Opinion ID: 834828
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: application of exigency exception

Text: We turn to the task of applying that meaning to the facts in this case. The question, specifically, is whether the police officers who arranged for the interception and recording of Maynard's hotel room conversation with defendants were excused from obtaining an ex parte order as described in ORS 133.726 because there was some exigency that made it unreasonable to do so-a circumstance requiring immediate or swift action to avert threatened injury to person or property, loss of evidence, escape of a suspect, or the like. At the hearing on defendants' motion to suppress, the state's theory was that an exigency was created by concerns that defendants were disposing of the stolen property and by an asserted threat that defendants posed to Maynard. Bethers testimony reflected that theory. He testified about his understanding that defendants already had disposed of some of the stolen property and that they were pressuring Maynard to return a certain item of the stolen property to them. The state suggested, through Bethers' testimony, that, if the ordinary practices of the Salem Police Department were followed, the process of obtaining an ex parte order under ORS 133.726 would have taken four hours, and would have been so time consuming that it would have prevented the police from carrying out the sting operation within an appropriate time frame, i.e., as soon as possible. In their cross-examination of Bethers and Abel, defendants brought out facts that, in defendants' view, belied the existence of an exigency: that Abel and Bethers were considering some kind of audio or video sting operation, albeit in broad terms, on Friday night; that Abel believed that he had probable cause to arrest defendants on Friday night; that Bethers had not immediately met with Maynard after receiving her 11:00 a.m. phone call; that, at the time Bethers decided to proceed with the sting operation without a court order, Maynard was safe from any threat that defendants might pose; and that Bethers controlled the timing of the sting operation and could have applied for a court order on Saturday afternoon or evening and then held off on the operation until a court order issuedduring the night or even the next day. Although Bethers admitted the last point, he insisted that (1) a nighttime operation would have been unsuccessful because defendants likely would not have been willing to be out on the streets in the middle of the night; and (2) leaving the operation until the next day was undesirable because the idea was to progress with the investigation as soon as possible, both to    recover the stolen property and get the suspects in custody in order to stop the threat that we had to Ms. Maynard. The last admission by Bethers is, in our view, crucial. Even if we accept as true all of the other factual underpinnings of the state's positionthat, until late Saturday afternoon, the police lacked probable cause and a clear plan of action; that, until that time, they had no reason to apply for an ex parte order and no ability to obtain one; and that, if they had applied for an order on Saturday evening, it would not have issued until some time in the middle of the night the fact remains that the only negative consequences of waiting for a court order that Bethers was able to identify was that the investigation would not progress    as soon as possible and that, as a result, defendants might be able to continue to sell the stolen property and pressure Maynard for another day. But those potential consequences of waiting for a court order do not amount an exigency within the meaning of ORS 133.726(7)(b). As discussed above, an exigency for purposes of that statute must involve something akin to the kind of circumstances that would qualify as exigent circumstances under Article I, section 9, or the Fourth Amendmentcircumstances that require swift action to prevent harm to persons or property, escape of a suspect, destruction of evidence, or the like. The term does not encompass circumstances like those Bethers describeddefendants' continuing involvement in undesirable activities that the police reasonably would wish to stop as soon as possible, but that do not constitute an immediate threat to persons, property, or law enforcement efforts. Furthermore, even if we were to accept Detective Bethers' preference for winding up the investigation that night or as soon as possible as a potential exigency, the evidence presented in the suppression hearing shows that Bethers reasonably could have obtained the required court order within the preferred time frame. According to Bethers own testimony, the police had the necessary probable cause to obtain a court order under ORS 133.726 by 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, when Maynard met with Bethers and turned over the laptop that was in her possession to him. [7] It would appear, moreover, that Bethers had a definite plan for recording a conversation between defendants and Maynard by 6:30 p.m. on Saturday evening at the latest, and probably before that: By 6:45 p.m., other police officers were receiving calls to report to the police station to assist in the operation that Bethers had planned. Had Bethers applied for a court order under ORS 133.726 at 6:30 p.m., he could have proceeded with his preparations with the expectation that he would have an order in hand by 10:30 p.m. (using Bethers's own four-hour estimate for obtaining such an order). Although it is true that Bethers was reluctant to postpone the operation any longer than he did because he believed that defendants would not be likely to want to be out on the street at midnight, 10:30 p.m. is not midnight (and was only about an hour later than the time that defendants actually arrived at Maynard's hotel room). All in all, it would seem that Bethers reasonably could have obtained a court order within the time frame that the state contends for, i.e., that night or as soon as