Court Opinion

ID: 9790549
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:54:48.27734+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:30.131054
License: Public Domain

*407ROSSMAN, J.,
dissenting.
Although I agree with Judge Richardson’s conclusion that the “search” of defendant’s purse was reasonable, I write separately, because I strongly disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the search constituted state action. Because the exclusionary rule is a limit on state action only, it has no application to searches or seizures by private persons acting on their own volition. State of Oregon v. Olsen, 212 Or 191, 317 P2d 938 (1957); State v. Padilla, 9 Or App 162, 496 P2d 256 (1972); State v. Bryan, 1 Or App 15, 457 P2d 661 (1969). Accordingly, we need not — and should not — reach the question of whether the search was reasonable under the circumstances.
The search of defendant’s purse was conducted by an employe of the Hooper Detoxification Center, which is operated by a private nonprofit corporation. There were no law enforcement officers present, and defendant does not contend that the individual who conducted the search is an employe or an agent of the state or that the search was conducted at the request of the deputy sheriff who escorted her to the center. In fact, there is no evidence whatever that the search was anything other than a routine measure to create a record of defendant’s property and to determine whether she had taken any drugs or medication that might endanger her life. That was treatment-oriented activity, not police work.
The majority concludes, nevertheless, that the search was state action, because the employe who conducted it had authority over defendant pursuant to state law, which was “similar” to police authority. The majority strains very hard to create this strange symbiotic relationship, but the decisions that it relies on in support of its conclusion are inapposite. The majority persists in going south, when the law is clearly pointing to the north. In People v. Zelinski, 24 Cal3d 357, 155 Cal Rptr 575, 594 P2d 1000 (1979), for example, the court held that the challenged search, which was conducted by a private security guard looking for stolen property, was state action, because it was conducted “pursuant to statutory authority to promote a state interest in bringing offenders to public accounting.” (Emphasis supplied.) Similarly, all the federal decisions that the majority relies on, Dobyns v. E-Systems, Inc., 667 F2d 1219 (5th Cir 1982), and United States v. Davis, *408482 F2d 893 (9th Cir 1973), involved searches conducted to further state interests. Here, the search was performed for the benefit of the individual searched. That is an important difference.
Simply because the center is licensed and regulated by the state does not mean that its conduct somehow becomes state conduct. Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 US 991, 1004, 102 S Ct 2777, 73 L Ed 2d 534 (1982); Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 US 830, 841-42, 102 S Ct 2764, 73 L Ed 2d 418 (1982); Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 US 345, 350, 95 S Ct 449, 42 L Ed 2d 477 (1974). There must be a sufficiently close nexus between the state and the regulated entity so that the actions of the latter may fairly be treated as those of the state. Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., supra, 419 US at 351. That relationship is not present here.
Defendant was searched incident to her treatment for' alcohol abuse at a private detoxification center authorized to provide care to intoxicated persons as an alternative to jail. The search was not conducted by state personnel, but by a private citizen whose sole concerns were the health of defendant and the security of her possessions. There is no evidence that the search was conducted pursuant to any governmental guidelines or that it was the practice of the center’s employes to turn over the fruits of their searches to the police pursuant to any agreement.
State action is not established simply because the center works closely with law enforcement agencies. There is no evidence in this record that the center performed its routine searches for the benefit or at the behest of those agencies. Simply because the persons who took defendant to the center happened to be police officers, does not mean that the center’s personnel suddenly and somehow became police officers — any more than they would have become taxi cab drivers had defendant arrived by taxi, even though the owners of taxicabs are subject to state regulation. I would hold that the search of this defendant did not constitute state action. Big Brother was not bearing down.
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
Richardson, Warden and Van Hoómissen, JJ., join in this dissent.