Court Opinion

ID: 9790958
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:01:58.725644+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:32.841017
License: Public Domain

*474GILLETTE, P. J.,
concurring.
I join in the lead opinion. I add only the following admonition concerning the precedential significance of cases like this.
This state’s appeal fails because, as to the grounds preserved by the state and therefore arguable to us, the court’s final order was not wrong. See State v. Hickmann, 273 Or 358, 540 P2d 1406 (1975). However, had the state argued the “progressive probable cause” theory of State v. Flores, 68 Or App 617, 630, 685 P2d 999 (1984), the outcome of this case might well have been different. See State v. Brody, 69 Or App 496, 472 n 4, 686 P2d 451 (1983).
Had this been a defendant’s appeal after conviction, we would have been required to consider the alternative basis for affirming the conviction regardless of whether the state raised it. It is probably regrettable that the posture of these cases as they reach us — some as defendant’s appeals, some as the state’s — has such an impact: the very same set of facts can produce two antithetical appellate opinions, at least when viewed solely in terms of the result. Before attempting to rely on any appellate decision in the search and seizure area, therefore, counsel should always check to see who was appealing. The answer may significantly limit the sweep of otherwise broad language.