State v. Beeson
| Decision Date | 09 December 2020 |
| Docket Number | A166382 |
| Citation | 307 Or.App. 808,479 P.3d 576 |
| Parties | STATE of Oregon, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Harry Creighton BEESON, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Oregon Court of Appeals |
Mark Kimbrell, Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant. Also on the brief was Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate Section, Office of Public Defense Services.
Joanna L. Jenkins, Assistant Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent. Also on the brief were Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, and Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General.
Before DeHoog, Presiding Judge, and Egan, Chief Judge, and Mooney, Judge.*
Police officers stopped defendant after it was reported that he had hit someone with his truck and that he was intoxicated. The state concedes that the officers violated defendant's state constitutional rights when, after the circumstances became compelling, they administered field sobriety tests (FSTs) to him and continued to ask him questions without advising him of his Miranda rights. The trial court suppressed the statements and FSTs but received into evidence the results of the blood-alcohol (BAC) test to which defendant consented after the violation. Defendant was convicted of driving under the influence of intoxicants, ORS 813.010, and recklessly endangering another person, ORS 163.195, after a bench trial. He assigns error to the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress the results of his breath test. Defendant argues that the Miranda violation tainted his consent to the breath alcohol test and that the results should, therefore, be suppressed. For the reasons we explain below, we conclude that the breath test was not the product of the Miranda violation and that the trial court did not err in denying the motion to suppress the test results. We affirm the judgment.
We review the denial of defendant's motion to suppress for legal error. State v. Heise-Fay , 274 Or. App. 196, 201, 360 P.3d 615 (2015). We are bound by the trial court's express and implicit factual findings, so long as evidence in the record supports them. State v. Ehly , 317 Or. 66, 75, 854 P.2d 421 (1993). "If findings of historical fact are not made on all pertinent issues and there is evidence from which such facts could be decided more than one way, we will presume that the facts were decided in a manner consistent with the court's ultimate conclusion." Id. We state the facts consistently with our standard of review.
Defendant and T (the victim in this case) were familiar with each other on the day in question because they shared a remote family connection and because defendant's former girlfriend lived in a room in T's mother's home. While T's mother was giving T a ride across town, T noticed defendant following them. They stopped and there was a brief exchange during which T told defendant to When defendant did not respond, T said that he was going to call 9-1-1, which he immediately did. T walked back to his mother's car and, while he was providing 9-1-1 with a description of the vehicles, defendant "lunged his truck forward" striking T. T told the 9-1-1 operator that defendant "just hit me, he just hit me." After hitting T, defendant backed up, turned around, and drove away.
At approximately 5:00 p.m., Oregon State Police Trooper Katter heard the county dispatcher announce that there had just been a hit-and-run involving a potentially impaired driver. Katter began to search for the vehicle and, when she located it, activated her overhead lights and followed it. Defendant drove away from Katter, jumping the curb with his right rear tire as he turned onto Highway 101. He pulled into a nearby grocery store parking lot but did not immediately stop his vehicle. Katter then activated her siren, and defendant stopped circling and parked in front of the grocery store.
Defendant opened the door to his truck as Katter approached it. She smelled a "strong[ ] odor" of an alcoholic beverage emanating from defendant that remained strong throughout the contact. Katter noticed that defendant was "completely covered in mud" on his left side—from his "elbow down to his feet." His movements and speech were "sluggish," and his eyes were "glassy and bloodshot." When she asked to see his driver's license, defendant struggled for "about two and a half minutes to get it * * * out of his pants and hand it to" her. During this period of time, defendant and Katter had the following exchange:
?
"[DEFENDANT]: There's a lot of medication."
At that point, defendant produced his driver's license and Katter asked him for insurance and registration. Their discussion continued:
Deputy Hanson arrived while defendant was working to retrieve his driver's license. Hanson opened the passenger-side door of the truck and asked, "How are you?," to which defendant responded, Katter continued with defendant:
Katter then asked defendant for his car keys, and, when defendant asked why, Katter told him, "[b]ecause you're not going anywhere."
T arrived on the scene shortly thereafter, and defendant exited his truck in an effort to confront him. A third officer, Hodencamp, also arrived on the scene at that time. Hanson told defendant to return to his truck, but, when defendant did not comply, Hanson physically restrained defendant and instructed him to place his arms behind his back until he could calm back down. Katter told defendant to "relax," and defendant returned to his truck without further restraints. She asked him whether he was ready to take field sobriety tests (FSTs), and he responded that he was—after first denying that he had consumed alcohol and telling her again that he was taking medication. Defendant performed the requested FSTs, after which Katter told Hodencamp that she was going to arrest defendant for driving under the influence of intoxicants (DUII).
Hodencamp then began asking defendant questions related to the hit-and-run without providing defendant with Miranda warnings. After several minutes of questioning, Hodencamp and defendant had the following exchange:
Hodencamp then read defendant the Miranda warnings, after which the exchange continued:
Hodencamp arrested defendant at 5:25 p.m., approximately 30 minutes after Katter initially responded to the report from dispatch. Hodencamp drove defendant to the police station, where Katter resumed her DUII investigation. Katter read defendant his rights related to implied consent, after which defendant signed the implied consent form. Katter observed defendant for the required 15 minutes, at which point she administered the breath test, which yielded a blood-alcohol content (BAC) of .21 percent.
Defendant filed a pretrial motion to suppress, seeking to exclude evidence of statements he had made to the police, police observations of defendant, physical evidence, breath test results, and "all evidence, the source of which, comes from any contact with [defendant] either at the vehicle or thereafter by any police...
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...compelling to require Miranda warnings.)" (internal quotation marks omitted; alteration in original); cf. State v. Beeson , 307 Or. App. 808, 824, 479 P.3d 576 (2020) (concluding that a Miranda violation was not flagrant or egregious when officers administered field sobriety tests to a defe......
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State v. Price
...preserve it, and these are not circumstances in which we would exercise our discretion to correct the error. See State v. Beeson , 307 Or. App. 808, 818-19, 479 P.3d 576 (2020), adh'd to as modified on recons. , 309 Or. App. 787, 482 P.3d 821 (2021) ("[W]hether or not defendant invited any ......
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State v. Beeson
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