Court Opinion

ID: 9798069
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:36:29.373826+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:00:38.411906
License: Public Domain

WOLLHEIM, J.,
dissenting.
If my neighbors make unreasonably loud noises in their backyard at 1:00 a.m. — noises so loud that they awaken me from my slumber — I probably would take the easiest and quickest way to their backyard: walk down their driveway and ask them to quiet down. Under the reasoning of the majority, my actions would be criminal because I would be committing criminal trespass in the second degree.1 By the majority’s reasoning, my only lawful approach would be to go the front door of my neighbors’ home and knock on that door. But if my neighbors do not answer the door (because too much noise is coming from the backyard for them to hear me), I may not lawfully venture any further onto their property. And, when I call the police for assistance, the police are also legally limited to only approaching my neighbors’ front door. Without a warrant, the police may not venture any further. So the police tell me that they have to leave and I have to tough it out that night because the police cannot walk down the driveway where my neighbors are making unreasonable noise at 1:00 a.m. The majority claims that to decide otherwise would “subvert bedrock constitutional principles.” 226 Or App at 346. With respect, I disagree and therefore dissent.
Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution protects an individual’s privacy interests against unreasonable *351searches and seizures.2 A search occurs only where the “police invade a protected privacy interest.” State v. Wacker, 317 Or 419, 426, 856 P2d 1029 (1993). The relevant privacy interest under Article I, section 9, is “an interest in freedom from particular forms of scrutiny.” State v. Campbell, 306 Or 157, 170, 759 P2d 1040 (1988). “[individual freedom from scrutiny is determined by social and legal norms of behavior, such as trespass laws[.T Id. (emphasis added).3
Article I, section 9 jurisprudence consistently relies on social and legal norms. Thus, a “seizure” under Article I, section 9, occurs only when a police “officer engages in conduct significantly beyond that accepted in ordinary social intercourse.” State v. Holmes, 311 Or 400, 410, 813 P2d 28 (1991) (emphasis added). Similarly, a “search” under Article I, section 9, does not extend to the unaided observations by a police officer from a lawful vantage point because “there is no generally recognized freedom from such scrutiny by private individuals.” State v. Ainsworth, 310 Or 613, 617, 801 P2d 749 (1990) (internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis added).
*352A police officer may lawfully enter private property so long as that entry does not “significantly impair an individual’s interest in freedom from scrutiny.” State v. Dixson/Digby, 307 Or 195, 211, 766 P2d 1015 (1988). That is an objective test. Wacker, 317 Or at 425. The Supreme Court explained:
“ ‘[N]ot everything that police officers see or hear one do in private quarters requires a search warrant. * * * Persons may conduct themselves in otherwise protected areas in such a way that their words or acts can plainly be seen or heard outside without any special effort. One would not, for instance, expect police to obtain a search warrant to charge violation of a noise ordinance against sounds emanating from private premises’ ”
Id. at 425-26 (quoting State v. Louis, 296 Or 57, 61, 672 P2d 708 (1983)) (emphasis added). Unless a police officer may lawfully enter the curtilage, however, a police officer would frequently be unable to determine whom to charge with such a noise violation.
Consistently with that proposition, this court has concluded that police intrusion onto private land significantly impairs an individual’s interest in freedom from scrutiny if “a private individual would offend social and legal norms of behavior by engaging in the same kind of intrusion.” State v. Portrey, 134 Or App 460, 464, 896 P2d 7 (1995) (emphasis added). Here, as explained below, where there was probable cause to believe that defendant was engaged in disorderly conduct, the officer’s entry onto the unobstructed driveway did not so offend those social and legal norms of behavior. Accordingly, I would conclude that the officer’s entry onto the driveway was lawful because it did not significantly impair defendant’s constitutional privacy interests.
An officer’s intrusion onto the curtilage area surrounding a house significantly impairs a person’s constitutional privacy interests only if a resident has not expressly or impliedly consented to that intrusion.4 State v. Ohling, 70 Or *353App 249, 252, 688 P2d 1384, rev den, 298 Or 334 (1984). Whether social norms of behavior would be offended by such an intrusion informs our analysis of whether a resident has impliedly consented to that intrusion. This court has established a rebuttable presumption that “an occupant impliedly consents to people walking to the front door and knocking on it, because of social and legal norms of behavior” Portrey, 134 Or App at 464 (emphasis added); see also State v. Somfleth, 168 Or App 414, 424, 8 P3d 221 (2000) (the presumption is based on “prevailing social norms”); Ohling, 70 Or App at 253 (“Going to the front door and knocking * * * is so common in this society that * * * the person living in the house has impliedly consented to the intrusion.”). “Conversely, also given prevailing social norms, such a presumption of implied consent to enter is not ascribed to other areas of the curtilage.” Somfleth, 168 Or App at 425.
