Court Opinion

ID: 9535110
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:45:35.650763+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:10.347270
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, J.,
dissenting.
“Impoundment” and “inventory search” are among a number of shorthand phrases that recur with regularity in judicial decisions. See State v. Hansen, 295 Or 78, 664 P2d 1095 (1983) and State v. Matsen/Wilson, 287 Or 581, 601 P2d 784 (1979), describing “freezing” or “securing” a premises. Repeated use of these terms without explanation may make it appear as though such phrases carry a legal significance. They do not. They are labels used in place of describing behavior in which government officials may engage in particular circumstances. An “impoundment” may occur when officials take possession of property with or without consent of the owner. An “inventory search” refers to such activity as making a list of items found in impounded property, including vehicles, and, in some cases, removing the items to a place of safekeeping. It should not be overlooked that “impoundments” are “seizures” and “inventories” are “searches” within the constitutional proscriptions.
The state does not deny that what occurred here was a search.1 In Mozzetti v. Superior Court of Sacramento County, 4 Cal 3d 699, 94 Cal Rptr 412, 484 P2d 84 (1971), the California Supreme Court described an inventory as follows:
*13“The inventory, by its nature, involves a random search of the articles left in an automobile taken into police custody; the police are looking for nothing in particular and everything in general. But this fact does not justify the search and establish its constitutionality. To the contrary, a random police search is the precise invasion of privacy which the Fourth Amendment was intended to prohibit.” 4 Cal 3d at 711.
In Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 US 523, 87 S Ct 1727, 18 LEd 2d 930 (1967), the United States Supreme Court rejected any narrowing of the scope of the fourth amendment to “the typical policeman’s search for the fruits and instrumentalities of crime,” on the theory that “[i]t is surely anomalous to say that the individual and his private property are fully protected by the Fourth Amendment only when the individual is suspected of criminal behavior.” 387 US at 530.2 Under Article I, section 9, whatever else a search may be, it certainly occurs when government officials explore areas of private property closed off from public scrutiny. As far as the citizen is concerned, such an examination of property invades his or her privacy and security regardless of the motives upon which the officials act.
The federal Supreme Court has recognized that in the context of non criminal or regulatory searches and seizures the constitutional concepts of probable cause, warrants and reasonableness, may be defined with reference to the administrative function responsible officials are charged with carrying out. See Camara v. Municipal Court, supra; See v. City of Seattle, 387 US 541, 87 S Ct 1737, 18 L Ed 2d 943 (1967); Marshall v. Barlow’s, Inc., 436 US 307, 98 S Ct 1816, 56 L Ed 2d 305 (1978). In this context, the federal Supreme Court has *14indicated that a statutorily authorized and regularly administered, nondiscretionary inspection procedure may replace the strict requirement for particularized probable cause. In these federal cases, administrative inspectors acted pursuant to legislative authority to enter and search either private residences or business premises. However, in addition, the federal Supreme Court continued to demand compliance with the warrant procedure. The probable cause requirement “will not necessarily depend upon specific knowledge of the condition of the particular dwelling” to be inspected, but the officials must demonstrate compliance with reasonable legislative or administrative standards for inspection, Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 US at 538. In Marshall v. Barlow’s, Inc., the court explained:
“A warrant, * * * would provide assurances from a neutral officer that the inspection is reasonable under the Constitution, is authorized by statute, and is pursuant to an administrative plan containing specific neutral criteria. Also, a warrant would then and there advise the owner of the scope and objects of the search, beyond which limits the inspector is not expected to proceed. These are important functions for a warrant to perform, functions which underlie the Court’s prior decisions that the Warrant Clause applies to inspections for compliance with regulatory statutes.” 436 US at 323. (Footnotes omitted.)3
I agree with the majority that government search or seizure can only occur pursuant to a source of authority for the action. See State v. Painter, 296 Or 422, 676 P2d 309 (1984). I disagree with the majority, however, on the following points.