possible. We conclude that the circumstances at the time that Bethers decided to go forward with the monitoring operation were not, in the words of ORS 133.726(7)(b), of such exigency that it would be unreasonable to obtain a court order. It follows that the recording of defendants' conversation with Maynard was obtained in violation of ORS 133.726 and ORS 165.540(1)(c), and was inadmissible in the criminal proceedings against defendants under ORS 41.910(1). The trial court erred in denying defendants' motion to suppress the recording and transcript of the conversation under ORS 133.736(1). Having established that the trial court erred, we must determine whether the trial court's judgment should be affirmed nevertheless because the error was harmless. Or. Const., Art. VII (Amended), § 3 (if Supreme Court is of the opinion that the judgment was such as should have been rendered in the case, such judgment shall be affirmed, notwithstanding any error committed during the trial). That determination involves a single question: Is there little likelihood that the particular error affected the verdict? State v. Davis, 336 Or. 19, 32, 77 P.3d 1111 (2003). We do not weigh the evidence and seek to determine whether, disregarding the error, the defendant nevertheless probably would have been found guilty. Id. The state contends that admission of the recorded hotel conversation was harmless under that standard. It argues that the recording contains nothing that directly undermines defendants' theory of the case (that defendants were not involved in the burglary). The state acknowledges that the recording might serve to generally corroborate Maynard's testimony against defendants, but it argues that its value for that purpose was relatively low because Maynard's testimony was corroborated by other evidence. [8] We disagree with the state's assessment of the conversation. As we already have observed, the intercepted conversation generally was about Maynard's boyfriend, Alcaraz, and defendants' belief that he had taken a computer monitor that belonged to them, and that, by inference, defendants had stolen. First, when defendants and Maynard referred to the monitorand to a TV, a tower, all that shit, stolen goods, and merchandise from that store that apparently at one point were at Maynard's apartmentit is possible to infer that they were talking about items that someone had stolen from Aaron's. When defendant Miskell spoke of my monitor, and defendant Sinibaldi spoke of Alcaraz stealing the monitor, it also is possible to infer that they felt that they had a right to the items that was superior to Maynard's and Alcaraz's. Finally, defendants made a number of statements that could suggest that defendants' superior rights derived from the fact that they were the primary actors in the burglary and that Maynard and Alcaraz merely assisted. After voicing his suspicion about Alcaraz taking one of the computers, defendant Miskell stated: [H]ey, you don't rip me off, especially when I hook you up with what we do. We hooked you guys up, you know what I mean. Later, Miskell suggested that he would have given Alcaraz some money if he had asked because you know what I'm saying, you helped me out, here, I'll return the favor. In short, while it is true that the conversation did not involve any direct discussion of the burglary or defendants' role in it, it contains statements that, taken together, would support an inference that defendants not only had been involved in the burglary, but had been the primary actors in it. Moreover, the value of the recorded conversation as corroboration of Maynard's testimony is significantly greater than the state perceives. Maynard had been forced to acknowledge in her testimony that she had offered her assistance to the police under circumstances that suggested that her primary interest was in currying favor, that she initially had lied to the police about her involvement in the burglary, and that, in fact, she had been an accomplice in the burglary. In view of Maynard's admissions, the jury was entitled to doubt both her motives and her credibility, and to be particularly skeptical of the parts of her story that minimized her own involvement in the burglary visàvis that of defendants. Although the state presented other evidence that corroborated aspects of Maynard's story (such as Hicks's friend's testimony that defendant and the stolen goods were in Maynard's apartment the night after the burglary, and a police officer's testimony that certain of the stolen items were recovered from the person who, according to Maynard, had purchased them), the recorded conversation was the only evidence presented that could be viewed as corroborating Maynard's assertion that defendants were the primary actors in the burglary. [9] To the extent that Maynard's obvious motive to deflect attention from her own involvement in the burglary might cause the jury to doubt that specific contention, the recorded conversation might serve as an antidote to those doubts. And the antidote, i.e., the recorded conversation, would be particularly damaging to defendants because it contained their own vivid and unguarded statements (as opposed to the more detached statements of a third party). The recorded conversation thus was not merely cumulative of other evidence (except the testimony of Maynard, an accomplice whom the jury had reason to disbelieve) but it also went to a key element of the state's case, i.e., defendants' responsibility for the Aaron's burglary, as opposed to some lesser involvement with the stolen property. [10] For the foregoing reasons, we cannot conclude that there was little likelihood that the admission of the recorded conversation affected the verdicts in defendants' cases. It follows that the error in admitting the recording was not harmless, and that the judgments entered on the verdicts should be reversed. The decision of the Court of Appeals and the judgment of the circuit court are reversed, and the case is remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings.