Court Opinion

ID: 9563090
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:36:50.214941+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:43.565107
License: Public Domain

DURHAM, J. pro tempore,
dissenting.
I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that “the rolling over of the body was authorized by ORS 146.103, and the observations made thereby were permissible.” In reaching its conclusion, the majority reasons that
“a medical examiner may ‘take custody of or exercise control over’ a dead body in plain view in the same way that a police officer may seize evidence that is in plain view from a lawful vantage point.” 127 Or App at 387.
I agree with that statement, but it is inapplicable here, because Sheriff Reed testified that he rolled the body over to look for a weapon, not to take custody of the body. That is a search. Reed testified:
“When we reentered the house the second time there was no weapon showing anywhere. We rolled the body partially over on its side to see if there was a weapon or anything underneath. At that time there was no weapon showing.”
*390The majority concludes that ORS 146.103 authorizes the rolling over of the body, but fails to address Reed’s warrant-less search for a weapon. ORS 146.103 does not and cannot authorize a medical examiner to conduct an unconstitutional search.1 State v. Brothers, 4 Or App 253, 260, 478 P2d 442 (1970).
The emergency and exigent circumstances exceptions to the warrant requirement are inapplicable on this record, as the trial court found. I also agree with the trial court that the inevitable discovery doctrine is inapplicable. ORS 133.683 codifies that doctrine. State v. Miller, 300 Or 203, 228, 709 P2d 225 (1985), cert den 475 US 1141 (1986); State v. Grelinger, 102 Or App 297, 300, 794 P2d 446 (1990). That statute provides:
“If a search or seizure is carried out in such a manner that things seized in the course of the search would be subject to suppression, and if as a result of such search or seizure other evidence is discovered subsequently and offered against a defendant, such evidence shall be subject to a motion to suppress unless the prosecution establishes by a preponderance of the evidence that such evidence would have been discovered by law enforcement authorities irrespective of such search or seizure, and the court finds that exclusion of such evidence is not necessary to deter violations of ORS 133.525 to 133.703.”
We have held that that rule does not render admissible primary evidence discovered as a result of an unlawful search or seizure. State v. Schellhorn, 95 Or App 297, 303, 769 P2d 221 (1989). In this case, the absence of the gun, discovered by rolling the body over, is primary evidence. The evidence discovered pursuant to the resulting search warrant *391is subsequent evidence. Because the state does not show that the police would have discovered the subsequent evidence without the primary evidence, the inevitable discovery doctrine does not render the subsequent evidence admissible.
In its brief, the state says:
“The officers then re-entered the house, turned the body over, and did not find a firearm under the body. Based on that discovery, which indicated that the death was not a suicide, the officers obtained a search warrant to seize hair, clothing, and a blood sample from, and to perform a gunshot residue test on, defendant’s person, as well as to search defendant’s residence and vehicles.” (Emphasis supplied.)
The majority ignores the fact that the police obtained the search warrant because of the officer’s observations during the second entry. The trial court’s suppression order was correct, because those observations amounted to an unlawful search. I would affirm.

 The majority argues that the trial court should have disregarded Reed’s motive to search because, apart from that motive, ORS 164.103 authorized him to roll the body over and to make the resulting observations. The majority relies on State v. Ainsworth, 310 Or 613, 801 P2d 749 (1990), which held that a plain view aerial observation of illegal activity from a lawful vantage point was not a search. The majority misapplies Ainsworth. Here, the officers entered the home with consent but, as the trial court found, searched beneath the body without a warrant or consent. The site of the search was not in plain view. I conclude that Reed engaged in a search because of his behavior, not his motive, in moving the body so that he could inspect the space beneath it for evidence, and the fact that Reed could not make an unaided observation of that space from his location in the home. Because Reed’s act was a search, it must pass muster under Article I, section 9, whether or not a statute purports to authorize it.