Title: State v. Heckathorne
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: S056073
State: Oregon
Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court
Date: December 31, 2009

FILED: December 31, 2009
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON
STATE OF OREGON,
Petitioner on Review,
v.
GEORGE ALLEN HECKATHORNE,
Respondent
on Review.
(CC 050014CR; CA A128670 (Control))
STATE OF OREGON,
Petitioner on Review,
v.
CYRUS DALE HECKATHORNE,
Respondent on Review.
(CC 050015CR; CA
A128671; SC S056073)
En Banc
On review from the Court of Appeals.*
Argued and submitted March 5, 2009.
Douglas F. Zier,
Assistant Attorney General, Salem, argued the cause for petitioner on review. 
With him on the briefs were Hardy Myers, Attorney General, and Mary H.
Williams, Solicitor General.
Erin K. Galli,
Chilton, Ebbett &amp; Galli, LLC, Portland, argued the cause and filed the
brief for respondents on review.
Mary Reese, Deputy
Public Defender, Office of Public Defense Services, Salem, argued the cause for
amicus curiae Oregon Public Defense Services in support of respondents
on review.  With her on the brief was Peter Gartlan, Chief Defender.
DE MUNIZ, C. J.
The decision of the
Court of Appeals is reversed.  The judgments of the circuit court are affirmed.
*Appeal from Gilliam County Circuit Court, John V. Kelly, Judge. 218 Or App 283, 179
P3d 693 (2008).
DE MUNIZ, C. J.
The state seeks review of a Court of
Appeals decision that reversed a trial court order denying defendants' motion
to suppress evidence.  As in State v. Luman, ___ Or ___, ___ P3d ___
(decided this date), the issue in this case involves the intersection between the
warrant requirement in Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution, set
out post, ___ Or at ___ (slip op at 7), and the scope of police
authority respecting items that are lawfully in police possession.  Here, the
question more specifically is whether the police must obtain a search warrant
to determine the contents of an opaque metal cylinder lawfully in their
possession when both the exterior of the cylinder and the odor of the substance
emitted from the cylinder indicates that it contains ammonia.
Defendants were charged with and
convicted of possession of a precursor substance -- anhydrous ammonia, a
chemical used in methamphetamine production -- with intent to manufacture a
controlled substance, ORS 475.967.  The ammonia was contained in a metal
cylinder that the police found in defendants' vehicle.  The trial court denied
defendants' motion to suppress, finding that the cylinder was discovered as
part of a valid inventory and that the distinct blue discoloration on the
cylinder indicated that the cylinder contained the unlawful substance.  Following
their convictions, based on pleas of no contest, defendants appealed.  See ORS
135.335(3) (allowing appeals in such circumstances).  The Court of Appeals
reversed, holding that the police were required to obtain a warrant to determine
the contents of the cylinder, because the cylinder did not "announce its contents," and defendants
therefore retained a privacy interest in the contents of the cylinder.  State
v. Heckathorne, 218 Or App 283, 291, 179 P3d 693 (2008).  For the reasons
that follow, we reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals and affirm the judgments
of the trial court.
We take the following facts from the
trial court record and the Court of Appeals opinion.  In February 2005, Gilliam
County Undersheriff Bettencourt was dispatched to investigate a suspicious
vehicle reported in a remote area of Gilliam County.  There, he discovered a vehicle
parked approximately 200 feet from a group of anhydrous ammonia tanks on
private farm property.(1) 
As Bettencourt approached, the car began to move away.  Defendant George
Heckathorne (George) was driving the car.  Defendant Cyrus Heckathorne (Cyrus)
and another man, Holbird, were passengers in the car.
Based on his knowledge that the car
did not belong to the owners of the farm and his belief that the occupants were
criminally trespassing, Bettencourt instructed George to stop and step out of
the car.  Bettencourt conducted a background check that revealed an outstanding
felony warrant for George's arrest.  As a result, Bettencourt handcuffed George,
placed him in the back of the patrol car, and called for further police
assistance.  Two other officers arrived shortly thereafter.  After securing
Cyrus and Holbird, Bettencourt informed the suspects that they were under
arrest for criminal trespass and advised them of their Miranda rights. 
He also asked George for consent to search the car, which George refused. 
After deciding that they needed to
have the car towed, the officers inventoried it pursuant to a Gilliam County
Sheriff's Office policy.  During the inventory, the officers discovered a
syringe, tools, pipe fittings exhibiting a blue discoloration, a metal gas
cylinder exhibiting the same blue discoloration around its valve, and a
five-gallon propane tank with missing valves.  Bettencourt testified that,
based on his "[t]raining and experience," he knew that "[b]rass
and galvanized fittings will turn a turquoise or a fluorescent blue * * * color
when [in] contact[ with] anhydrous ammonia."  The officers also discovered
a pipe wrench, wire cutters, screwdrivers, and rock salt, all of which, like
anhydrous ammonia, are used in the production of methamphetamine.  Bettencourt
noticed the smell of ammonia and testified that the car "smelled like a
meth lab to me."  Bettencourt, however, did not attempt to determine whether
the odor of ammonia came from the metal gas cylinder or elsewhere.
