Court Opinion

ID: 9628082
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:07:05.623222+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:40.520432
License: Public Domain

GILLETTE, J.,
dissenting.
We all admire those who are good at their craft, including those who wear uniforms and daily enforce the law. The officer responsible for the stop in this case is that sort of person — good at his craft. But the law requires more than good instincts or, more precisely, the law requires evidence of more than good instincts in order to justify a stop. Because I do not find sufficient facts — as opposed to instincts — to justify the stop in this case, I respectfully dissent.
The majority summarizes all of the evidence justifying the stop as follows:
"* * * [Office Knudsen’s] training and intuition that a vehicle and at least a third person were involved in the robbery; the brief time interval between the report of the robbery and seeing the suspects in the neighborhood; their direction of travel; their being the only observed black men in a predominantly white neighborhood; their appearance *320not eliminating them as the described suspects and their reaction to the presence of the police vehicle.” (54 Or App at 312.)
I shall treat each element of this summary separately:
1. "* * * [Officer Knudsen’s] training and intuition that a vehicle and at least a third person were involved in the robbery.”
This makes sense, but only in a negative way. it shows why these three people should not be excluded as suspects — there could be a getaway car and it could have a driver. However, at least as I view it, the fact that there were three people and they were in a car cannot be a positive factor — if it is, that would suggest that Knudsen would have had less basis to stop two men who were walking.
2. "[T]he brief time interval between the report of the robbery and seeing the suspects in the neighborhood.”
Obviously, time is a positive factor. But the presence of many people in the area at that time is to be expected — it was just after quitting time on a work day.
3. "[T]heir direction of travel.”
I assume that the opinion is suggesting that, had the car been headed toward the robbery scene, no stop would have been permissible. One gathers from the evidence that, just as all roads lead to Rome, all roads lead out of the area. Direction of travel may be a positive factor, but it is a small one.
4. "[T]heir being the only observed black men in a predominantly white neighborhood.”
That is, these suspects were the first black people whom the officer saw. We are not told just how "predominantly” this area is white, but the implication is that some blacks live (or at least work) in it. Nonetheless, I agree with the majority that this factor is a relevant and positive one.
5. "[TJheir appearance not eliminating them as the described suspects and their reaction to the presence of the police vehicle.”
The "appearance” part of this final considertion adds nothing to consideration 4, supra. Given what the officer observed up to the time he stopped their car, the only relevant *321thing about the suspects’ appearance known him was their race, and that factor has already been weighed once.
As to the "reaction to the presence of the police vehicle,” whatever that may mean, the time has not yet come when we may consider whatever suspicious attention blacks may give a police car as criminally significant. Historically, their suspicion of the police has been justified. Absent some particular furtive gesture, I would give this factor no weight at all.
To summarize the above, in my view this record shows that the only articulable bases for this stop were that (1) the suspects were the same race as the robbers, (2) they were not too far from the scene of the robbery soon after it occurred and (3) they were driving in a direction which would generally take them away from the crime scene.
While I might agree with the majority that this evidence is near the line, I cannot agree that it is enough to justify the stop. It is cases at the razor’s edge which make subtle but permanent inroads in personal liberty. This is such a case.
I respectfully dissent.1

 In two companion cases, State v. Busby, 52 Or App 1, 628 P2d 798 (1981) and State v. Wooten, 53 Or App 299, 632 P2d 808 (1981), this court affirmed the convictions of the other two defendants in this case without opinion. The issue of the stop was presented in each of those cases as well, but the factual development at the respective motions to suppress hearings for those two defendants was more compelling than that produced here. I agree that those two cases were correctly decided.