Court Opinion

ID: 9629420
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:42:30.832995+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:19.094990
License: Public Domain

BOTTLER, J.,
dissenting.
I dissent because I do not think the police officers had the right to enter defendant’s home without a warrant and without his consent. There is no question in this case that the officers did not stop at defendant’s house because of a parking violation. Rather, they were patrolling a "high crime area” and because, they said, 60% of all burglaries are committed at that time of the morning, they stoppéd because they suspected that defendant and his brother were burglarizing the house, rather than moving into it. They did not ask either the defendant or his brother for his driver’s license or the registration to the car; nor did they ask either man to move the car or issue a citation. Instead, their first questions, after asking the defendant to stop and talk, related to the stereo equipment.
In short, the parking violation was a pretext for stopping. In State v. Carter/Dawson, 34 Or App 21, 578 P2d 790, rev allowed 284 Or 521 (1978), a majority of the court upheld a pretext traffic stop, but limited the extent of the intrusion to matters related to the traffic reason for the stop. The court said:
"The constitutional and statutory law blends into a single rule: Traffic stops should be the minimum possible intrusion on Oregon motorists, and not an excuse to begin questioning, searching or investigating that is unrelated to the traffic reason for the stop.” 34 Or App at 32.
This case goes far beyond what we upheld in Carter-/Dawson. It can hardly be said that pursuing defendant into his house was the "minimum possible intrusion” for a stop objectively justified as one for a parking violation. If the officers had asked either man to move the car or suffer arrest, if, indeed, an arrest *105may be justified, perhaps the result would be different. But they did not do so because they were not concerned with a parking violation. The majority, without even mentioning Carter/Dawson, now holds that after a stop for pretended reasons anything goes if the slightest justification can be manufactured after the fact. With that I cannot agree.
Apparently, the majority is willing to escalate a pretext stop based upon what the officers characterized as a violation of a city ordinance, into a violation, tenuous at best, of a state statute authorizing the arrest of defendant after hot pursuit into his home. Even assuming that rationale may be justified in an appropriate case, the majority’s effort here is not persuasive — it is a house of cards.
First, the majority attempts to find a state statute which was violated, even though no such contention was made in either the trial court or in this court. Its effort is akin to one using a Gatling gun on a loose mount: many shots are fired, but no bulls-eye.
The majority relies on ORS 487.575, 487.580 and 487.630. ORS 487.575(1) provides:
"A person who stops, parks or leaves standing any vehicle, whether attended or unattended, upon a roadway outside a business or residence district, when it is practicable to stop, park or leave his vehicle standing off the roadway, commits the offense of unlawfully parking in a roadway.”
It should be noted that the car was not parked "upon a roadway,” but was parked in an alley, which is defined in ORS 487.005(1) as a street or highway primarily intended to provide access to the rear or side of the lots or buildings in urban areas and not intended for through vehicular traffic. Second, the car was not parked "outside a business or residence district.” Third, there is no showing that it was "practicable to stop, park or leave his vehicle standing off the roadway.”
*106Nor do I find anything in ORS 487.580 to support the majority position. In fact, subsection (3)(b) of that section provides:
"(3) A driver shall not park a vehicle except momentarily for the purpose of and while actually engaged in loading or unloading property or passengers:
Jj: *
"(b) At any place where official signs prohibit parking.”
Even assuming that there was an "official sign,” this subsection appears to permit what the defendant and his brother were doing in this case.
We cannot tell from this record whether ORS 487.6301 was violated because it does not tell us whether it was the car’s open door which barred passage of another car, or whether the space occupied by the parked car precluded passage. The former would be a violation, the latter would not.
Assuming that a state statute was violated, the proposition that the officers had probable cause to believe defendant was the driver of the car, and therefore was subject to arrest, is also unpersuasive. What the police officers observed initially was the defendant and his brother standing beside the car. The defendant was wearing a red and black robe, pants and pink curlers in his hair covered by a hairnet; his brother was wearing street clothes. Subsequently, the police officers saw the defendant carrying things from *107the car into the house with his brother remaining by the car. It does not seem to me that this observation amounted to a "well-warranted suspicion” justifying a reasonable man in the belief that the defendant was the driver of the car.
I would reverse the trial court’s denial of the motion to suppress the evidence seized after the officers’ entry into the defendant’s home, but I would remand the case for findings (see State v. Addicks, 28 Or App 663, 560 P2d 1095 (1977)) on whether the fingerprint evidence would have been inevitably discovered from an independent source. See State v. Paz, 31 Or App 851, 572 P2d 1036 (1977), rev den282 Or 189 (1978). There was testimony that might support a finding that the fingerprint comparison involved here would inevitably have been made regardless of the arrest. See State v. Addicks, supra.

ORS 487.630 provides:
"(1) A person commits the offense of unlawful opening or closing vehicle door if he opens the door of a vehicle on the side available to moving traffic, except:
"(a) When it is reasonably safe to do so; and
"(b) When it can be done without interfering with the movement of traffic.
"(2) A person shall not leave a door open on the side of a vehicle available to moving traffic for a period of time longer than necessary to load or unload passengers.
"(3) Unlawful opening or closing vehicle door or leaving vehicle door open is a Class D traffic infraction.”