Court Opinion

ID: 9529507
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:51:33.439265+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:49.289250
License: Public Domain

NEWMAN, J.,
concurring.
I concur. The majority finds that this case is distinguishable from State v. Okeke, 82 Or App 393, 728 P2d 872 (1986). I agree. In Okeke, a treatment center employe searched the defendant whom the police had taken into custody and transported to the center pursuant to ORS 426.460(2). It mandates:
“The director of the treatment facility shall determine whether a person shall be admitted as a patient, or referred to another treatment facility or denied referral or admission. If the person is incapacitated or the health of the person appears to be in immediate danger, or if the director has reasonable cause to believe the person is dangerous to self or to any other person, the person must he admitted. The person shall be discharged within 48 hours unless the person has applied for voluntary admission to the treatment facility.” (Emphasis supplied.)
The defendant moved to suppress the pistol that the center employe seized from her purse when he was carrying out the legislative directive. We found that there was “official involvement” in the search and a violation of Article I, section 9.
“Although the police were not directly involved in the search, there was sufficient ‘official involvement’ in it to constitute state action. A police officer took defendant into custody and transported her to the Center pursuant to ORS 426.460(1). She was not free to leave, nor did she consent to the search. In detaining, questioning and searching defendant, Center personnel were implementing the legislative directive of ORS 426.460(2) and were exercising authority that the statute gave them. In conducting the search of defendant’s purse, they were acting under authority of the state and were, therefore, bringing governmental compulsion to bear on her. They had *237authority over defendant similar to what the police would have had if the police had searched her purse.” 82 Or App at 397. (Footnotes omitted.)
Here, the facts are materially different. The defendant had voluntarily entered the store. The store security agent observed her through slats in the front door of a fitting room. Defendant moved to suppress the evidence of theft that the security officer obtained from that observation. She did not object to the subsequent detention or interrogation, which occurred after the security agent followed her out of the store, detained her and her companion and seized the merchandise. ORS 131.655 authorizes, but does not require, a store employe who has probable cause for believing that a defendant has committed theft of property of a store to detain and interrogate that person, but says nothing about a “search” that precedes the detention and interrogation. Accordingly, even assuming that the observation through the slats in the fitting room door was a “search” within the meaning of Article I, section 9, the security agent did not undertake that search while implementing a statutory directive. Contrary to Okeke, there was no “official involvement” here and, therefore, no violation of Article I, section 9.