Court Opinion

ID: 9632280
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:08:14.910497+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:11.973184
License: Public Domain

FADELEY, J.,
specially concurring.
The trial court denied suppression. I agree with that result and concur in it on the ground that the evidence was obtained by informed and voluntary consent of defendant.
In defendant’s brief to the Court of Appeals, defendant’s only arguments were two. The brief reported:
“Defendant asserted the arrest warrant was invalid under our state and federal constitutions because it was unsupported by oath or affirmation and also asserted the search by state officers was invalid because it was barred by a statute proscribing state officer assistance in enforcement of federal immigration laws.”1
Those two points are the only ones argued with vigor and preserved on the record. No foundation was laid for considering the exploitation question or for making the supremacy question pivotal. Federal power to issue an administrative warrant was acknowledged.
A common-law court should not decide issues that are neither presented nor advocated strongly by an appellant. *46The reason is to limit a decision to the issue actually contested between the parties, i.e., where that contest is a product of a more informed and complete advocacy. Otherwise the court may simply be delivering a lecture or erecting a hypothetical case and commenting on it in the manner of the medieval scholastics.
The trial court, while hearing defendant’s motion to suppress evidence, also heard the state concede that the state police officers who participated in the search had no authority to do so and also were “statutorily prohibited by ORS [sic] from helping the INS [federal Immigration and Naturalization Service] people.” The state argued that the court-created remedy of suppression of evidence was not an appropriate one to apply to the conceded violation. The trial court agreed.
The state also relied on defendant’s consent for the search. Speaking about the FBI agent and the five state police officers who tagged along with the immigration service officer, the state said:
“[E]ven if the court would consider that there’s something improper about these procedures, the defendant consented to having his house searched.”
Again the trial court agreed, finding:
“The answer was, ‘no, go ahead and search;’ what appears to me to be a consensual search.”
The trial court referred to the FBI agent’s finding a pistol based on the “consent search.” Concerning one local police officer and a pistol that he found, the trial court said that finding a pistol during the consent search was not a violation of the prohibitory statute, ORS 181.850. In other words, the court found that the statute did not deprive the state officers of authority to participate in a consent search looking for evidence of violations, not related to federal immigration, because ORS 181.850 is triggered only when state officers enforce federal immigration laws as the “only violation of law.”
Defendant’s arguments, quoted at the beginning of this separate opinion, do not depend on contentions about the police exploiting a search or seizure that is claimed to be illegal because it was made without a valid warrant. Neither do these contentions depend on the federal Supremacy *47Clause. Accordingly, I would heed the advice of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, offered in a recent case before the Supreme Court of the United States, that:
“When courts take it upon themselves to issue helpful guidance in dictum, they risk creating additional confusion by inadvertently suggesting constitutional absolutes that do not exist. The Court’s dictum today follows that course.” Harper v. Virginia Department of Taxation,_US_, 113 S Ct 2510,_L Ed 2d_(1993) (O’Connor, J., dissenting).

 ORS 181.850(1) provides:
“No law enforcement agency of the State of Oregon or of any political subdivision of the state shall use agency moneys, equipment or personnel for the purpose of detecting or apprehending persons whose only violation of law is that they are persons of foreign citizenship residing in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws.”