First, I do not accept the majority’s narrow view that the constitutional guarantees against warrantless and factually unsupported searches and seizures apply only, or most particularly, to the enforcement of the criminal laws. Historically, the government abuses which sparked enactment of our federal fourth amendment were carried out against the American colonies by government officials fulfilling what we would probably consider today to be an administrative or regulatory function, that is, customs control and the regulation of commerce.
*15During colonial times, the British government enacted a variety of regulations restricting the colonies from trading with anyone but England or her dependencies. The Molasses Act of 1733, which imposed a prohibitive duty on molasses and sugar imported from the non-British West Indies, was one such restriction. The act was weakly enforced, however, until 1760, when England decided to halt the thriving illegal trade. A potent weapon was found in the writs of assistance, which granted to officers in broadly written terms the power to search any house or shop, to break open doors, chests and packages, and to remove prohibited goods. The effect of these writs was more invidious even than those used in England. In England they had been employed in particular libel cases and were, therefore, inherently limited. In the colonies the writs were not returnable after execution but were good as a continuous license during the lifetime of the sovereign. Lasson, The History and Development of the Fourth Amendment (1937 repr 1970).
Reaction against the writs found its full expression in Massachusetts. In 1772 the citizens of Boston composed a document which identified those rights that the colonists regarded as fundamental, among others, freedom from writs of assistance, by which “Officers * * * break thro’ the sacred rights of the Domicil, ransack men’s houses, destroy their securities, carry off their property, and * * * commit the most horred [sic] murders.” Schwartz, The Great Rights of Mankind 61 (1977). Two years later in a petition to the King for redress of grievances, the Continental Congress complained:
“The officers of the customs are empowered to break open and enter houses, without the authority of any civil magistrate, founded on legal information.”
Landynski, Search and Seizure and the Supreme Court, 37-38 (1966).
In 1776, even before the Declaration of Independence, Virginia adopted a Constitution and Declaration of Rights, the first true bill of rights in the modern American sense. Many of the rights included in the Declaration extended well beyond those known in Britain at that time. One right was the guaranty of protection against general warrants:
*16“10. That general warrants, whereby any officer or messenger may be commanded to search suspected places without evidence of a fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, or whose offence [sic] is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are grievous and oppressive and ought not to be granted.”
1 Schwartz, The Bill of Rights, A Documentary History 235 (1971). Seven of the eleven other colonies which subsequently adopted constitutions included provisions, similar to that of Virginia, barring the use of general warrants. Schwartz, The Great Rights of Mankind 88 (1977). From these antecedents emerged the federal fourth amendment. It is clear that the amendment was founded on the notion that all persons should be free from governmental searches and seizures, not only those who are the subject of criminal investigation.
Second, the majority suggests that inventory searches are even less amenable to constitutional regulation than other administrative searches because, unlike searches for evidence of crime or regulatory noncompliance, inventories are not undertaken to discover anything in particular. In the majority’s words, an inventory is not a “ ‘search’ for predictable ‘things to be seized’ that could be ‘particularly described,’ as the warrant requirement of Article I, section 9 contemplates.” 298 Or at 8. Contrary to the conclusion the majority draws, I find that this distinction renders inventory searches even less defensible. It may be that the constitution requires, at a minimum, a discovery objective, that is, that the search take place for the purpose of discovering something, precisely so that “things to be seized” can be “particularly described.” If this is the case, then searches undertaken with no particular discovery objective would fail to meet a thresh-hold constitutional requirement.
