Court Opinion

ID: 9629907
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:52:18.098626+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:26.527676
License: Public Domain

SCHWAB, C. J.,
dissenting.
In my opinion a motion to suppress evidence is in effect a pleading which should contain, in the absence of good reason to the contrary, allegations adequate to put the state on notice of what it is expected to meet. In the normal course of events all evidence pertaining to those allegations should be heard and the issue decided at the pretrial hearing on the motion. The motion to suppress in this case read as follows:
“COMES NOW the Defendant and moves the Court for an Order suppressing the evidence obtained from the Defendant, being a narcotic drug, to-wit, Marijuana, on the following grounds:
“(1) That the evidence seized herein was seized prior to an arrest, or during an interrogation which *107was unlawful, without a search warrant, and thus the evidence is inadmissible;
“(2) That the officers of Seaside lacked probable cause in stopping the Defendant, the subsequent search, and the obtaining of the evidence;
“(3) That the seizure of the evidence herein involved was illegal for the reasons that the search of the Defendant went beyond the permissible scope of a search incidental to any arrest, if said arrest was valid, in that the Defendant was stopped for no known reason and should not have been subject to any limitations on his liberties and the resulting evidence is inadmissible;
“(4) That the Defendant’s constitutional rights afforded under Article I, section 9 of the constitution for the State of Oregon, and the 4th and 5th section of the Amendments of the United States Constitution have been violated.”
I find nothing in this motion which told the state that the defendant was seeking to suppress the use of narcotics picked up from the street by the police on the basis of events which had transpired between the police and the defendant, remote in time from the night of the seizure. Nor do I find anything in the record that indicates why it was not reasonable to expect allegations concerning violation of the Wong Sun doctrine,① if it was otherwise applicable, in the motion to suppress. Furthermore, even after defendant sua sponte made statements which, if true, might involve the Wong Sun doctrine,② there was no effort *108by counsel at that stage or during the trial stage to seek a ruling on the basis of that doctrine. This question was raised for the first time on appeal.
We are not dealing here with a matter which goes to guilt or innocence, but rather with an exclusionary rule which is primarily designed to protect the constitutional rights of society as a whole even at the cost of failing to convict the guilty.
Finally, even assuming that the court, after hearing the defendant’s unsolicited comments, should have conducted a Wong Sun hearing, it did not. Under such circumstances I would at most remand for a hearing on this question and let the issue of suppression and consequent reversal abide the outcome of that hearing. This procedure was followed with regard to a hearing on the voluntariness of a confession in State v. Brewton, 238 Or 590, 395 P2d 874 (1964).
For the foregoing reasons I respectfully dissent.

 Wong Sun v. United States, 371 US 471, 83 S Ct 407, 9 L Ed 2d 441 (.1963).

 While it is not unreasonable to infer from his testimony that the defendant, when called over by the police at the time in question, threw the contraband onto the street because his prior experiences with the police led him to believe he would be searched, he did not state unequivocally that this was his reason *108for so doing. It is possible that in an adequate hearing on this matter the cause and effect relationship necessary to an application of the Wong Sun doctrine would not be developed.