Court Opinion

ID: 9535057
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:45:04.377557+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:09.851851
License: Public Domain

VAN HOOMISSEN, J.,
dissenting.
I dissent.
After the officer obtained a search warrant, he went to the area it described. He specifically sought out the closest residence to the marijuana. He thought that the occupant of the residence owned the land where the marijuana was growing. He saw a pickup truck parked in front of the house. He heard a stereo playing. He assumed that somebody was inside. Under the circumstances, that assumption was reasonable. Indeed, if any further evidence of reasonableness was required, co-defendant Daly testified that she had left the stereo on for the specific purpose of creating the impression that someone was inside. I would hold that, on those facts, the officer could go to the back yard looking for an occupant of the residence in order to serve the warrant.
ORS 133.575 is designed to inform an occupant of searched premises that there is legal authority for the search.
*255The statute implicitly recognizes the reality that an occupant is less likely to interfere if an officer’s identity and authority are made known.
This case is similar to State v. Illingworth, 60 Or App 150, 652 P2d 834 (1982), rev den 294 Or 569 (1983), where we concluded that the officers had a right to be at the defendant’s back door and that marijuana they saw through a kitchen window, and other marijuana found in a garden patch on the property, was properly seized.