What, then, are the objectives which the majority finds might render this search constitutionally “reasonable”? The majority accepts two of the three rationales advanced in South Dakota u. Opperman, 428 US 364, 96 S Ct 3092, 49 L Ed 2d 1000 (1976) the need to protect property while in government custody and the need to protect government custodians from claims of lost or stolen property. The majority acknowledges that the degree to which government officials can search property lawfully in their custody will depend “upon the purpose of the custody.” 298 Or at 8. However, the majority *17also indicates that so long as government officials have been delegated authority to seize and search property, in this case to impound and inventory vehicles, the justifications advanced in Opperman “are important considerations whenever full custody of personal property is authorized.” 298 Or at 10. This is my third point of disagreement with the majority. The Opperman inventory rationales have no automatic application in the administrative search and seizure context. Whether a particular search of private property in a non criminal context is “reasonable” under the constitution must be measured against the purpose of the delegated authority. The justifications for an administrative search necessarily will be defined within the context of the administrative authority, function and purpose by which the search is undertaken. For example, a particular state official may be authorized to take responsibility for lost property. This responsibility may also include an obligation to attempt to return lost property to its owner. Toward this end, the official might be able to search the property to the extent necessary to fulfill this function, that is, for the purpose of discovering the owner’s identity and ascertaining a means to contact that person. However, unless the official can point to some further administrative duty or duties that could be fulfilled only by examining each item inside the property, making a list of these items and, in some cases, removing them — that is, by making an inventory — then a further intrusion of this nature would not be allowed.
Inventory searches of automobiles for non investigatory reasons are not new. This type of search and the justifications upon which it is premised have been criticized often. See Comment, Chimel v. California: A Potential Roadblock to Vehicle Searches, 17 UCLA L Rev 626 (1970). Judge Moylan took issue particularly with the justification that inventories are necessary to protect car owners’ property:
“It is unrealistic to see in the justifications advanced for the inventory search any substantial counterweight to the basic Fourth Amendment protection of privacy. The failure to consult the wishes of the individual concerned makes a mockery of the claim that the search is in the interest of protecting his personal property. It would be of small comfort to go to the penitentiary, reassured that you are there only because the police were adamant in protecting you from petty theft regardless of whether you wished such protection. To *18permit an otherwise prohibited intrusion because it is ‘routine police policy’ is to allow the Fourth Amendment protection to ‘approach the evaporation point.’ ” Moylan, The Inventory Search of an Automobile: A Willing Suspension of Disbelief, 5 U Balt L Rev 203, 219-220 (1976). (Footnote omitted.)
Another commentator has questioned the utility of inventories as a protection for the police.
“If the inventory does, in fact, protect the defendant against theft and the police against false charges of theft, its use might be justified. However, it is at least doubtful that inventories serve any purpose other than as a means of a warrantless search for evidence. If the arrestee or a third person subsequently brings a civil action for the alleged loss of property from the vehicle, the burden is on the claimant to prove that the article was left in the automobile and that the bailee failed to return it. The only possible situation in which the inventory would aid the claimant would be if the missing articles appeared on the inventory receipt. However, if the article was stolen either before the inventory or perhaps innocently omitted when the inventory was taken, the inventory would be to the claimant’s disadvantage. Furthermore, the inventory would be of only limited benefit to the bailee or the police if the missing articles were not listed on the inventory receipt. First, the inventory is prepared by the police and is to some extent a self-serving document. Second, even if the police have the arrestee acknowledge the inventory by signing the receipt, the inventory would not be binding on a third party claimant. In any of the possible permutations, absent a special statutory provision, the inventory would not be conclusive of the issue.” Comment, The Aftermath of Cooper v. California: Warrantless Automobile Search in Illinois, 1968 Ill L.F. 401, 407-08 (1968).
One of the most frequently cited cases addressing inventory searches, and one followed by this court in State v. Keller, 265 Or 622, 510 P2d 568 (1973), is Mozzetti v. Superior Court of Sacramento County, supra. In Mozzetti, the driver was unavailable to decide how to safeguard property in the car. Because the car was blocking traffic the police towed it, impounded it and, in accordance with police department policy, inventoried its contents. The court suppressed evidence obtained from a suitcase in the car because it rejected the rationales advanced in support of the reasonableness of *19inventory searches. Protecting the owner’s property was considered an insufficient reason to violate Fourth Amendment rights. According to the court, sufficient protection could be extended by “rolling up the windows, locking the vehicle doors and returning the keys to the owner. The owner himself, if required to leave his car temporarily, could do no more to protect his property.” 4 Cal3d at 707. Mozzetti dismissed the need to protect the police from tort claims as “even less convincing.” 4 CaI3d at 708.
