defendant had a blood alcohol content of .06.  
The state charged defendant with second-degree
manslaughter, ORS 163.125, third-degree assault, ORS 163.165,
fourth-degree assault, ORS 163.160, DUII, ORS 813.010, and
reckless driving, ORS 811.140.  In response, defendant moved to
suppress (1) the officer's observation that he had smelled
alcohol on defendant's breath at the crash site; (2) defendant's
statements to police authorities made during interviews at the
crash site; (3) the results of defendant's field sobriety tests;
and (4) the result of defendant's Breathalyzer test.  Those
pretrial motions were denied.
Before trial, however, the state and defendant
negotiated a plea agreement.  See ORS 135.405 (district attorney
may engage in discussion with criminal defendant for purpose of
reaching plea agreement).  The written agreement, authored by the
prosecution, provided, in part: 
"In return for [defendant's] conditional plea of 'No
Contest' pursuant to ORS 135.335(3) to the charge of
Criminally Negligent Homicide (the lesser included
charge of Count I), the State agrees to dismiss [the]
remaining counts in the indictment.  Pursuant to ORS
135.335(3), the defendant reserves the right to appeal
the judgment of this court denying the pretrial motions
filed by defendant."
(Emphasis added.)  Defendant agreed to the prosecutor's terms
and, in exchange, the state dismissed the remaining charges
against her.  The prosecutor later stated in an affidavit
submitted to the trial court that "the issue of proceedings on
remand did not arise except as addressed in ORS 135.335(3), to
wit:  That the defendant could withdraw her conditional no
contest plea if she prevailed in the Court of Appeals."   
After entering her plea, defendant pursued an appeal
and was partially successful in that endeavor.  Although the
Court of Appeals rejected most of defendant's arguments, it did
conclude that the trial court should have suppressed the
statements that defendant had made during the police interview at
the crash site before being given her Miranda warnings.  State v.
Dinsmore, 182 Or App 505, 49 P3d 830 (2002).  Consequently,
defendant sought, on remand, to withdraw her prior no contest
plea to the criminally negligent homicide charge.
In response, the state requested that the trial court 
reinstate all the previously dismissed charges.  The state argued
that defendant's withdrawal of her original plea was a breach or
repudiation of the parties' original bargain and that, as a
result, the original plea agreement had been extinguished.  The
trial court agreed, ruling that
"[y]ou want the benefit of the bargain, of the plea
agreement, then that's based upon maintaining the plea
that you entered.  You withdraw your plea, we in fact
do go back to square one.  All charges are reinstituted
and we're proceeding, in this court's perspective, on
all the charges." 
Consistently with that ruling, the trial court reinstated the
original charges against defendant and she pleaded not guilty to
all of them. 
Prior to trial, defendant once again moved to suppress
evidence from the Breathalyzer test that she had taken while in
police custody.  The state conceded that the police officer's
presence during defendant's telephone call to her lawyer before
the test had violated defendant's right to a private consultation
with counsel, see State v. Durbin, 335 Or 183, 63 P3d 576 (2003)
(discussing right), and agreed that the result of the breath test
could not be admitted to support the DUII charge.  The state
argued, however, that the result nevertheless could be used in
conjunction with the other counts against defendant, such as the
manslaughter charge.  The trial court agreed with the state and
held that the Breathalyzer test result was admissible for that
purpose.  At trial, a jury convicted defendant on all charges,
including second-degree manslaughter.
Defendant once again appealed.  She first argued that
the state could not reinstate charges other than the criminally
negligent homicide charge once the trial court had dismissed them
pursuant to the plea agreement.  She then argued that, in light
of the state's concession that the result of her breath test was
inadmissible with regard to the DUII charge, the trial court had
erred in refusing to suppress that evidence with respect to the
homicide charge as well.  The Court of Appeals agreed with both
arguments and remanded for a new trial.  State v. Dinsmore, 200
Or App 432, 116 P3d 226 (2005).  We subsequently allowed the
state's petition for review to examine both of those issues.
On review, the state first contends that the trial
court did not err in reinstating the state's original roster of
charges against defendant.  The specifics of that argument focus
on what the state perceives to be the trial court's inherent
authority to now proceed on defendant's original indictment and
the Court of Appeals' impropriety in examining that authority on
its own motion.  There is, however, a more fundamental issue at
play here, the resolution of which makes it unnecessary to
address those particular arguments.  As it has maintained
throughout this case, the state again asserts on review that (1)
defendant repudiated the plea agreement when she withdrew her "no
contest" plea; and (2) reinstating the charges against defendant
simply restored the status quo ante following defendant's breach
of that agreement.  As we explain below, however, the state is
wrong in both respects, largely because it erroneously has
conflated the statutory plea provisions of ORS 135.335(3) with
the provisions of the plea agreement reached by the parties. 
