Court Opinion

ID: 9793883
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:54:48.491826+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:06:16.537210
License: Public Domain

DURHAM, J.
pro tempore, dissenting.
The issue in this case is whether ORS 131.625(2) authorized Officer Ludwig to take possession of the object that he felt during the frisk.1 ORS 131.625 provides:
“(1) A peace officer may frisk a stopped person for dangerous or deadly weapons if the officer reasonably suspects that the person is armed and presently dangerous to the officer or other person present.
“(2) If, in the course of the frisk, the peace officer feels an object which the peace officer reasonably suspects is a dangerous or deadly weapon, the peace officer may take such action as is reasonably necessary to take possession of the weapon.” (Emphasis supplied.)
The reasonable suspicion required by ORS 131.625(2) “means a reasonable belief that an object is a dangerous or deadly weapon.” State v. Kurtz, 46 Or App 617, 620, 612 P2d 749, rev den 289 Or 588 (1980). (Emphasis supplied.)
The majority departs from State v. Kurtz and the text of the statute in announcing that officers may remove and examine any object if the
“officer has a reasonable suspicion, based on specific and articulable facts, that an object felt during a frisk contains a *618dangerous or deadly weapon * * 129 Or App at 606. (Emphasis supplied.)
Ordinarily, the text and context of a statute is the starting point in our determination of the legislature’s intent. Pierce v. Allstate Ins. Co., 316 Or 31, 35, 848 P2d 1197 (1993). The text is the best indication of the legislature’s intent. PGE v. Bureau of Labor and Industries, 317 Or 606, 610, 859 P2d 1143 (1993). In determining the meaning of terms chosen by the legislature, words of common usage that are not defined in the statute should be given their plain, natural and ordinary meaning. State v. Bea, 318 Or 220, 225, 864 P2d 854 (1993). The court is forbidden to insert into a statute words that it believes were omitted. ORS 174.010. In rewriting the frisk statute with words that the legislature did not use, the majority fails to apply that required methodology.
ORS 131.625(2) authorizes seizure of a container that the officer feels during a frisk if the officer reasonably suspects that it is of a type that ordinarily carries a dangerous or deadly weapon, and that it is not empty. Examples of such a container include a pistol holster and a knife scabbard. In almost every imaginable police-citizen encounter, if an officer feels a loaded holster during a frisk, the officer’s belief that the suspect is armed is reasonable. That construction gives effect to the statutory text that permits a seizure if the officer reasonably suspects that the object is a weapon. The majority’s construction ignores that language.
Moreover, the majority’s discussion of ORS 313.625(2) implies that the statute permits seizure of any container that is capable of enclosing a tiny weapon. Although a different record might justify seizure of a nondescript pouch, bottle or can that an officer feels during a frisk,2 the record here falls short. Ludwig did not state that he believed that the object was, or contained, a weapon, and he articulated no facts sufficient to create a reasonable suspicion that the soft bulge in defendant’s pocket contained a dangerous or deadly weapon.
*619The majority relies on three findings of the trial court to justify the search: (1) Ludwig knew that razor blades and fish hooks can be used as weapons; (2) in the past, he occasionally had found those items in “soft pack type containers”; and (3) after Ludwig instructed defendant to keep his hands and body on the trunk of the police car, defendant twice pulled in his hands. Only the third finding is a specific and articulable fact; the others simply recite facts from other encounters, not facts tied to this case. Although an officer may rely in part on training and experience in forming a reasonable suspicion, see State v. Lichty, 313 Or 579, 585, 835 P2d 904 (1992), suspicion is not reasonable unless it correlates with the specific facts of the present case. See State v. Bates, 304 Or 519, 747 P2d 991 (1987); State v. Valdez, 277 Or 621, 626, 561 P2d 1006 (1977).
“[A] correlation may be statistically or historically correct, but defendant is an individual, not a statistic. An officer must point to facts related to the individual, not to general statistics, to justify an intrusion of this nature.” State v. Baldwin, 76 Or App 723, 727, 712 P2d 120 (1985), rev den 301 Or 193 (1986).
Ludwig’s knowledge that soft bulges sometimes contain razor blades or fish hooks, and that those items can be used as weapons, is not a fact that creates a reasonable suspicion that this soft bulge is, or contains, a weapon.
We have held that ORS 131.625(2) does not authorize officers to remove objects simply because they are capable of containing a weapon. State v. Kurtz, supra, 46 Or App at 620. In Kurtz, during the course of a frisk, the officer removed a “large bulky object” from the defendant’s back pocket for the purpose of “seeing if there was a weapon in there or not. ’ ’ We held that the search was invalid, because
“the evidence shows no ‘specific articulable facts’ * * * to support an objective belief that the bulky object was a dangerous or deadly weapon. * * * If the state’s position is that in the course of a patdown frisk an officer may remove anything which might conceal any sort of a weapon, that is not what the statute says.” 46 Or App at 620.
That statement controls the outcome here, yet the majority disregards it. The majority does not cite or attempt to *620distinguish State v. Kurtz.3 I am concerned that this case will confuse the bench and bar about whether State v. Kurtz or this case is the authoritative interpretation of the frisk statute, and that that confusion will hamper decision making in a large number of trial court proceedings that involve that statute.
The only specific fact to which the majority points is that defendant twice pulled his hands “in toward his midsection” while stretched out on the trunk of the police car. That fact, even when viewed in the light of the officer’s training, is not sufficient to demonstrate, in the words of ORS 131.625(2), that the soft bulge is a dangerous or deadly weapon. The majority cannot use Ludwig’s speculation that the soft bulge might have contained a weapon to justify his search of the pocket, without converting every frisk into a potential search through any container capable of concealing a tiny weapon. The officer’s statutory authority does not stretch that far.4
I dissent.
De Muniz and Leeson, JJ., join in this dissenting opinion.

 Because I conclude that the seizure of the item in defendant’s pocket was not authorized by ORS 131.625(2), I assume, for the purpose of discussion, that the circumstances here justified a frisk under ORS 131.625(1). The record may not justify that assumption. ORS 131.625(1) permits a frisk if a stopped person is “armed and presently dangerous * * State v. Matthys, 106 Or App 276, 282, 808 P2d 94, rev den 311 Or 433 (1991), holds that the risk must be an “immediate threat,” and that “ttjenseness and reluctance to' talk do not demonstrate an immediate threat.” (Emphasis supplied.) The majority does not explain why defendant’s hand motions, violation of directions and possible intoxication demonstrate that defendant was armed and an immediate threat to the officer.

 For example, if the officer has information that the suspect is carrying a container of a substance that is potentially harmful to the officer, the officer’s belief that the container is a weapon is reasonable.

 The majority attempts to bolster its interpretation of ORS 131.625(2) by citing cases that suppressed the results of searches incident to arrest. The majority fails to cite or distinguish State v. Roque-Escamilla, 106 Or App 270, 274, 806 P2d 1173, reo den 311 Or 427 (1991), in which we suppressed evidence of the contents of a wallet. The officer searched the wallet incident to arrest “because he was looking for identification and weapons — such as a razor blade.” 106 Or App at 272. We held that the officer’s concern that the wallet could contain a razor blade furnished no justification to search it.

 The parties do not suggest that the search of the pocket and the soft container, and the seizure of the contents of the container, were authorized by any law other than ORS 131.625(2). The argument presented in the concurring opinion of Edmonds, J., was not preserved by the parties below, or briefed in this court. The state argues that the officer’s action did not exceed the scope of the actions authorized by ORS 131.625(2). Our answer to that question should not decide whether some other source also authorized the officer’s actions.