Court Opinion

ID: 9627447
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:43:42.08503+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:45.738570
License: Public Domain

BUTTLER, J.,
concurring.
Although I concur in the majority’s holding in this case (68 Or App at 637-39) and with its historical analysis of the problems we have been directed to resolve, State v. Kennedy, 295 Or 260, 666 P2d 1316 (1983); State v. Caraher, 293 Or 741, 653 P2d 942 (1982), I do not agree with much of the majority’s discussion of State v. Caraher, supra, and State v. Lowry, 295 Or 337, 667 P2d 996 (1983).
In my opinion, this case presents a relatively straight-forward application of Caraher, and I agree with the majority’s application of the principles set forth in that case. As I understand Lowry, however, its holding has nothing to do with this case, and I see no reason to flog that opinion publicly other than to permit the author of the majority to vent his disagreement with it. That reason, however, does not justify publishing the opinion as the opinion of this court, so I do not join in it.
I do not agree with the dissent’s view that Lowry requires a warrant in this case. Lowry held that, although an item may be seized in a valid search incident to arrest, a further “search” of the contents of the seized container may *640not be made without a warrant.1 Here, the gun seized in the back seat of the automobile does not present that problem.
Accordingly, I concur separately.

 The majority here considers the only function of that warrant requirement to be “to impede police investigations and to create busy work forjudges,” 68 Or App at 627, and “to benefit only stationers who sell blank search warrant forms” 68 Or App at 634. Apparently for those reasons, at least in part, the majority states that Lowry does'not stand for that proposition. 68 Or App 628. It does, and I think the majority has overlooked the distinct possibility that the police may not have been able to obtain a warrant for want of probable cause to believe that the container contained contraband.
Concedely, the protection of constitutional rights, state or federal, takes time and may be inconvenient. That is nothing nev-; it is the price of liberty.