Opinion ID: 1175765
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Heading: the oregon automobile exception

Text: The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the parallel but independent guarantee of personal privacy of Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution, have long been interpreted to require the impartial approval of a judicial officer before the undertaking of most searches. The warrant requirement of these provisions may be dispensed with in only a few specifically established and well-delineated circumstances. The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution 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. 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 searched, and the person or thing to be seized. As we said in State v. Quinn, 290 Or. 383, 390-91, 623 P.2d 630 (1981): Two fundamental principles flow from these constitutional provisions: First, all persons are to be free from unreasonable governmental searches and seizures of their persons and property. Second, as a means of protecting that freedom, the decision to search is to be made by a disinterested branch of government, the judiciary, rather than the branch which performs the search and seizure, the executive branch. Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 US 443, 91 S Ct 2022, 29 L Ed 2d 564 (1971). The requirement that there be preliminary judicial authorization for any official search or seizure is not absolute. The exigent circumstances doctrine recognizes that what is practical may also be reasonable. Therefore, as one example, an automobile, which is mobile by its very nature, may be searched and seized without a warrant if there is probable cause to believe that it contains fruit, instrumentalities or evidence of crime and if there are also exigent circumstances which make it impracticable to obtain a warrant. This exception arises from `practical necessity,' State v. Greene, 285 Or 337, 591 P2d 1362 (1979).    This case presents for us the heretofore unanswered question: Is there an automobile exception to the warrant requirement of Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution? We hold that there is such an exception, provided (1) that the automobile is mobile at the time it is stopped by police or other governmental authority, and (2) that probable cause exists for the search of the vehicle. By adopting such a position, we align ourselves with the traditional federal automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement as set forth in the seminal case of Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925), and its progeny. In doing so, we wish to make clear that we are deciding this case independent of federal law; we decide this case under the Oregon Constitution and not the federal constitution. We cite the United States Supreme Court decisions only because we believe they are persuasive, not because they are precedent for this court in interpreting the Oregon Constitution. In 1925, the United States Supreme Court in Carroll v. United States, supra , held that because of its mobility an automobile that is stopped on the highway may be searched without a warrant when police officers have probable cause to believe that it contains contraband. After surveying the law from the time of the adoption of the Fourth Amendment onward, the Court held that automobiles and other conveyances may be searched without a warrant in circumstances that would not justify the search without a warrant of a house or an office, provided that there is probable cause to believe that the automobile contains articles that the officers are entitled to seize. The Court expressed its holding as follows: We have made a somewhat extended reference to these statutes to show that the guaranty of freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures by the Fourth Amendment has been construed, practically since the beginning of the Government, as recognizing a necessary difference between a search of a store, dwelling house or other structure in respect of which a proper official warrant readily may be obtained, and a search of a ship, motor boat, wagon or automobile, for contraband goods, where it is not practicable to secure a warrant because the vehicle can be quickly moved out of the locality or jurisdiction in which the warrant must be sought. Having thus established that contraband goods concealed and illegally transported in an automobile or other vehicle may be searched for without a warrant, we come now to consider under what circumstances such search may be made.    [T]hose lawfully within the country, entitled to use the public highways, have a right to free passage without interruption or search unless there is known to a competent official authorized to search, probable cause for believing that their vehicles are carrying contraband or illegal merchandise.          The measure of legality of such a seizure is, therefore, that the seizing officer shall have reasonable or probable cause for believing that the automobile which he stops and seizes has contraband liquor therein which is being illegally transported. 267 U.S. at 153-54, 155-56, 45 S.Ct. at 285-86, 286. In United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 102 S.Ct. 2157, 72 L.Ed.2d 572 (1982), Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the opinion for the Court, which stated a rule that police officers who lawfully stopped a vehicle, having probable cause to believe that contraband is located or concealed somewhere therein, may conduct a warrantless search of the vehicle as thoroughly as that which a magistrate could authorize by warrant. The Court stated that [i]f probable cause justifies the search of a lawfully stopped vehicle, it justifies a search of every part of the vehicle and its contents that may conceal the object of the search. 