The presumption of implied consent is limited to visitors who have a defined purpose — that is, “the intrusion to which * * * occupant[s] impliedly consent is limited to allowing a person to take reasonable steps to make contact.” State v. Premsingh, 154 Or App 682, 689, 962 P2d 732 (1998) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Portrey, 134 Or App at 465 (the scope of the presumptive implied consent does not permit a visitor to pick up boots on the front porch for inspection); State v. Gabbard, 129 Or App 122, 128, 877 P2d 1217, rev den, 320 Or 131 (1994) (“An officer’s right to go to the front door of a house is based on implied consent to allow visitors to take reasonable steps to make contact with the occupant.”). The motivation for making contact is not relevant; accordingly, a police officer may also seek to make contact with a resident even when motivated by criminal investigatory aims. State v. McIntyre/Pereira, 123 Or App 436, 442, 860 P2d 299 (1993), rev den, 318 Or 351 (1994).
The purpose to make contact with a resident is central to whether a presumption regarding implied consent is rebutted. For example, the public presumptively may enter privately owned lands beyond the curtilage area surrounding a home. Dixson/Digby, 307 Or at 211. By posting a “no hunting” sign, a property owner rebuts that presumption as to members of the public having the purpose of hunting there *354but does not rebut that presumption as to members of the public having the purpose to camp or hike there. Id. at 212.
Similarly, this court has determined that “no trespassing” signs may be “inadequate to exclude visitors who would use the driveway to make contact with the occupants of the house.” Gabbard, 129 Or App at 128. We reasoned that a “reasonable visitor could have assumed that [a no ‘trespassing5] sign was intended only to exclude those who might put the property to their own uses * * * [but not] to visitors who desired to contact the residents.” Id. (emphasis added).
Despite the presumption favoring front-door access, “location (‘front yard’ vs. ‘side yard’ vs. ‘backyard’) is [only] one of a universe of circumstances to be considered in assessing whether a resident has implicitly consented to an invasion of the curtilage.” Somfleth, 168 Or App at 424. Where the universe of circumstances are objectively viewed as “manifesting [a resident’s] expectation that casual visitors” would enter upon the portion of the curtilage away from the front door to contact a resident, the presumption of nonconsent is overcome. Id. at 427.
In accordance with that standard, this court concluded that a resident had impliedly consented to entries upon residential curtilage to approach a side door where the side door was adjacent to a driveway shared with a neighbor and was equipped with a doorbell visible from the street. Id. at 426-27 (discussing State v. Glines, 134 Or App 21, 894 P2d 516, rev den, 321 Or 512 (1995)). Likewise, where a resident walks toward officers and those officers respond by walking toward the resident but away from the front door of a house, the officers’ “decision to go toward [the resident], rather than to the front door, [i]s reasonable.” Gabbard, 129 Or App at 128-29. Consequently, where a resident manifests by displaying indicia such as doorbells or by conduct that a reasonable visitor may contact the resident on portions of the curtilage away from the front door, the resident impliedly consents to that contact.
Nonetheless, the presumption of nonconsent to access the curtilage away from the front door of a home is not overcome simply because that portion of the curtilage is *355visible and accessible to the public.5 A resident must manifest an expectation to being contacted there. A resident is not “obligated to undertake affirmative measures to preclude entry,” such as a privacy fence or locked gate, in order to safeguard a privacy interest to one’s backyard or the side of one’s home. Somfleth, 168 Or App at 426. Similarly, a resident cannot manifest an expectation of being contacted in the backyard where no evidence indicates that the resident is likely to be present there. See, e.g., State v. Jackson, 71 Or App 76, 79, 691 P2d 130 (1984) (no implied consent to look in the backyard where no evidence “gave the deputies reason to think defendant might be behind the house”); Ohling, 70 Or App at 253 (no implied consent to continue looking for a resident in the backyard after knocking on the door proved unproductive6); State v. Russo, 68 Or App 760, 683 P2d 163 (1984) (no implied consent where a noise disturbance was created by barking dogs).
However, individuals may “sacrifice[ ] any right of privacy by conducting themselves in such a way that their activities could be seen without any special effort.” State v. Rodriguez-Ganegar, 186 Or App 530, 538, 63 P3d 1225, rev den, 335 Or 578 (2003). Accordingly, although an officer typically does not have any right to peer through a crack in an otherwise obstructed window, State v. Fortmeyer/Palmer, 178 Or App 485, 491, 37 P3d 223 (2001), when an individual draws the attention of the public by making loud noises late at night, an officer’s observations through cracks in the window blinds may be lawful, Rodriguez-Ganegar, 186 Or App at 537-38; see also State v. Castillo-Salgado, 186 Or App 605, 610-11, 64 P3d 1169, rev den, 336 Or 60 (2003) (an officer *356looking through a gap in the blinds when his attention was drawn by movements inside an apartment did not offend social norms).