After completing the inventory,
Bettencourt transferred the inventoried items to the local state police office. 
Deputy Studebaker then "took possession of the [cylinder] and vented it
properly."(2) 
According to Bettencourt, Studebaker reported that he got "a strong odor
of ammonia" after he "shot" it.
(3) 
Studebaker then used a device, which Bettencourt described as a
"dragger," to test the contents of the cylinder.(4) 
The test was positive for anhydrous ammonia, registering 70 parts per million,
the highest possible measurable amount.
Defendants subsequently were charged
with possession of a precursor substance with intent to manufacture a
controlled substance.  Each defendant filed a motion to suppress evidence of the
cylinder and its contents, arguing that the cylinder was unlawfully seized and
searched under Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution,(5)
and the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution,(6)
because (1) the officers had failed to secure a warrant to search the car; and
(2) the subsequent "search" of the cylinder with the Dräger device
was not justified under any exception to the warrant requirement.
The trial court denied defendants'
motion, ruling that the cylinder and tank had been discovered as part of a
valid inventory and that the officers had not needed a search warrant to test
the cylinder's contents, because its distinct blue discoloration indicated that
it was an instrumentality of a crime.  Each defendant subsequently entered
conditional pleas of no contest to one count of possessing a precursor
substance with intent to manufacture a controlled substance, ORS 475.967, and
one count of criminal trespass in the second degree, ORS 164.245.(7) Both defendants reserved the right to appeal the court's ruling on their motion
to suppress.  The remaining charges were dismissed.
Defendants appealed the trial court's
denial of their motion to suppress, arguing that the officers needed a warrant
to test the cylinder's contents, because the search was not justified by any
exception to the warrant requirement.(8)
 In response, the state argued that the subsequent testing of the container's
contents did not constitute a search for constitutional purposes, because
Bettencourt first had observed the cylinder in "plain view" from
"a lawful vantage point."  According to the state, the cylinder's
blue discoloration -- combined with the cylinder's proximity to other items
used to manufacture controlled substances -- announced the cylinder's contents
as an unlawful substance justifying the test of the contents without a warrant.
The Court of Appeals disagreed and
reversed the trial court's judgment.  In doing so, the Court of Appeals
concluded that the test for whether a container "announces its
contents" depends solely on the container itself and not on the training
of the observer or the context in which the container is found.  The Court of
Appeals concluded that, because the cylinder did not indicate "to the
world" that the cylinder contained anhydrous ammonia, the container did
not, as a matter of law, "announce its contents":
"Although some chemists, some trained
police officers, and some farmers might perceive the blue coloration on a metal
cylinder as the functional equivalent of a label declaring 'Contents: Anhydrous
Ammonia,' those persons comprise only an extremely small segment of the
citizenry.  Had the cylinder been so labeled, Bettencourt could have relied on
his training and experience in determining whether the contents announced were
contraband.  However, because those contents were not announced 'to the world,'
and thus were not in plain view, opening the cylinder was an invasion of a
protected privacy interest, and Bettencourt was required to secure a warrant
before performing any confirmatory testing."
Heckathorne, 218 Or App at 291.
On review, the state again argues
that the cylinder "announced its contents" to the officer -- and
thereby extinguished defendants' privacy right in the cylinder's contents under
Article I, section 9 -- because the blue discoloration on the cylinder
announced "unequivocally" to the officer that the cylinder contained
anhydrous ammonia.  According to the state, a court should consider an officer's
training and experience in determining whether a defendant retains privacy
rights in a container, because the focus of Article I, section 9,
"necessarily must be on the individual observer, not on what the lay
public as a whole might recognize."  The state contends that, even if a container
announces its contents to only one person with training and experience, the
possessor has relinquished his or her privacy rights vis-à-vis that
observer.  That trained observation, the state contends, does not amount to a
search for constitutional purposes.(9)
The state bases its argument on two
cases that this court decided on the same day, State v. Owens, 302 Or
196, 729 P2d 524 (1986), and State v. Herbert, 302 Or 237, 729 P2d 547
(1986).  The state argues that, although this court concluded in Owens that
no privacy interest inhered in the contents of the defendant's transparent
container, the court also left open the possibility that an opaque container
could announce its contents in a similar fashion.  The state further argues
that Herbert extended the rule in Owens to allow the court to
consider police training and experience, as well as context, in considering
whether an opaque container announces its contents.  We turn to those
arguments.
