State v. Brown

• Decision Date: 06 April 2022
• Docket Number: A170300
• Citation: 318 Or.App. 713,508 P.3d 45
• Parties: STATE of Oregon, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Amanda Lyn BROWN, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Oregon Court of Appeals

318 Or.App. 713

508 P.3d 45

STATE of Oregon, Plaintiff-Respondent,

v.Amanda Lyn BROWN, Defendant-Appellant.

A170300

Court of Appeals of Oregon.

Argued and submitted September 9, 2021.

April 6, 2022

John Paul Evans, Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant. On the brief were Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate Section, and Erin J. Snyder Severe, Deputy Public Defender, Office of Public Defense Services.

Patricia G. Rincon, Assistant Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent. Also on the brief were Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, and Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General.

Before Mooney, Presiding Judge, and Shorr, Judge, and DeVore, Senior Judge.^*

MOONEY, P. J.

Defendant appeals a judgment of conviction for felony possession of methamphetamine, ORS 475.894(2)(b) (2017), amended by Ballot Measure 110 (2020), Or. Laws 2021, ch. 591, § 39,¹ asserting two assignments of error. We reject the first without discussion. As to defendant's second assignment—that the trial court erred in denying her motion to suppress evidence—we agree and, accordingly, reverse and remand.

We review the denial of a motion to suppress for legal error, deferring to the trial court's findings of historical fact to the extent there is constitutionally sufficient evidence in the record to support them. State v. Maciel-Figueroa , 361 Or. 163, 165-66, 389 P.3d 1121 (2017). And, we "assume that the trial court decided historical facts necessary to its legal conclusions in a manner consistent with those conclusions." State v. Reyes-Herrera , 369 Or. 54, 61, 500 P.3d 1 (2021). In this case, the pertinent facts are largely undisputed.

Officer Pfaff, an 18-year veteran of the Tualatin Police Department, was on patrol near Bridgeport Village one afternoon when she saw an older black Acura make a sudden lane change, crossing over a solid white line in violation of the traffic laws. Pfaff testified that older Acuras, Hondas, and Toyotas are "easy targets" for theft and she "pretty much make[s] it [her] practice to run every plate on every older vehicle like that—that [she] see[s]." Pfaff ran the license plate of the Acura and learned that it was registered to two females in the Salem area and that the name associated with the registration "seemed like it was a Hispanic name," which did not match the male driver and female passenger in the Acura. She also learned that the car was not reported as stolen.

Pfaff decided to initiate a traffic stop, but the car turned right into Bridgeport Village and quickly parked. As it parked, the passenger—defendant—"looked directly at" Pfaff. Pfaff acted disinterested, circled around, and then came back into the parking lot where she could view the car. The driver had gotten out of the car at that point and was standing at its rear with the trunk open; he did not see Pfaff. Defendant was still seated in the car. After a short time, the driver got back in the car and drove back onto Bridgeport Road. Pfaff followed and, as she passed the car, noticed that the front license plate was obscured by a license plate cover. Pfaff briefly lost track of the car but spotted it again near the rear entrance to a nearby business complex. She testified that her suspicion

"was that it was a stolen vehicle at the—for one thing. I definitely felt by the totality of the circumstances that there is criminal activity going on, you know, and it—it may have just been that he was a suspended driver, but something was going on with that vehicle, and I had reason to stop it, and was attempting to do so."

When asked the basis for her suspicion that the car was stolen, she replied:

"[T]he fact that it was from Salem, this it—everything about it was not—just seemed suspect. The registered owners, two females from Salem. I've got a male driving. The strange erratic driving behavior. The you know, quick park, which in my experience *** has led me to investigations where people were up to criminal activity. His clear desire to avoid."

Pfaff activated her overhead lights. The driver looked at her and she pointed for him to park. He looked down at his lap, then backed up and took off. Pfaff pursued. During the pursuit, the car sped down the center turn lane, almost crashed a couple of times, went through a lighted intersection, and eventually turned into the parking lot of a store. Pfaff lost sight of the car for a short time, but found it again, parked haphazardly in the middle of the lot, with the driver side door open.

