Court Opinion

ID: 9572436
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:41:38.05443+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:32:56.198059
License: Public Domain

BUTTLER, J.,
dissenting.
Because the pack is defendant’s “effect” within the meaning of Article I, section 9, it is not necessary for him to establish any expectation of privacy, subjective or objective, in it. The constitution guarantees his privacy interest and, unless defendant had abandoned the pack, the officer had no authority to inspect its contents without a warrant, because no exception to the warrant requirement existed and none is claimed.
The majority concedes that there was no common law abandonment. 89 Or App at 404. However, it says that, for constitutional purposes, the standard is less rigid, requiring only a showing that, objectively, “the owner has ‘abandoned’ his reasonable expectations of privacy in the property so that *406its inspection presents no question of search with its constitutional implications,” citing State v. Green, 44 Or App 253, 605 P2d 746 (1980). Green was decided before State v. Caraher, 293 Or 741, 653 P2d 942 (1982), and relied on cases decided under the federal constitution that apply the analysis of Katz v. United States, 389 US 347, 361, 88 S Ct 507, 19 L Ed 2d 576 (1967). (Harlan, J., concurring.)
Since Caraher, cases decided under the federal constitution are not controlling in the interpretation of the Oregon Constitution, and the Katz analysis is not applicable to determine whether there has been a search of an effect within the specific protection of Article I, section 9. See State v. Louis, 296 Or 57, 672 P2d 708 (1983); State v. Rounds, 73 Or App 148, 698 P2d 71, rev den 299 Or 663 (1985); State v. Campbell, 87 Or App 415, 742 P2d 683 (1987), rev allowed 305 Or 21 (1988); State v. Dixson/Digby, 87 Or App 1, 740 P2d 1224, rev allowed 304 Or 437 (1987). The majority’s attempt to apply the Katz analysis here is in error.
The majority attempts to distinguish State v. Rounds, supra, on the basis that the backpack in Rounds was found by the police on private property and that the police, investigating a suspected burglary attempt, had been told that the defendant had returned to it at least once after leaving it there. For those reasons, we held that there was “no objective basis for the officer reasonably to think that it had been abandoned.” 73 Or App at 152. The officer, however, did not know that the defendant was related to the property owner. Here, the officer was investigating a fight at a public parking lot. When he arrived at the scene, defendant and other participants fled, leaving some belongings behind — a wallet and a backpack. There was no objective basis for believing that either of those items was abandoned. They remained defendant’s effects in which Article I, section 9, guarantees his privacy, so long as there remained a possibility that he would reclaim them. State v. Tanner, 304 Or 312, 745 P2d 757 (1987). Defendant’s “reasonable expectations of privacy,” on which the majority relies, has nothing to do with the case. Because the pack was opaque, and there was nothing about it that “announced its contents,” a warrant was necessary to conduct a search of it. State v. Owens, 302 Or 196, 729 P2d 524 (1986).
The officer was entitled to take possession of the *407pack to secure it for return to its owner. He had no right to search through it without a warrant, at least in the absence of an authorized administrative program requiring an inventory of its contents. State v. Perry, 298 Or 21, 688 P2d 827 (1984); State v. Atkinson, 298 Or 1, 688 P2d 832 (1984). The state does not attempt to justify the search on that basis.
Because I believe that the warrantless search of defendant’s pack was unlawful, I respectfully dissent.
Joseph, C. J., and Newman, J., join in this dissent.