State v. Belt
Decision Date | 06 March 1997 |
Citation | 325 Or. 6,932 P.2d 1177 |
Parties | STATE of Oregon, Respondent on Review, v. Gary Dean BELT, Petitioner on Review. CC 93-1257; CA A85851; SC S42856. |
Court | Oregon Supreme Court |
Carl R. Amala, Salem, argued the cause for petitioner on review. On the petition was J.P. Harris II, Salem.
Jonathan H. Fussner, Assistant Attorney General, Salem, argued the cause for respondent on review. With him on the brief were Theodore R. Kulongoski, Attorney General, and Virginia L. Linder, Solicitor General.
Before CARSON, C.J., and GILLETTE, VAN HOOMISSEN, FADELEY, GRABER and DURHAM, JJ.
A police officer stopped defendant's automobile to investigate a report that defendant had violated ORS 167.007(1)(b) by soliciting some women to engage in sexual conduct for a fee. However, based on evidence gathered as a result of the stop, the state charged defendant with other crimes, namely, driving under the influence of intoxicants and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
In the prosecution for those crimes, defendant challenged the lawfulness of the original stop for solicitation of prostitution and moved to suppress all evidence that resulted from it. The trial court granted defendant's pretrial motion to suppress, on the ground that the circumstances attendant to the officer's stop and inquiry about the crime of solicitation were insufficient to support a "reasonable suspicion" that defendant had committed that crime. Therefore, the stop was unlawful, because it was not based on "reasonable suspicion," in the trial court's view. The trial court stated:
(Emphasis added.)
The state appealed under ORS 138.060(3). The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the case to the trial court for further proceedings. State v. Belt, 137 Or.App. 440, 445, 905 P.2d 862 (1995). For the reasons stated below, we affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals.
On June 8, 1993, the Tillamook County Sheriff's dispatcher informed a patrol officer that four women had stated that a man had offered to exchange money for participation in sexual conduct. The dispatcher directed the officer to meet the women. The women collectively told the officer that defendant had said to them something like "I've got the money, if you've got the time," and also had told them that he had engaged prostitutes to "relieve" himself while overseas in the military. The women also stated that he had invited one of them to enter the automobile that he was driving and had offered to take one or more of them out to dinner. The women related that they had declined and that defendant had departed, but that he later returned and renewed his efforts to persuade any one of them to drive away with him.
Directing the officer's attention across the street, the women identified a parked automobile as the one driven by the man who they reported was the subject of the events recounted above. When defendant came out of the store and entered the automobile, the women identified him as the man who had approached them. The officer crossed the street to contact defendant "[t]o get his statement of what happened."
As the automobile backed out of a parking space, the officer approached the open driver's side window and spoke to defendant to inquire about defendant's contact with the women. Defendant stopped his automobile. He reparked it at the curb when the officer asked him to do so. At the officer's request, defendant stepped out of his automobile so that they could talk about what the women had said.
Defendant denied having solicited the women for prostitution. However, the officer noticed a strong odor of alcohol on defendant's breath, saw that his eyes were bloodshot, and noticed that his speech was slurred. Defendant mentioned that he had drunk some beer earlier that day. When defendant got out of his automobile at the officer's request, the officer observed that defendant had difficulty keeping his balance. The officer then read defendant his Miranda rights. Defendant failed field sobriety tests administered by the officer. The officer arrested defendant for driving under the influence of intoxicants, handcuffed defendant, and placed him in a police automobile. The officer immediately returned to defendant's nearby automobile to look for additional evidence of driving under the influence of intoxicants. When the officer entered the automobile, he saw and seized a rifle.
During the suppression hearing, the officer opined that he did not claim to have "probable cause" to arrest defendant for solicitation. That may be, but the officer did not arrest him, he stopped him. Thus, that concession is not dispositive, because the question is the legality of that stop. As this court stated in State v. Ehly, 317 Or. 66, 80, 854 P.2d 421 (1993), "[t]he statutory standard for the stopping and questioning of a person concerning his or her possible criminal activity was intended to be less than the standard for probable cause to arrest."
The state conceded at trial, and we agree, that the officer stopped defendant when he asked defendant to repark his automobile and get out of it to answer the officer's inquiry. Statutory law governs the lawfulness of a stop. ORS 131.605(5) provides:
"A 'stop' is a temporary restraint of a person's liberty by a peace officer lawfully present in any place."
Statutory law also governs the circumstances under which an investigatory stop is permitted. ORS 131.615(1) states:
The text of ORS 131.605(4) requires:
(1) that the officer "holds a belief" and,
(2) that that belief must be "reasonable under the totality of the circumstances."
The "holds a belief" element of ORS 131.605(4) requires that the officer subjectively believe that the person stopped has committed a crime. ORS 131.605(4) also requires that the officer's subjective belief be objectively "reasonable under the totality of the circumstances." See State v. Valdez, 277 Or. 621, 625-29, 561 P.2d 1006 (1977) ( ).
We think that, in the light of the foregoing legal standards, the issue of law presented is whether the information known to the officer at the time of the stop was sufficient as a legal matter to support a reasonable suspicion that defendant had committed the crime for which the officer stopped him for the purpose of making inquiry. ORS 131.615(1). We turn to a review of those circumstances in light of defendant's arguments.
Defendant argues that the Court of Appeals erroneously inferred from the circumstances known to the officer that the officer had formed the statutorily required subjective belief that defendant had committed a crime. Defendant argues that, if no direct evidence establishes that an officer "holds a belief" that a crime has been committed, the trier of fact cannot infer that belief from other facts. Thus, defendant proposes that, as a matter of law, an inference cannot establish whether an officer subjectively "holds a belief" that a defendant has committed a crime. According to defendant, direct testimony of an officer's subjective belief is the sole means of proving that necessary element of the reasonable suspicion required to justify a stop.
Defendant's argument is not well taken. In Ehly, the court stated that "[w]hether the suspicion is reasonable often will depend on the inferences drawn from the particular circumstances confronting the officer." 317 Or. at 80, 854 P.2d 421. Those factual circumstances--a dispatch to investigate a solicitation complaint and a report from four women that defendant repeatedly had accosted them in a manner that may suggest a desire to exchange money for sex--are sufficient to permit the inference that the officer suspected that defendant had committed a crime. 1 The officer's...
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