ORS 135.335(3) permits a defendant to plead guilty or
no contest to a criminal charge while retaining the right to
appeal adverse rulings on issues raised before trial.  Should a
defendant prevail on such an appeal, the statute expressly allows
the defendant to withdraw the plea.  The statute provides:
"With the consent of the court and the state, a
defendant may enter a conditional plea of guilty or no
contest reserving, in writing, the right, on appeal
from the judgment, to a review of an adverse
determination of any specified pretrial motion. A
defendant who finally prevails on appeal may withdraw
the plea."
(Emphasis added.)  Before the addition of ORS 135.335(3) to
Oregon's statutes in 1999, a criminal defendant who pleaded
guilty or no contest to a criminal charge had a limited right of
review on appeal.  At that time, the only bases for appellate
review following a guilty plea were that a sentence either (1)
exceeded the maximum allowed by law; or (2) was
unconstitutionally cruel and unusual.  See ORS 138.050(1) (1997),
amended by Or Laws 1999, ch 134, § 3 (so stating).  Consequently,
a defendant who, for example, was unsuccessful in pretrial
efforts to suppress evidence, was required to enter a plea of not
guilty and proceed to trial -- often a trial on stipulated facts
-- to preserve the ability to contest the adverse pretrial
ruling. 
Today, however, under ORS 135.335(3), a criminal
defendant -- with the consent of the trial court and the state --
may enter a conditional plea of guilty or no contest, litigate
pretrial issues on appeal and then, if successful, later withdraw
the plea.  Under that option, the parties -- and with them, the
trial courts -- save both time and resources by sidestepping
proceedings conducted solely to facilitate the appeal of pretrial
matters. 
As the state correctly recognizes, ORS 135.335(3) 
anticipates a return to the status quo ante following a
successful appeal and subsequent plea withdrawal; i.e., a
defendant will face the same array of charges that he or she
faced prior to entering the conditional plea.  That is true,
however, only because ORS 135.335(3) does not, by its plain
terms, require the parties to exchange considerations -- such as
dismissing some charges in exchange for a particular plea to
others -- to implement a conditional plea.  It is therefore no
surprise that, when a conditional plea is entered as an
expediency under ORS 135.335(3), the parties begin anew on the
charges subject to the plea if the defendant's appeal is
successful and the defendant opts to withdraw the conditional
plea.  To be clear, the only "condition" expressly associated
with the conditional plea statute is the one allowing a defendant
to withdraw a plea if the defendant's pretrial challenge is
ultimately successful on appeal.        
That, however, is not the case when the state and a 
defendant enter into a plea agreement that, by it terms, disposes
of specific criminal charges.  Such agreements are grounded in
the bargain created by a mutually binding, quid pro quo exchange
between the parties.  As this court recently noted in State v.
Tannehill, 341 Or 205, 211, 141 P3d 584 (2006), 
"a plea often results from an agreement between the
parties in which, 'in return for the defendant's
admission of guilt on some or all of the charged
offenses, the state agrees either to dismiss some of
the charges or to recommend a reduced sentence.'"
(Quoting Gonzalez v. State of Oregon, 340 Or 452, 457, 134 P3d
955 (2006).)  The terms of the resulting bargain define the
parties' obligations to each other, while the bargain itself is
part of a process that, as the United States Supreme Court has
noted, 
"must be attended by safeguards to insure the defendant
what is reasonably due in the circumstances.  Those
circumstances will vary, but a constant factor is that
when a plea rests in any significant degree on a
promise or agreement of the prosecutor, so that it can
be said to be part of the inducement or consideration,
such promises must be fulfilled."
Santobello v. New York, 404 US 257, 262, 92 S Ct 495, 30 L Ed 2d
427 (1971).
In this case, it is undisputed that the plea agreement
that the parties fashioned involved more than just a conditional
plea entered pursuant to ORS 135.335(3).  Both parties made major
concessions to each other in reliance on their mutual promises. 
