Court Opinion

ID: 9853961
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:58:28.775128+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:24.495799
License: Public Domain

JOSEPH, C. J.,
dissenting.
I dissent.
The majority begins its analysis as if it were going to talk about the constitutional law of seizures and searches under Article I, section 9, and the Fourth Amendment. Without doing that, it segues to a discussion of whether there was probable cause to arrest defendant for carrying a concealed weapon under ORS 166.250. It uses that probable cause discussion about an arrest not then made to uphold the seizure of the bag, the search of the bag and the search of defendant’s *698person.1 Although the majority gets itself all confused, probable cause is at the heart of this case. However, the majority leads itself away from a discussion of the relationship between probable cause and warrantless searches and never does answer the appropriate questions.
I suspect that one of the majority’s problems is that it cannot quite bring itself to recognize the limits of the fact situation. The police arrived at the scene of a one-car automobile accident. Defendant was the only person connected with the car who was there when Officer Justus arrived. He was holding two bags, one in each hand. He voluntarily, without any request or compulsion by either of the officers present, put one of the bags on the ground and walked away from it toward the passenger side of the car. Although it is true that Justus thought it was a kind of gun bag, he did not testify that he had any fear, let alone any specific and articulable fact basis for fear, from defendant’s activities. Furthermore, and significantly, Justus did not testify that he suspected defendant of violating any part of ORS 166.250 before he lifted the bag and squeezed it. In short, nothing in this record supports a conclusion of probable cause for the officer to believe that defendant was committing a felony or a Class A misdemeanor. Moreover, even if probable cause did exist, there was no basis for the officer to seize and open the bag.
Even assuming that there was a basis for the officer to seize the bag, as he did when he picked it up, the majority does not explain the basis for his opening it. In the circumstances, one would think that, if it was properly seized, it was then in the officer’s possession and there was adequate time to get a warrant to search it. It cannot do to argue that the reason that Justus could open the bag is that he did not have sufficient information to get a warrant to search it. There is no basis in the evidence for a warrantless search.
The majority’s attempt to distinguish State v. Bates, 304 Or 519, 747 P2d 991 (1987), is wholly unpersuasive. I have already pointed out that Justus never claimed to have a “reasonable suspicion that defendant posed an immediate threat of serious physical injury to him or his fellow officer.” *699100 Or at 696. Moreover, the majority fails to identify what relationship there was between defendant and the officer at the time of the seizure and search. There is nothing in the record that would support a conclusion that defendant had been stopped within the meaning of ORS 131.625 when the bag was seized — or when it was searched. To be sure, the only category into which I can fairly fit the situation is “mere conversation” in the course of an automobile accident investigation.
The majority says that, “[w]hen Justus lifted the bag and squeezed it, he felt the guns” and that “[t]hat gave him probable cause * * * to arrest defendant for the offense of carrying a firearm concealed upon the person without a license * * * and to search the bag incident to that arrest.” 100 Or App at 696. Leaving aside the question of whether there was probable cause, I am unpersuaded that defendant could lawfully be charged with violating former ORS 166.250(l)(b); abetter case could be made for his having violated former ORS 166.250(1) (a). I am not persuaded that carrying a zippered bag with a gun in it is equivalent to carrying a firearm “upon” oneself. The majority needs to clarify just what offense the officers had probable cause to believe that defendant had committed.
Perhaps it is that last matter that needs to be discussed first.
Buttler, Graber and Edmonds, JJ., join in this dissent.

 The majority properly pays no attention to the state’s peculiar attempt to uphold what happened here as authorized by ORS 131.625, the stop-and-frisk statute.