Court Opinion

ID: 9795703
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:36:39.459954+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:34:01.268793
License: Public Domain

*29BREWER, C. J.,
concurring.
I agree with the majority’s analysis of this case with respect to defendant’s first encounter with the police officers, and I agree with its conclusion that this case should be remanded for a determination whether defendant’s second encounter with the police constituted an unlawful stop. I respectfully disagree, though, with portions of its analysis concerning the second encounter.
I take primary issue with the majority’s conclusion that the Supreme Court’s decision in State v. Hall, 339 Or 7, 115 P3d 908 (2005), effected a signal change in the jurisprudence pertaining to whether police-citizen encounters constitute unlawful stops under Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution. This court, like the Supreme Court, unanimously concluded in Hall that the encounter in that case amounted to an unlawful stop in the absence of reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. In fact, this court’s treatment of that issue was entirely consistent with the Supreme Court’s analysis. Compare 183 Or App 48, 62, 50 P3d 1258 (2002), with 339 Or at 16-19. Nor have this court’s unlawful stop cases decided before Hall necessarily become counterfeit in the wake of that decision. To the contrary, our previous unlawful stop decisions, which, together with earlier Supreme Court decisions, formed the foundation for this court’s decision in Hall, generally are consistent with the Supreme Court’s decision in Hall. See, e.g., State v. Smith, 73 Or App 287, 292, 698 P2d 973 (1985) (holding that “the use of defendant’s identification to check for arrest warrants constituted a show of authority that would lead a reasonable citizen in defendant’s circumstances to believe that he was not free to leave unless the warrant check came back clear[,]” even when the actual identification itself had been returned to the defendant).
Which brings me to State ex rel Juv. Dept. v. Fikes, 116 Or App 618, 842 P2d 807 (1992), a case over which the majority and dissenting opinions sharply divide. Unlike the majority, I do not believe that Fikes necessarily was wrong when decided or that it is wrong in light of Hall. Fikes, consistently with the Supreme Court’s decision in State v. *30Holmes, 311 Or 400, 410, 813 P2d 28 (1991), drew a distinction between police-citizen encounters that are noncoercive and conversational, even though the police may be following up on a mere hunch that criminal activity is afoot, and those that, through a show of authority or force, significantly exceed the bounds of socially tolerable conduct from the standpoint of an ordinary citizen. As amplified below, the problem, if any, with our decision in Fikes is inherent in the application of the Holmes test, which places a reviewing court in the position of channeling what a reasonable person in the defendant’s position could (or would) believe regarding whether he or she was free to leave during an encounter with police. Although the majority disagrees with our conclusion in Fikes, if we erred, it is because the Holmes test is inherently difficult to apply in a predictable and consistent way.
However, unlike the dissent, I would readily distinguish the circumstances of this case from those in Fikes. Here, as the majority observes — in contrast to the circumstances in Fikes — there was a transactional history between defendant, her husband, and the inquiring officers that reasonably could have affected defendant’s belief as to whether she was free to go during the second encounter. 225 Or App at 25. Many people in defendant’s shoes would not have regarded the second encounter, which was laden with the implications of that history, as “mere conversation.”
When defendant challenged the validity of her consent to the search in this case, the state was required to prove that her consent was not tainted by an unlawful seizure. ORS 133.693(4); State v. Tucker, 330 Or 85, 89, 997 P2d 182 (2000). Because defendant made a second category stop argument under Holmes,1 the state was required to prove that defendant subjectively believed that she was free to go during her second encounter with the police. If defendant did so believe, the court must make the legal determination whether “a reasonable person in defendant’s position could have believed that the officers significantly had restricted *31[her] liberty.” State v. Toevs, 327 Or 525, 536, 964 P2d 1007 (1998) (emphasis added). Unlike the former determination, the latter is one to which a reviewing court owes no deference. Accordingly, I do not hesitate to express my view of the matter on this record.
The Holmes test treats the “reasonableness” determination in second category stop cases as a legal exercise. In cases like Hall, where the court found “it difficult to posit that a reasonable person would think that he or she was free to leave at a time when that person is the investigatory subject of a pending warrant check,” 339 Or at 19, the determination can be relatively straightforward. However, we are not a homogeneous society when it comes to our perceptions of the varied and complicated spectrum of police-citizen interactions. Some ordinary people in defendant’s position during the second encounter in this case reasonably might feel “seized,” whereas, due to the officer’s low-key and conversational request, others might not. Bluntly, the division between the majority and dissent in this case reflects that tension. For that reason, it is important to know if the operative test is whether, in the given circumstances, “a reasonable person could have believed that the officers significantly had restricted [her] liberty,” Toevs 327 Or at 536, or if, in any given set of circumstances, there is only one cognizably reasonable perception as to whether the defendant was free to leave, see Holmes, 311 Or at 410 (the pivotal consideration is whether “the officer, even if making inquiries a private citizen would not, has otherwise conducted [himself or herself] in a manner that would be perceived as a nonoffensive contact if it had occurred between two ordinary citizens”) (emphasis added). In my view, the circumstances of this case — like many others in the real world — likely would not produce a uniform perception among all ordinary citizens as to whether defendant was free to leave during the second encounter.
Insofar as I am aware, the implications of that choice have not been explored in any published appellate decision to date. If the Toevs formulation is controlling, in cases like this one the determination of whether a seizure occurred would depend on the trial court’s findings as to the defendant’s subjective belief. Such a prospect is arguably inconsistent with *32the goal of producing predictable and consistent results in cases involving similar circumstances. On the other hand, if courts are meant to determine how a hypothetically reasonable person would — that is, must — be deemed to have perceived an encounter with police in a given set of circumstances, arbitrary results that do not accurately mirror the diversity of ordinary societal perceptions may ensue. In short, the unsatisfactory implications of both alternatives reflect the difficulty that inheres in applying a reasonable person standard to reach legal conclusions, rather than to make the traditionally factual determinations associated, for example, with the use of that standard in civil negligence cases.
Although the issue is not free from doubt, I take the Supreme Court at its word in Toevs that it is enough to satisfy the objective prong of the second Holmes category that a reasonable person in defendant’s position could, in the pertinent circumstances, believe that the officers significantly had restricted her liberty. See, e.g., State v. Turner, 221 Or App 621, 625-26, 191 P3d 697 (2008) (citing Toevs for the proposition that, “whether a stop has occurred depends, in part, on whether a person in the defendant’s circumstance could reasonably have felt that he was not free to leave”). Because that is the circumstance here, I, like the majority, would remand solely for the trial court to determine defendant’s subjective belief. If the court finds that defendant subjectively believed she was not free to go, that belief was objectively reasonable; accordingly the court should grant defendant’s motion to suppress. On the other hand, if the court finds that defendant believed that she was free to go, the court should deny defendant’s motion.
I respectfully concur.
Wollheim and Rosenblum, JJ., join in this concurrence.

 By the term “second category stop,” I refer, as does the majority, to the situation where an individual subjectively believes that a law enforcement officer has significantly restricted, interfered with, or otherwise deprived the individual of liberty of movement and such belief is objectively reasonable in the circumstances. Holmes 311 Or at 409-10.