Under the terms of their agreement, the state agreed to dismiss
all charges against defendant save one, in exchange for
defendant's "conditional plea of 'No Contest' pursuant to ORS
135.335(3) to the charge of Criminally Negligent Homicide."  As
the prosecutor's trial affidavit made clear, defendant's right to
withdraw her conditional plea if her appeal was successful was an
integral and accepted part of that agreement.  Defendant, in
turn, waived a number of fundamental constitutional protections 
to plead to the remaining charge against her, knowing full well
that, if her subsequent appeal was unsuccessful, she would be
bound by her no contest plea. 
Ultimately, defendant entered her conditional plea of
no contest to the agreed-upon charge of criminally negligent
homicide, and the state, as agreed, dismissed the other charges. 
Defendant, however, prevailed on appeal, and subsequently
withdrew her plea, actions that were in keeping with the specific
terms of the parties' agreement.  As a result, the state's first
argument that defendant's plea withdrawal constituted a
repudiation of her plea agreement is unavailing.  Indeed,
withdrawal of the conditional plea as permitted by ORS 135.335(3)
was one of the incentives that the state offered to defendant in
exchange for her no contest plea.  The state's second argument --
that reinstatement of all the charges against defendant simply
restores the status quo ante following defendant's repudiation of
the agreement -- is similarly unavailing.  The status quo ante of
the parties' relationship in this case was defined by the terms
of the parties' agreement, and defendant fully has performed her
end of that bargain.  She did not breach the agreement, she
remains fully within its ambit, and she is now entitled to
enforce its terms.  The trial court erred in ratifying the
state's contrary position.  Should the state go forward with its
case against defendant, it must do so -- per its own agreement --
on the single charge of criminally negligent homicide.  
We turn next to the question whether evidence of
defendant's breath test is admissible in the criminally negligent
homicide case that remains.
In State v. Spencer, 305 Or 59, 750 P2d 147 (1988),
this court concluded that Article I, section 11, of the Oregon
Constitution -- providing, among other things, that an accused
person shall have the right to be heard in all "criminal
prosecutions" -- gave arrested drivers who were asked to take
Breathalyzer tests the right to a reasonable opportunity for
consultation with legal counsel.  In Spencer, this court was
required to construe the phrase "criminal prosecutions" in
Article I, section 11, and consider, in turn, (1) what
constitutes a criminal prosecution, and (2) when do such
proceedings begin.  In answering those questions, the court
wrote:  
"A person taken into formal custody by the police
on a potentially criminal charge is confronted with the
full legal power of the state, regardless of whether a
formal charge has been filed.  Where such custody is
complete, neither the lack of a selected charge nor the
possibility that the police will think better of the
entire matter changes the fact that the arrested person
is, at that moment, ensnared in a 'criminal
prosecution.'  The evanescent nature of the evidence
the police seek to obtain may justify substantially
limiting the time in which the person may exercise his
or her Article I, section 11, right, but it does not
justify doing away with it."
Id. at 74.  As a result, this court held that, under Article I,
section 11, "an arrested driver has the right, upon request, to a
reasonable opportunity to obtain legal advice before deciding
whether to submit to a breath test."  Id. at 74-75.  The court
then concluded that denial of that right required exclusion of
the breath test result at trial.  Id. at 76.  
Although the criminal charge at issue in Spencer was a
DUII, none of the observations that this court made in that case
suggest that the principles announced there apply to only DUII
prosecutions; indeed, the opposite is true.  Here, it is
undisputed that, at the time that police authorities were
preparing to administer the Breathalyzer test to defendant, she
had been "taken into formal custody by the police" and faced a
"potentially criminal charge" that involved at least one
fatality, not to mention the charges of DUII and reckless driving
for which the arresting officer already had cited her.  Having
been formally taken into police custody, read her Miranda rights,
and transported to a police station for further questioning,
defendant's custody was, in fact, "complete," to use the parlance
of Spencer.  Moreover, as we already have noted, the state
conceded that the police officer's presence during the telephone
call violated defendant's right to a private consultation with
her attorney and, by extension, violated her rights under Article
I, section 11, as articulated in Spencer.  The remedy for that
violation of defendant's constitutional right is exclusion of the
breath test result.  Nothing in Spencer limited the scope of that
case's holding or the scope of the remedy it provided.  The state
violated defendant's state constitutional right to counsel, and
we therefore conclude that the result of defendant's breath test
is inadmissible for all purposes, including the remaining
homicide charge. 
The decision of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.  The
judgment of the circuit court is reversed, and the case is
remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings.