Court Opinion

ID: 9572817
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:44:53.844794+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:34:25.635998
License: Public Domain

WARDEN, J.,
dissenting.
When the sheriffs deputy searched the envelopes in defendant’s briefcase — the contents of which are the only evidence in dispute — defendant was actively trying to retrieve the lost briefcase and its contents. When he learned that the sheriff had the briefcase, he merely halted his search and maintained a prudent silence. Yet the majority holds that the search did not violate his rights, because he had abandoned all *450interest in the briefcase. A respect for reality causes me to dissent.
The majority does not assert that the search of the envelopes was legal if defendant retained any rights in them, and it apparently measures those rights by the common law of property ownership.1 On that basis, the search violated defendant’s rights.
As the owner of the envelopes, defendant had a property interest and a privacy interest in them. State v. Owens, 302 Or 196, 206, 729 P2d 524 (1986). The deputies’ action in seizing and opening the envelopes violated both of those interests. To hold that defendant abandoned the envelopes and may not thereafter challenge that action requires a determination that he abandoned his ownership of them.
To prove that defendant abandoned his ownership of the envelopes, the state had to show that he voluntarily relinquished his possession with the intent of terminating his ownership without vesting ownership in any other person. Dober v. Ukase Investment Co., 139 Or 626, 629, 10 P2d 356 (1932); Rich v. Runyon, 52 Or App 107, 112-113, 627 P2d 1265 (1981). An act of abandonment must be “some clear and unmistakable affirmative act or series of acts indicating a purpose to repudiate ownership, or inconsistent with any further claim of title or ownership. In other words, an unequivocal and decisive act or acts of relinquishment must be evident.” 1 CJS “Abandonment,” § 6. (Footnotes omitted.)
The majority does not claim that defendant had made any affirmative act of abandonment before the deputies’ search. The facts that the majority recites show the opposite. Thus the search violated defendant’s rights at the time it occurred. Even if it can be said that defendant later abandoned his ownership, the majority gives no basis for holding that he thereby lost his right to challenge the previous illegal search, and I can think of none.
In any case, defendant’s actions did not constitute an abandonment. There was no affirmative act of repudiation or *451relinquishment of ownership in what he did. Once he learned that the police had the briefcase and knew its contents, his choices were to claim his property, at the probable cost of facing criminal charges, or to do nothing. “We cannot equate an unwillingness to invite a criminal prosecution with a voluntary abandonment of any interest * * Walter v. United States, 447 US 649, 658 n 11, 100 S Ct 2395, 65 L Ed 2d 410 (1980) (opinion of Stevens, J.). For all practical purposes, his decision to do nothing was compelled.
Defendant also did not intend to abandon the briefcase. “To equate a passive failure to claim potentially incriminating evidence with an affirmative abandonment of property would be to twist both logic and experience in a most uncomfortable knot.” State v. Joyner, 66 Hawaii 543, 545, 669 P2d 152 (1983). Defendant did not throw the briefcase away, see Hester v. United States, 265 US 57, 44 S Ct 445, 68 L Ed 2d 898 (1924), nor did he dispose of it as trash. See Abel v. United States, 362 US 217, 80 S Ct 683, 4 L Ed 2d 668 (1960); State v. Purvis, 249 Or 404, 438 P2d 1002 (1968). He simply lost it. Nothing in his later actions showed an intent to abandon it. Canceling the newspaper advertisement and failing to respond to stories about the finding of the briefcase were simply prudent steps to take in the circumstances; they were not acts which unequivocally show an intent to abandon the briefcase, and there is no basis for an inference that he had that intent. The parties stipulated that he would testify that he did not. Even if we assume that the trial court implicitly found that defendant abandoned his property, there is no evidence in the record to support that finding.
Under the majority’s reasoning, all the police need to do to avoid the consequences of an illegal search of unattached property, such as baggage or parcels in transit, is to make a public announcement of what they have done and of where the owner can find the illegally searched goods. When the owner, to no one’s surprise, does not claim the property, the prosecution can tell the trial court that the owner has abandoned it; under today’s decision, the court must accept that as fact. I cannot agree to giving so little meaning to rights which the constitution guarantees.
Therefore, I dissent.

 I say “apparently,” because the majority cites, but does not clearly rely upon, State v. Green, 44 Or App 253, 605 P2d 746 (1980), a case decided under the Fourth Amendment, not under Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution. See State v. Belcher, 89 Or App 401, 404, 749 P2d 591 (1988), (Warden, J., dissenting).