Court Opinion

ID: 9532901
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:26:04.250895+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:52.010160
License: Public Domain

HASELTON, J.,
concurring.
I agree with the majority that the officer’s discovery of the marijuana plants fell within the emergency aid doctrine exception. However, I believe that the “true emergency” terminology employed in State v. Follett, 115 Or App 672,840 P2d 1298 (1992), rev den 317 Or 163 (1993), and subsequent decisions is confusing and, ultimately, unnecessary. Accordingly, I would expressly disavow and discard that language.
The emergency aid doctrine is triggered when (1) law enforcement personnel become aware of circumstances that would lead a reasonably objective person to believe that an emergency exists; and (2) those circumstances do, in fact, exist. Thus, if an officer is reliably informed that there is a man with a rifle in an urban neighborhood and a *255reasonable person would believe that those circumstances required immediate police action, the emergency aid doctrine is triggered if, in fact, there is an armed man. That is so, regardless of whether the armed man is actually a fleeing criminal, an undercover officer, or a duck hunter waiting for a ride. If, however, there is no armed man, or if the man is in an area where being armed would not reasonably be viewed as constituting an emergency — for example, Sweet Home on Opening Day — the doctrine would not apply.
The vice of the “true emergency” terminology flows from “true.” Metaphysics aside, “true” is innately ambiguous. In this context, “true emergency” could mean either: (1) actually existing “circumstances present grounds for an officer to reasonably believe that immediate police action is required,” 151 Or App at 252; or (2) the totality of actually existing circumstances, whether known or unknown to the officer, do, in fact, require immediate police action.
I agree with the majority that the former is the proper test. Nothing in Follett or in the authority antedating and underlying our holding there suggests otherwise. See, e.g., State v. Bridewell, 306 Or 231, 759 P2d 1054 (1988); State v. Davis, 295 Or 227, 666 P2d 802 (1983). See also State v. Jones, 45 Or App 617, 608 P2d 1220, rev den 289 Or 337 (1980). However, it is undeniable that the language of “truth” — implying reference to some objective, “omniscient” reality — is reasonably susceptible of the second reading. As the trial court here observed:
“I can’t find any meaning in the [second Follett] factor unless it is the hindsight, which is to say, if police officers have reasonable grounds to think this is what is going on, God bless them, go ahead and do whatever you need to do to look. But if it turns out that there was no emergency, then this doctrine applies and you can’t use any evidence of other criminal activity that you found as a result of going where you went.”
Folletts “true emergency” terminology is merely a label for a substantive inquiry: Did the circumstances that gave rise to a reasonable belief that immediate police action was required actually exist? Continued reference to that *256label only serves to confuse the analysis. We should jettison the label.