Court Opinion

ID: 9569292
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:12:29.553764+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:53:06.535138
License: Public Domain

LINDE, J.,
dissenting.
If this case turned on whether the evidence concerning defendant’s statements to Officer Burkhart on the night of August 17-18, 1981, coupled with the trial judge’s comments and the factual inferences drawn on appeal under Ball v. Gladden, 250 Or 485, 443 P2d 621 (1968), and State v. Warner, 284 Or 147, 585 P2d 681 (1978), support the version of events on which defendant’s statements were admitted against him, I would not dissent. The extent to which Ball v. Gladden and State v. Warner dispense with any need for trial court findings on disputed facts may need reexamination someday, but not in this case.
The problem in this case, however, is that the trial judge examined the circumstances and ruled on the use of *532defendant’s statements to Burkhart under an assumption that their “voluntariness” depended on whether the police officers coerced defendant into making his statements. The trial judge stated that he found no “fraud” or physical.coercion on the part of the officers. He found that the officers’ talk about asking the district attorney to protect the defendant if he “snitched” were vague. The judge noted that the officers could not keep defendant in jail even if they wanted to. Whether they could, of course, is immaterial if defendant thought that this could be done. Finally, the judge stated:
“I think the point is this: Were the officers saying something more than what they were entitled? Were they telling Mr. Foster something that he didn’t already know, and probably since Mr. Foster had been the one running down the road being chased by those other two fellows he probably was, and obviously was more aware of those feelings in the community than anyone else.
“After weighing all of those factors on that particular issue it is my finding that the officers did not impair his capacity for self-determination even though they did remind him on more than one occasion about what was happening in the community.
“So, I do find after an analysis of those four factors that the statement made on August the 17th is admissible. I think by the same analysis the statement made on August the 18th is admissible.”
The judge admitted defendant’s statements because the officers did not impair defendant’s capacity for self-determination, although they reminded him more than once of his fear of retribution by others, as the Court of Appeals set out in more detail in its opinion.
Now this court correctly points out that Oregon law requires exclusion of an admission or confession if it results from threats or inducements by anyone, not only by state officers. The majority then would hold that the “isolated comments” of the interrogating officers quoted by the Court of Appeals, though improper, “did not by themselves render the statements made on August 17-18 involuntary.” 303 Or at 529. I do not see how this court is in a position to make that determination.
The Court of Appeals thought the opposite. The *533majority in this court says that the evidence supports not only the trial judge’s findings of historical facts but also his “conclusions that the statements of defendant were not made under the influence of fear produced by threats.” 303 Or at 520. I do not find that conclusion stated by the trial judge. What the majority quotes at length and what I have briefly noted above shows that the judge focused on what the police did, not on whether defendant’s confession resulted from fear. So did the majority and the dissenters in the Court of Appeals. The trial court did not find that defendant was not frightened or that his fear, coupled with his injured and weakened condition in the hospital and with the officers’ reminder of what awaited him outside, did not influence him to confess. The judge thought the test was whether the officers impaired defendant’s capacity for self-determination.
The trial judge’s finding therefore cannot serve the majority as the basis for reversing the decision of the Court of Appeals. If this court believes that the Court of Appeals determined facts beyond its scope of review even given the broader understanding of the test of fear or inducement as we now have stated it, I see nothing for us to do but to return the case to the circuit court to determine whether defendant’s statements on August 17-18 were admissible under that test. This court cannot well reverse the Court of Appeals for drawing factual inferences and conclusions from the record and then go on simply to make the opposite findings itself.
I therefore dissent from the decision in this case.