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."
Article I, section 9, protects both possessory and privacy
interests in effects.  Owens, 302 Or at 206.  Under Article I, section
9, "warrantless * * * searches * * * are per se unreasonable unless
falling within one of the few 'specifically established and well-delineated
exceptions' to the warrant requirement."  State v. Davis, 295 Or
227, 237, 666 P2d 802 (1983) (quoting Katz v. United States, 389 US 347,
357, 88 S Ct 507, 19 L Ed 2d 576 (1967)).  To conduct a lawful search, Article
I, section 9, requires that the police have probable cause and either a judicially
authorized warrant or a justification under an exception to the warrant
requirement.  Privacy interests that are protected by Article I, section 9,
"commonly are circumscribed by the space in which they exist and, more
particularly, by the barriers to public entry (physical and sensory) that
define that private space."  State v. Smith, 327 Or 366, 373, 963
P2d 642 (1998).
In Owens, the police, while
conducting a search incident to arrest, validly seized a clear vial found in
the defendant's purse.  Id. at 199.  The police could see that the vial
contained white powder, which they believed to be a controlled substance.  The
police had the powder tested, without a warrant, to confirm that it was indeed
a controlled substance.  This court reasoned:
"When the police lawfully seize a container, they can
thoroughly examine the container's exterior without violating any privacy
interest of the owner or the person from whom the container was seized.  For
example, the police can observe, feel, smell, shake and weigh it.  Furthermore,
not all containers found by the police during a search merit the same
protection under Article I, section 9.  Some containers, those that by their
very nature announce their contents (such as by touch or smell) do not
support a cognizable privacy interest under Article I, section 9.  Transparent
containers (such as clear plastic baggies or pill bottles) announce their
contents.  The contents of transparent containers are visible virtually to
the same extent as if the contents had been discovered in 'plain view,' outside
the confines of any container.  Applying the doctrine of 'plain view' to
transparent containers, we hold that no cognizable privacy interest inheres in
their contents, and thus that transparent containers can be opened and their
contents seized.  No warrant is required for the opening and seizure of the
contents of transparent containers or containers that otherwise announce their
contents.  Under the Oregon Constitution, a lawful seizure of a transparent
container is a lawful seizure of its contents."
Owens, 302 Or at 206 (emphases added).  The court went
on to state that, where the police have probable cause to believe that a
transparent container contains a controlled substance, the extraction of the
substance to perform a confirmatory test does not infringe any privacy interest
protected by the Oregon Constitution.  Id. at 206-07.  The court further
acknowledged the possibility that, as with a transparent container, the
contents of some opaque containers could also be known to the same extent as if
they had been observed in plain view.  In summary, Owens holds that,
because the contents of a transparent container are in plain view, no privacy
interest exists in the contents of the container and the police may look at,
remove, and even test the contents of the container.  In other words, the
police may do so because the contents are just as apparent as if there were no
container.
In Herbert, 302 Or 237, this
court upheld a warrantless search of an opaque paperfold found on a defendant
who had been arrested for failure to appear.  The defendant asked if he could
get some identification out of his truck, but instead took the paperfold out of
his overalls and attempted to hide it in the truck, while attempting to distract
the officer.  The officer, however, observed all of the defendant's actions
and, reaching through the open truck door, picked up the paperfold and asked
the defendant, "What is this?"  Although the officer showed the
paperfold to defendant, defendant refused to respond.  The officer subsequently
took the paperfold and -- without a warrant -- opened it at the police station,
discovering white powder, which later tested positive for cocaine.
This court held that the nature of
the paperfold, the circumstances of its discovery, and the officer's training
and experience gave the officer probable cause to believe that the paperfold
contained a controlled substance.
"Some containers of illicit drugs may be so uniquely
associated with the storage and transportation of controlled substances that
their unique packaging alone might provide, to an officer with training and
experience in the area of drug detection, probable cause to believe they
contain a controlled substance.  Examples of such unique containers might be
balloons or tinfoil bundles. * * * In addition to the shape of the container,
other facts gave the officer probable cause to believe that the paperfold
contained a controlled substance. * * * When these additional facts are
considered together with the paperfold, there were sufficient facts to give the
officer probable cause to believe that the paperfold contained
contraband."
302 Or 242.  Because the officer had probable cause to
believe that the paperfold contained contraband, the officer could lawfully
seize it.  Id.  The Hebert court then went on to summarily hold
that, because the officer had probable cause to believe the paperfold contained
contraband, "he had the right to search the paperfold for
controlled substance[s] and, therefore, had the right to open [the] container." 
