Court Opinion

ID: 9551948
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:02:26.043375+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:25:08.190317
License: Public Domain

HOLMAN, J.,
specially concurring.
It is my opinion that that part of the statute permitting appeals by the state, ORS 138.060(3), was not intended by the legislature to be used for the purpose of deciding questions relative to discovery. As the second part of the majority opinion discloses, the only issue involved was whether the trial court was in error in deciding that the officers’ revolvers were subject to discovery. Suppression of the testimony of the police officers was used only as a sanction to enforce discovery. There were no questions concerning the propriety of the use of the officers’ testimony.
Such use of the appellate statute lends itself to the promotion of contrived interlocutory appeals by the trial court to test questions which relate to matters other than the suppression of evidence. Almost any pretrial question involved in a criminal case can be *184tested by the trial judge through an interlocutory appeal by the state as long as a sanction can be devised which includes the suppression of evidence. I do not believe this was the legislative purpose which caused the enactment of the statute.
O’CONNELL, C. J., joins in this opinion.