Nobody was in the car, and Pfaff saw defendant walking away. Defendant was not making eye contact and, according to Pfaff, she was "obviously trying to avoid me." Pfaff immediately detained defendant in handcuffs "until [she] could figure everything out for safety." Pfaff described being "on high alert" and that her safety concerns arose from the fact that she did not know where the driver was, whether he was armed, and his frame of mind. The scene was "very fluid, fast moving" and "chaotic." She explained that she detained defendant because she

"believed that more likely than not at the least that—that was going to come back as a stolen vehicle. So the belief that she had been a passenger in a stolen vehicle. She's leaving the scene, you know, that doesn't really speak to a—a person of innocence if she had been in a vehicle and had not committed any kind of crimes, or had any information regarding those crimes, I would have expected she would stay in the vehicle and—and get police contact. So I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know if she'd been a (indiscernible) person in that vehicle. I had reason to detain her and speak with her about what she was doing and what was going on."²

Pfaff checked defendant for weapons, told her that she was not free to leave, separated her from her purse, and detained her in the back of her patrol car for a short time, at one point driving out of the parking lot and then quickly returning. Defendant was cooperative, telling Pfaff the driver's name and potential alias, and that he had left with a McDonald's bag that she believed had a gun in it. Pfaff let defendant out of the patrol car, took off the handcuffs, and returned her purse to her. Defendant pulled up a photograph of the driver from Facebook and gave it Pfaff to distribute to the other units in the area.

Officer Powell then arrived on the scene; at that point, defendant was seated on a short brick wall near Pfaff, and her purse was close to her. Pfaff asked Powell to take a statement from defendant. Powell knew only that a vehicle had attempted to elude during a traffic stop, the driver had fled, and the passenger was detained at the scene. Powell immediately asked defendant if there were any weapons inside her purse or "anything [he] would need to know about." Defendant responded that there were drugs in the purse and, in response to further questioning, that the drugs were methamphetamine. Powell handcuffed defendant and put her in the back of his patrol car while he conducted a records check, which revealed that she was on supervision.

After contacting defendant's supervision officer, Powell formally arrested defendant, read her Miranda rights, and searched her purse. The search revealed a capped syringe with a dark substance and a few plastic baggies, which defendant admitted contained methamphetamine.

Defendant was charged with unlawful possession of methamphetamine, ORS 475.894. She moved to suppress the evidence obtained during the stop, contending that the warrantless seizure and search violated Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution.³ The trial court denied the motion, concluding that, "based on the totality of the circumstances, Officer Pfaff had reasonable suspicion to investigate this defendant for the crime of Unauthorized Use of a Motor Vehicle [UUV], and she was properly detained." The court also found that Officer Powell "clearly articulated his officer safety concerns, and those are reasonable given the totality of the circumstances, and his lack of personal knowledge regarding the defendant's interaction with Officer Pfaff." And, the court found that defendant "admitted to the drugs[, a] detainer was issued[,] and the search was made incident to arrest."

A bench trial was held, and the court found defendant guilty. She appeals the ensuing judgment of conviction.

Defendant maintains on appeal that the trial court erred in denying her motion to suppress, contending, among other arguments, that Pfaff lacked reasonable suspicion to detain her and, even if the stop was lawful, there was no objectively reasonable officer-safety justification for the degree or duration of her detention. She further contends that Powell's question about the contents of her purse was not based on a reasonable, circumstance-specific concern for officer safety. As explained below, we agree with defendant's first argument—that the trial court erred in concluding that the stop was supported by reasonable suspicion of UUV, thus it violated Article I, section 9—and we reverse and remand on that basis. We therefore need not address defendant's alternative arguments.

As noted, Article I, section 9, protects against warrantless searches and seizures. There is no dispute that this case involves a "stop" of defendant—that is, the type of seizure "that is a temporary detention for investigatory purposes."⁴ Maciel-Figueroa , 361 Or. at 169-70, 389 P.3d 1121. The question is whether the stop was lawful under Article I, section 9, which we assess under the principles outlined in Maciel-Figueroa :

"For police officers to make a stop, they must reasonably suspect—based on specific and articulable facts—that the person committed a specific crime or type of crime or was about to commit a specific crime or type of crime. For a court to determine that an investigative stop was lawful under Article I, section 9, the court (1) must find that the officers actually suspected that the stopped person had committed a specific crime

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