Boulet v. State, 17 Ariz App 64, 495 P2d 504 (1972), also approved in Keller, dismissed the rationales upon which inventory searches are based as follows:
“We would first observe the taking of an inventory does not insure the safety of the contents nor does it ipso facto prevent an owner from later claiming that goods had been stolen or damaged.
“We fail to see how the taking of an inventory will insulate the police against false accusations of theft and assure the property owner that his property will not be taken. Unscrupulous persons who desire to steal articles will simply not list them on the inventory. Owners who wish to assert spurious claims against law enforcement officials or the garage owners can simply claim that the officers did not list them on the inventory. In fact, we can envision instances when the taking of an inventory may actually alert potential thieves to the value of items contained in the automobile. In balancing the conflicting interests we find a countervailing interest in maintaining the privacy of one’s personal effect and preventing anyone, including the police, from searching suitcases and other closed containers which may be in the automobile at the time it is being removed to storage. We believe that each of these interests can be adequately safeguarded by measures short of inventory search conducted in this area.” 17 Ariz App at 68-69, 494 P2d at 508-09.
Because vehicle searches could not be justified by the rationales advanced, both Mozzetti and Boulet concluded that the police may not search, but may only inventory items of personal property “clearly visible without probing,” Mozzetti, 4 Cal3d at 707. See also Boulet, 17 Ariz App at 69, 495 P2d at 509.
A number of other states have viewed inventory searches with caution, and have rejected, either in whole or in *20part, the rationales offered to support such searches. State v. Opperman, on remand 247 NW2d 673 (SD 1976); State v. Mangold, 82 NJ 575, 414 A2d 1312 (1980); State v. Goff, 272 SE2d 457 (W Va 1980); Wagner v. Commonwealth, 581 SW2d 352 (KY 1979); State v. Gaut, 357 So2d 513 (La 1978); State v. Sawyer, 571 P2d 1131 (Mont 1977); State v. Boster, 217 Kan 618, 539 P2d 294 (1975); State v. Bradshaw, 41 Ohio App 2d 48, 322 NE2d 311 (1974). Like Mozzetti and Boulet, these cases considered the rationales upon which such searches are based, rejected these as insufficient to uphold a warrantless search, and limited police conduct to activities short of a search, such as listing property that can be seen from outside the car, which furthered the purposes of such inventories. The majority of these decisions are based on interpretations of state constitutional provisions. See Opperman, 247 NW2d at 674; Sawyer, 571 P2d at 1134; Gaut, 357 So2d at 516; Wagner 581 SW2d at 356; Mangold, 414 A2d at 1315; Goff, 272 SE2d at 460.
I would hold the search in this case unlawful under Article I, section 9 of the Oregon Constitution.
Lent, J., joins in this dissent.

 At the suppression hearing defendant argued that the exploration into the glove compartment was in reality a search requiring both probable cause and a warrant either because it was overly intrusive or because it was undertaken for investigatory motives. The state’s position on this point was not articulated. When the trial judge made his ruling on admission he stated only that “[t]he map and wine bottle were the product of the inventory search.” The ruling indicates the judge’s view that this inventory was a search but need not be supported by probable cause or a warrant.

In South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 US 364, 96 S Ct 3092, 49 LEd 2d 1000 (1976), an inventory case factually similar to the present case, a plurality of the court indicated that it was not addressing the question whether inventories were searches, and referenced state court decisions finding that inventories were not searches in light of “the benign noncriminal context of the intrusion * * 428 US at 370, note 6. In his concurring opinion, Powell, J. indicates, however, that “routine inventories,” presumably those encompassing closed areas of the car as did the inventory in that case, are searches:
“Routine inventories of automobiles intrude upon an area in which the private citizen has a ‘reasonable expectation of privacy.’ Katz v. United States, 389 US 347, 360, 19 L Ed 2d 576, 88 S Ct 507 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring). Thus, despite their benign purpose, when conducted by government officials they constitute ‘searches’ for purposes of the Fourth Amendment.” 428 US at 377, note 1.

The obvious difficulties in defining administrative functions and criminal law enforcement responsibilities need not be addressed here.