Court Opinion

ID: 9630722
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:18:26.107203+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:42.277758
License: Public Domain

JOSEPH, C. J.,
dissenting.
The remarkable concession by defendant that his stop by the agents was lawful under ORS 131.615 casts this case with a strange light, for the validity of the stop would otherwise be doubtful. On that concession, the majority builds a result that violates both the statute and the state and federal constitutions. The facts do not describe a stop for “a reasonable inquiry.” They describe a full custody arrest without probable cause,1 a search that would be valid if this were a State of New York v. Belton, 453 US 454, 101 S Ct 2860, 69 L Ed 2d 768 (1981), case (which it was not) and a seizure and opening of a “package” after the officers’ protection had been fully secured. If the applicable test were, as I believe it should be, whether the officers’ conduct was reasonable in all the circumstances, the majority’s result would be correct. That is not (yet) the test, and the majority is wrong.
*85Reliance on loose language in State v. Miller, 45 Or App 407, 410-11, 608 P2d 595, rev den 289 Or 275 (1980) is misplaced. In the first place, that case says that the intrusion that led to the discovery of marijuana was not a search. In the second place, the issue was treated as being only the lawfulness of the seizure. In the third place, the whole foundation of the case is that everything that happened was in the course of a lawful arrest. Whatever tbe validity of that decision, it provides no support for the majority. State v. Riley, 240 Or 521, 402 P2d 741 (1965), a pre- Terry case, is no help either; not only does it suffer from old age, it is an arrest case. As for Hill v. State, 275 Ark 71, 628 SW2d 284 (1982), I wish Arkansas well in sustaining that one in the Supreme Court of the United States.
I would hold that the original intrusion in the car was unlawful, even though reasonable. I would not reach the question of the opening of the gun case. Therefore, I dissent.

 Although Davis was a robbery suspect, I do not find in the record support for the majority’s statement that the officers “reasonably suspected [defendant] had been involved in an armed robbery.”