Opinion ID: 835088
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Petitions for ReviewParties' Arguments

Text: The state petitioned for review in both cases. On review, the state argues that the Court of Appeals refused to engage in what is necessarily a fact-specific inquiry into the reasonableness of the totality of [each] encounter. The state contends that, instead, the Court of Appeals adopted a bright-line rule that will require police officers to follow a predetermined list of investigative steps, thereby imposing an artificial and unnecessary restriction on officers that is in no manner compelled by the protection against unreasonable seizures set out in Article I, section 9. The state concedes that the questioning here was unrelated to the traffic violations for which defendants were stopped and that the officers lacked reasonable suspicion to act on what they saw. However, the state asserts that the questions that the officers asked were of the same variety that this court has held to be permissible in officer-citizen encounters, without amounting to seizures under Article I, section 9. See State v. Holmes, 311 Or. 400, 410, 813 P.2d 28 (1991) ([L]aw enforcement officers remain free to approach persons on the street or in public places, seek their cooperation or assistance, request or impart information, or question them without being called upon to articulate a certain level of suspicion in justification if a particular encounter proves fruitful.). The state also asserts that this court already has rejected the premise that an officer may never ask questions unrelated to the stop itself, citing State v. Amaya, 336 Or. 616, 626, 89 P.3d 1163 (2004) (To the extent that defendant argues that every question by an officer that is unrelated to the reason for a valid traffic stop violates Article I, section 9, unless the question is based on reasonable suspicion, we reject defendant's argument. (emphasis in original)). The state acknowledges that, in the context of a lawful traffic stop, the police will have stopped the motorist to question him or her about a traffic violation. Therefore, the state argues, the question becomes whether an officer is entitled to ask questions, including seeking consent to search, without effecting an unreasonable seizure under Article I, section 9. Focusing on the scope and length of the questioning at issue, the state proposes a rule that police questioning that is unrelated to a traffic stop, or a request for consent to search during a lawful traffic stop, will not constitute an unconstitutional seizure if that questioning creates only a de minimis delay during an otherwise lawful stop. That determination, the state argues, involves a fact-specific inquiry into the totality of the circumstances that can take into account the many factors that contribute to the determination [of] whether any given circumstance amounts to an unreasonable seizure. Applying its proposed rule here, the state asserts that, in Rodgers, Van Arsdall's questions and request to search defendant's vehicle did not constitute an unreasonable seizure under Article I, section 9, because Van Arsdall posed the same kinds of questions to defendant during the course of the lawful traffic stop that he could have posed to defendant had he approached him on the street. The two questions that Van Arsdall asked about the blue liquid and the white sack took only a few moments and caused only a de minimis delay. Thus, the state argues, the questions did not render the traffic stop unreasonable in either its length or scope. Likewise, the state argues that, in Kirkeby, the officer's single question about whether defendant had any weapons, followed by a request for consent to conduct a patdown and then a search, did not constitute an unreasonable seizure, because the exchange took only about four to five minutes and the questions could have been asked of any person walking down the street. In response, defendants assert that the traffic stop itself is a seizure for constitutional purposes. Defendants contrast mere conversation between an officer and a person on the streetwho freely may end the interaction and walk awaywith a traffic stop, where the motorist is legally obligated to stop at an officer's direction, must interact with and respond to officer-initiated inquiries, is not free to end the encounter, and may not leave without the officer's consent. Therefore, defendants argue, Article I, section 9, limits an officer to investigatory questions about the vehicle code violation for which a driver is stopped, unless the officer develops reasonable suspicion or probable cause to believe that the driver has committed, is attempting to commit, or is committing a crime. [2] Defendants argue that the state's proposed rule, which focuses only on the temporal duration of a stop, is unworkable, because too many variables arise in the traffic stop context. For example, defendants argue that traffic stops have no standard length: an experienced officer would be more efficient than an inexperienced officer, while a stop for a more serious traffic infraction could take longer than a stop for a minor infraction.