In sum, where the evidence establishes that a resident’s conduct manifests an objective expectation that members of the general public may intrude on the residential curtilage to contact a resident there, the resident has impliedly consented to such intrusions. Because such an intrusion by a private individual is lawful — and does not constitute trespass — an officer so intruding is also acting lawfully. Because any unaided observations by a police officer from a lawful vantage point does not diminish an individual’s interest in freedom from scrutiny, an officer’s observations under those circumstances do not constitute a search under Article I, section 9.
Here, the trial court concluded that, under normal circumstances, the location of the house and the placement of the driveway would not manifest an implied invitation for the officer to enter onto the driveway and walk down it to look into the backyard. However, defendant engaged in unreasonably loud and disruptive behaviors in the backyard of his friend’s Medford home at 1:00 a.m., creating noises loud enough for the officers to have heard the noises from the street in front of the house. Specifically, the trial court found that those behaviors were sufficient to establish probable cause to believe that people were engaged in disorderly conduct. Accordingly, the trial court stated, “under these circumstances, I do find that it was reasonable and justified for the officers” to so enter the curtilage. (Emphasis added.) The trial court was correct.7
By itself, the accessibility of the rear portion of the driveway did not establish an implied invitation for members of the public to so enter the curtilage. But location is only “one of a universe of circumstances to be considered.” Somfleth, 168 Or App at 424.
*357Defendant’s conduct — engaging in disorderly conduct — created a specific context in which it would have been socially acceptable for a private individual to walk down the driveway alongside the house to ask defendant to quiet down. A person commits the crime of disorderly conduct if a person “[mjakes unreasonable noise” and has the intent to cause, or recklessly creates the risk of causing, “public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm.” ORS 166.025(1).
The majority denigrates the significance, and misinterprets the statutory meaning, of defendant’s disorderly conduct by equating it to mere “ ‘publicly5 obnoxious behavior.” 226 Or App at 346. If the offense of disorderly conduct criminalized mere publicly obnoxious behavior, this court would likely find such a statute to be constitutionally defective “because a significant amount of unreasonably obscene, unreasonably insulting, unreasonably shocking, unreasonably offensive, and unreasonably insensitive expression * * * is constitutionally protected.” State v. Rich, 218 Or App 642, 650, 180 P3d 744 (2008). However, the disorderly conduct statute, ORS 166.025, is not similarly defective. Rather, as this court held, ORS 166.025 is constitutionally permissible as a “classic time, place, or manner law” that restrains conduct based on its “volume, duration, location, and the like” without stifling expression. Rich, 218 Or App at 647, 650.
Defendant’s conduct invited entry not because defendant was publicly obnoxious but because the volume, duration, place, and time of defendant’s conduct established probable cause that he created a risk of public inconvenience, annoyance, or alarm. By engaging in disorderly conduct, defendant sacrificed the presumption that intrusions on the curtilage at the rear of the house are generally intrusions upon a resident’s liberty interests. He sacrificed that presumption because, under those circumstances, members of the public would not offend social norms of behavior by entering the residential curtilage to ask defendant to bring his conduct in compliance with the law. By manifesting that a reasonable visitor would seek to contact defendant there, defendant impliedly consented to that entry. Accordingly, members of the public so acting would not be committing criminal trespass. Where the driveway provided an unobstructed pathway to the rear of the house, the layout of the *358property did nothing to contradict any implied invitation for a member of the public to contact defendant there.8 Thus, the officer’s entry was neither an unlawful trespass nor a significant impairment of defendant’s rights under Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution.
As noted above, the Supreme Court would not “ ‘expect police to obtain a search warrant to charge violation of a noise ordinance against sounds emanating from private premises.’ ” Wacker, 317 Or at 426 (quoting Louis, 296 Or at 61). The majority’s holding and reasoning would have the opposite practical effect, because under its interpretation of implied consent, a police officer would no longer be able to enter onto the curtilage to identify any particular defendant to charge. The principle of implied consent has never before been treated so narrowly.
The majority substantially narrows the construct of “implied consent” by declaring that invitation must convey “the property owner’s anticipatory consent to entry by members of the public.” 226 Or App at 347 (emphasis in original). Claiming that “ ‘invitation’ is a function of consent,” the majority argues that implied consent cannot be found where “the homeowner does not want them — or any other stranger — there.” 226 Or App at 348-49 (emphasis added). Although the majority claims that this definition of implied consent has been “consistently employed in our case law,” 226 Or App at 347, I am unable to discern that definition from the cases cited by the majority.