456 U.S. at 825, 102 S.Ct. at 2173. We agree with the proposition that if police have probable cause to believe that a person's automobile, which is mobile when stopped by police, contains contraband or crime evidence, the privacy rights of our citizens are subjected to no greater governmental intrusion if the police are authorized to conduct an immediate on-the-scene search of the vehicle than to seize the vehicle and hold it until a warrant is obtained. The police ticket to admission into a stopped mobile vehicle is probable cause. The test is whether a magistrate could issue a constitutionally sound search warrant based on the probable cause articulated by the officers. Here, if the officers had made sworn statements to a magistrate that they had reliable information from a credible informant that this defendant always carried a gun on his person or in a black bag in the trunk of his car, a warrant issued pursuant to such an affidavit would authorize a constitutionally valid seizure of the automobile and the search of the trunk. In explaining the nature of the exigency required to satisfy Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution, we emphasize that the key to the automobile exception is that the automobile need be mobile at the time it is lawfully stopped. No exigent circumstances other than the mobility of the stopped vehicle need be demonstrated. The California Supreme Court has noted that a variety of factors may demonstrate a particular exigency supporting an immediate search, including the lateness of the hour, the remote location of the car, and the comparative number of police and suspects present on the scene. But that court specially held that none of these circumstances is essential to establish exigency to sustain the validity of the seizure of a lawfully stopped vehicle or its immediate search without a warrant. Mobility of the vehicle at the time of the stop, by itself, creates the exigency. See People v. Cook, 13 Cal.3d 663, 119 Cal.Rptr. 500, 532 P.2d 148 (1975); Wimberly v. Superior Court, 16 Cal.3d 557, 128 Cal.Rptr. 641, 547 P.2d 417 (1976); and People v. Chavers, 33 Cal.3d 462, 189 Cal.Rptr. 169, 658 P.2d 96 (1983). We are convinced that adoption of a  per se exigency rule is a sound approach which provides the clearest guidelines for police in conducting automobile searches. Exigencies should not be determined on a case-by-case basis. Police need clear guidelines by which they can gauge and regulate their conduct rather than trying to follow a complex set of rules dependent upon particular facts regarding the time, location and manner of highway stops. Accordingly, we join the federal courts and many other state courts, [5] and hold that probable cause to believe that a lawfully stopped automobile which was mobile at the time of the stop contains contraband or crime evidence justifies an immediate warrantless search of the entire automobile for the object of the search, despite the absence of any additional exigent circumstances. In State v. Quinn, supra, 290 Or. at 391, 623 P.2d 630, this court stated that the essential mobility of an automobile is not necessarily sufficient in itself to dispense with the necessity of a warrant for its seizure, citing State v. Fondren, 285 Or. 361, 591 P.2d 1374, cert den 444 U.S. 834, 100 S.Ct. 66, 62 L.Ed.2d 44 (1979) (unoccupied parked car at defendant's place of employment). That statement was unnecessary in Quinn because the court found that the officer had additional articulable reasons for prompt action in that the car was partially blocking traffic and that it appeared to contain stolen property which the police were obliged to recover and restore to the owner. The court found that these were sufficient exigent circumstances to justify the officer's decision to seize the car without a warrant. In addition, the citation for that statement was to State v. Fondren, supra , which did not involve the stop of a mobile automobile but involved the search of a parked car. We reject the language that anything in addition to the mobility of an automobile at the time it is lawfully stopped is required to create exigency under the automobile exception as defined in this case. We are not confronted in this case with the search of a vehicle that is not mobile and has not just been lawfully stopped by a police officer. We, therefore, do not address in this opinion whether a warrant for the search and seizure of a parked or impounded automobile is required. In the case at bar, the trial judge recognized that the mobility of the vehicle alone created the exigent circumstances necessary to satisfy Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution, and he properly disregarded that the defendant was under arrest and in police custody and that the car was under police control when the search was conducted. As previously mentioned, under the automobile mobility test it does not matter whether the passenger could have taken over the custody of the car (which he eventually did), whether the police had adequate personnel to back-up the arrest, whether a tow truck was available, whether a magistrate was available by telephone or otherwise, [6] or whether a threatening crowd gathered, etc. All the trial judge needed to find was what he did find: (1) the car was mobile at the time it was stopped by the police; and (2) the police had probable cause to believe that the car contained contraband or crime evidence. As we said in State v. Greene, supra , and State v. Quinn, supra , we agree with the reasoning of the United States Supreme Court that for constitutional purposes no difference exists between, on the one hand, seizing and holding a car before presenting the probable cause issue to a magistrate and, on the other hand, carrying out an immediate search without a warrant. Given probable cause to search, either course is reasonable under the Oregon Constitution. Finally, we hold that the scope of the warrantless search of the automobile was reasonable. As stated in Ross, the scope of a warrantless search is defined by    the object of the search and the places in which there is probable cause to believe that it may be found. Just as probable cause to believe that a stolen lawnmower may be found in a garage will not support a warrant to search an upstairs bedroom, probable cause to believe that undocumented aliens are being transported in a van will not justify a warrantless search of a suitcase. Probable cause to believe that a container placed in the trunk of a taxi contains contraband or evidence does not justify a search of the entire cab. 456 U.S. at 824, 102 S.Ct. at 2172. Thus, in this case since there was probable cause to believe that the gun was in the black purse in the trunk of the car, the scope of the search and seizure of the gun was reasonable. The search and seizure in this case also met federal constitutional standards. United States v. Ross, supra . The Court of Appeals is reversed and the trial court judgment is reinstated.