Id. at 243 (emphasis added).  The court did not state nor describe the
exception to the warrant requirement that would justify such a search; however,
it is evident that the search was justified as a search incident to arrest or,
given the defendant's furtive movements, as an exigency to avoid the
destruction of evidence.(10)
The foregoing description of Owens
and Herbert establishes two important principles:  (1) the contents
of a container may be revealed,(11)
not only visually, but also by the container's feel or smell, and, possibly, by
its taste or sound; and (2) individual expertise and training may provide the
knowledge that turns various sensory clues into probable cause.  The Court of
Appeals' contrary view on the latter point was error.
The same must be said with respect to
that court's ruling on the merits.  The Court of Appeals concentrated its
attention on the meaning of the blue discoloration on the fittings of the
cylinder:  Did that discoloration, or did it not, fairly give rise to the
inference that the cylinder contained anhydrous ammonia?  In our view, that
issue can be argued either way, and it has been.  We express no opinion on it,
however, because the record in this case contained other, decisive evidence.
As noted above, the police opened and
vented some of the contents of the cylinder.  Defendants do not in this court
challenge either the police possession of the cylinder or Studebaker's venting
of the cylinder -- they challenge only the later testing of the cylinder to confirm
the contents.  However, according to Bettencourt, Studebaker reported a strong
odor of ammonia when he vented the container.  In other words, when the
cylinder was vented, the contents of the cylinder, that is, the ammonia, became
discernable to Studebaker.  And, because the ammonia was exposed and
discernable (through the sense of smell), defendants no longer had a privacy
interest in the contents of the cylinder.  Thus, as in Owens, the use of
the Dräger device to perform a confirmatory test on the contents of the
cylinder did not infringe any privacy interest protected by the Oregon Constitution.
 Therefore, the trial court did not err in denying defendants' motion to suppress
evidence of the contents of the cylinder.  The Court of Appeals erred in ruling
to the contrary.
For the same reasons, once the
ammonia was plainly discernable, Studebaker's testing of the contents of the
cylinder did not violate defendants' Fourth Amendment rights.  See United
States v. Jacobsen, 466 US 109, 123-25, 104 S Ct 1652, 80 L Ed 2d 85 (1984)
(field test of substance for the presence of cocaine was not unlawful search or
seizure because test could reveal only whether substance was cocaine and thus
could not compromise any legitimate privacy interest).
The decision of the Court of Appeals is
reversed.  The judgments of the circuit court are affirmed.
1. Anhydrous ammonia is formed by the chemical
combination of nitrogen and hydrogen in the molar proportion of one part
nitrogen to three parts hydrogen, see ORS 561.750(1) (defining anhydrous
ammonia), and is commonly used as an agricultural fertilizer.
2. Anhydrous
ammonia is stored as a liquid under pressure.  However, it becomes a toxic gas
when released into the environment.  Pure anhydrous ammonia vapors can become
an explosion hazard when in a confined space.  
3. We
understand from the sequence described by Bettencourt that when Bettencourt
used the terms "vented it" and "shot it" he was describing
one act -- releasing some of the contents from the cylinder and that was when Studebaker
smelled the strong odor of ammonia.
4. Bettencourt
did not explain how the device worked.  From the record we surmise that
Bettencourt was referring to a Dräger gas detection device, which is an
electronic device that detects and tests combustible gases and vapors.
5. Article
I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution 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 * * *."
6. The
Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides, in part: 
"The right of the people to be secure in
their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures, shall not be violated * * *."
7. Defendants
made no argument on appeal regarding their convictions for criminal trespass. 
Thus, we affirm the trial court judgments as to those counts.
8. We
note that the only issue on review is whether the police unreasonably searched
the metal cylinder.  Although defendants contested the seizure of the
cylinder in the trial court, defendants did not advance that argument in the
Court of Appeals and do not in this court.  We therefore assume that the police
lawfully seized the metal cylinder.
9. Because
the cylinder announced its contents and thereby extinguished defendants'
privacy right in those contents, the state argues, testing the cylinder's
contents did not constitute a search under Article I, section 9, of the Oregon
Constitution.
10. The
state has not argued in this case that the officers' actions in testing the
contents of the cylinder were permissible as a search incident to arrest.
11. We
use the terms "may be revealed," as opposed to "may announce its
contents," because we believe that the latter phrase, while felicitous in
some respects, slightly skews the appropriate inquiry by adding an anthropomorphic
element.  It is not the container -- an inanimate object -- that
"announces" its contents.  Rather, it is the person who observes the
container who perceives the likely contents of the container by virtue
of sensory clues.  We encourage future litigants to concentrate on sensory
clues, without suggesting that the container somehow intended to present them.