The majority’s proposed definition interjects for the first time a resident’s subjective desire — whether the resident wants someone to enter — as an element of implied consent. This court has never before recognized such a subjective *359element. McIntyre/Pereira, 123 Or App at 444 (Riggs, J., dissenting) (“Subjective intent plays no role in the Ohling analysis” regarding implied consent); id. at 441 n 2 (majority opinion) (“The dissent claims that we endorse a subjective analysis. * * * Nothing in our opinion supports the dissent’s claims.”).
Rather, this court has consistently treated that subjective component — akin to whether a person may not want magazine salespeople, political canvassers, or even Girls Scouts selling cookies to approach the front doors of their homes during dinnertime — as irrelevant to our analysis of implied consent. See Ohling, 70 Or App at 253 (describing similar contacts to which residents are presumed to have impliedly consented). Similarly, most residents do not want and would not have explicitly invited police officers to approach their front doors to serve arrest warrants on them. But those subjective desires play no role in determinations of implied consent. See also Wacker, 317 Or at 425 (“The privacy interests protected from unreasonable searches under Article I, section 9, are defined by an objective test of whether the government’s conduct would significantly impair an individual’s interest in freedom from scrutiny.”). (Internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis added.)
In addition, the majority erroneously narrows the definition of implied consent by rejecting most judicial references to social and legal norms. 226 Or App at 349-50. The majority claims that such references are “illusory,” “[ejxcept in rare instances of communal behavior so common and well established as to be akin to custom.” 226 Or App at 349. The majority proceeds to advise that unless the social acceptability of police intrusions are beyond “reasonable dispute” — that is, adopted by social “consensus” — those intrusions should not evince an implied consent to entry. 226 Or App at 350.
The majority makes those claims without legal citation. No Oregon case indicates that the notion of social consensus has ever even been considered — much less adopted— as the standard for ascertaining either the scope of implied consent, in particular, or the reach of Article I, section 9, in general. Within the context of implied consent, for example, the dissent in McIntyre /Pereira would have interpreted a tall *360wooden fence and a closed metal gate around the curtilage of a home as contradicting any implied consent to enter. 123 Or App at 444 (Riggs, J., dissenting). However, although the dissent’s view in that case illustrated a disagreement regarding social norms, the majority remanded the case to the trial court to determine whether, in the totality of the circumstances, the officers nonetheless had implied invitation for their entry. Id. at 442. Similarly, no case has analyzed whether any member of society would have interpreted a “no hunting” or “no trespassing” sign as a lack of social consensus to enter the curtilage to contact a resident; instead, those cases turn on whether such signs provide the public with “objectively reasonable notice” that their entry was not allowed. State v. Hitesman/Page, 113 Or App 356, 361, 833 P2d 306, rev den, 314 Or 574 (1992). No social consensus requirement for a determination of social and legal norms has been incorporated into our existing case law, and no such requirement should be adopted.
I agree with the majority’s contention that notions of implied consent should not depend on defining prevailing norms “by a majority vote of this court en banc.” 226 Or App at 349. The question is not what a majority of the people — or a majority of judges on this court — believe is socially acceptable. The question is what a reasonable visitor would have understood. That is the fundamental principle upon which the presumption that a resident impliedly consents to front door access is based. That is the fundamental principle that the legal precedent of this state has consistently abided by. And that is the fundamental principle that the majority departs from in its ruling in this case.
Article I, section 9, protects individual interests from unreasonable scrutiny. The Oregon Supreme Court interprets that interest by reference to social and legal norms of behavior. Governmental intrusions on curtilage to approach the front door of residential homes are permissible because social norms provide that private individuals may take reasonable steps to make contact with residents there. Similarly, when a resident manifests an expectation that private individuals may seek contact on portions of the residential curtilage away from the front door, and such contact would *361not offend social and legal norms of behavior, a private individual may do so without violating the law. Under the facts of this case, where defendant engaged in disorderly conduct— by making unreasonable noise that caused public inconvenience, annoyance, or alarm at 1:00 a.m. — it would have been socially acceptable, and legal, for a member of the public to walk down the driveway to ask defendant to quiet down. Because a member of the public could walk down the driveway without engaging in criminal behavior, a police officer so intruding does not violate defendant’s Article I, section 9, rights. Consequently, the trial court did not err by denying defendant’s motion to suppress.
For those reasons, I respectfully dissent.
Edmonds, Ortega, and Sercombe, JJ., join in this dissent.
*362Appendix
[[Image here]]

 ORS 164.245(1) provides that “[a] person commits the crime of criminal trespass in the second degree if the person enters or remains unlawfully * * * in or upon premises.”

 Article I, section 9, provides, in part, that “[n]o law shall violate the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable search, or seizure!.]”

 The majority claims that “social and legal norms * * * are not conclusive of the protections afforded under Article I, section 9.” 226 Or App at 349. For support, the majority relies on Campbell for the proposition that “[s]ocial and legal norms cannot govern the scope of the constitutional provision.” 306 Or at 171. I read Campbell differently. The passage cited by the majority is included in a paragraph discussing the scope of a search under Article I, section 9, when the government uses radio transmitters and other new technologies that could not have been foreseen when Article I, section 9, was adopted in 1859. Id. For governmental use of those new technologies, the Supreme Court announced that the applicable legal test is “whether the practice, if engaged in wholly at the discretion of the government, will significantly impair ‘the people’s’ freedom from scrutiny.” Id. As noted, the Supreme Court also stated, as a general rule unrelated to the government’s use of new technologies, “freedom from scrutiny is determined by social and legal norms of behavior.” Id. at 170. Because this case involves trespass laws and not the governmental use of new technologies, the majority’s reliance on Campbell is misplaced.
Furthermore, I do not claim that, within the present context, social and legal norms of behavior would he conclusively determinative of Article I, section 9, rights. My view is that social and legal norms determine the bounds of implied consent. Implied consent, in turn, sets a default rule that may be overcome by the explicit renunciation of any implied consent.

 Defendant was a guest, and not a resident, at the home. A guest may generally assert the constitutional privacy interests held by the host, although the guest’s privacy interests are not as extensive as the privacy interests of the host. State v. Tanner, 304 Or 312, 321, 745 P2d 757 (1987).

 The majority states that I “erroneously conflate[ ] consent * * * with notions of reasonable foreseeability.” 226 Or App at 348. In fact, my analysis recognizes that most reasonably foreseeable intrusions upon residential curtilage lack implied consent. It is for that reason that the concept of “reasonable foreseeability” has not been incorporated into this court’s relevant case law. However, because implied consent is predicated upon social norms, every implied invitation must necessarily be reasonably foreseeable. In other words, implied invitation is a small subset of what may be reasonably foreseeable.

 The majority observes that, in Ohling, “[wjhen the officers knocked, they could hear a stereo playing.” 226 Or App at 343. The dissent in Ohling suggests that the stereo was playing inside the home. 70 Or App at 254 (Van Hoomissen, J., dissenting). No other evidence indicated that anyone was present in the backyard.

 The majority states that it is “unclear from the trial court’s remarks whether the court denied suppression based on the state’s probable cause rationale, the ‘no search/“plain view” ’ rationale, or both.” 226 Or App at 340 n 3. Regardless of any ambiguity in the trial court’s remarks, the trial court was correct in reaching its ultimate conclusion that the officer’s intrusion onto the curtilage was lawful.

 The majority states that a car parked on the driveway contradicts any implication of an invitation to enter to that point. 226 Or App at 346. This court has never before held that a car parked in the driveway, as this car was parked, may negate an implied invitation to intrude. A parked car is not an obstruction that signals an expectation that no one may walk beyond that point. At best, a parked car may indicate that a resident is more likely to be home. Under the circumstances of this case, I do not understand why the court should treat the parked car as a contradiction of any implied invitation to enter. Perhaps if the car was parked in a manner that precluded anyone from walking down the driveway to the end of the house and to the chainlink fence, it would be reasonable to find that the car negated any implied invitation. But that is not this case.