State v. Delong, A146907
| Decision Date | 29 January 2014 |
| Docket Number | A146907 |
| Court | Court of Appeals of Oregon |
| Parties | STATE OF OREGON, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. WILLIAM RICK DELONG, Defendant-Appellant. |
Douglas County Circuit Court
Peter Gartlan, Chief Defender, and Ryan T. O'Connor, Senior Deputy Public Defender, Office of Public Defense Services, filed the brief for appellant.
John R. Kroger, Attorney General, Anna M. Joyce, Solicitor General, and Susan G. Howe, Senior Assistant Attorney General, filed the brief for respondent.
Before Armstrong, Presiding Judge, and Nakamoto, Judge, and Egan, Judge.
Reversed and remanded.
Defendant challenges his conviction for unlawful possession of methamphetamine, ORS 475.894, and assigns error to the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence. After stopping defendant for failure to wear a seat belt, a deputy sheriff sergeant questioned defendant while he was handcuffed in the sergeant's patrol car. During questioning and before he received Miranda warnings, defendant said that the deputies could search his vehicle. Another deputy sheriff conducted the search, found a fanny pack under the passenger seat, and opened it, thereby discovering the methamphetamine. Defendant contends that the trial court should have suppressed his statements and the physical evidence due to the violation of his rights under Article I, section 12, of the Oregon Constitution. We agree and reverse and remand for further proceedings.
We present the facts from the trial court's findings and the suppression hearing, viewed in the light most favorable to the state. State v. Guggenmos, 350 Or 243, 245, 253 P3d 1042 (2011); State v. Pickle, 253 Or App 235, 237, 288 P3d 1039 (2012), rev den, 353 Or 428 (2013). Defendant and his passenger, Keith, were driving in Douglas County when Sergeant Robeson observed that defendant was not wearing a seatbelt. Robeson stopped defendant and asked him for his driver's license, but defendant did not produce a license or any other form of picture identification. Robeson then asked defendant to step out of the car and detained him to verify his identity. Robeson handcuffed defendant, searched him, and placed him in the back of his patrol car. DeputyPoe arrived to assist around the time Robeson was taking defendant into custody.
Robeson and Poe both attempted to identify defendant. Robeson asked defendant questions about his identity and filled out a form based on defendant's responses. Defendant told Robeson that he was from Utah and gave him other identifying information, which Robeson then gave to dispatch to search for an Oregon or Utah driver's license. Meanwhile, Poe used his in-car computer to search for more information about defendant, including looking for mug shots from the local jail and "wants and warrants." Before dispatch responded, Robeson further asked defendant whether there was "anything in the vehicle that we should be concerned about." Defendant answered "no" to that. Robeson did not ask for consent to search; however, defendant then volunteered that, if the deputies wanted to "search the vehicle," they could.
Poe found that there was a restraining order entered against defendant and informed Robeson, who then told Poe about defendant's consent to search the car. Poe conducted the search while Robeson interviewed Keith. Among other things, Poe found a fanny pack under the passenger seat. He showed it to Keith and asked whether it was hers. She said that it did not belong to her. Poe then opened the fanny pack and found several small zip-lock plastic bags, a pill bottle, and plastic straws, all containing a white powder residue.
Poe and Robeson then returned to defendant after a third deputy, Thornton, arrived to assist. Poe gave defendant Miranda warnings and asked questions about whatPoe had found in the car. Defendant then made incriminating statements, including admitting that the fanny pack was his and that there was drug paraphernalia in it. Thornton's field test on one of the plastic bags indicated that the white residue it contained was methamphetamine.
In seeking to suppress all evidence resulting from the search, including his incriminating statements, defendant argued, among other things, that the evidence should be suppressed because of a Miranda violation. Defendant contended that he was in custody and under compelling circumstances while he was handcuffed in the police vehicle and that Robeson was asking defendant questions without giving required Miranda warnings for the purpose of furthering a criminal investigation, beyond issuing a traffic citation. His consent to search the vehicle, he argued, was invalid because it was obtained during that period of questioning. Defendant also contended that, even if he had validly consented to a search of the vehicle, the state did not meet its burden to establish that his consent extended to a search of all of the vehicle's contents and closed containers. Thus, the search of the fanny pack was "not within the scope of the consent search" and, without a warrant, was illegal.
To counter those arguments, the state asserted that defendant was not being interrogated when Robeson asked him about "anything of concern" in the vehicle. The state characterized that as part of routine questioning in connection with an attempt to positively identify defendant and asserted that no Miranda warnings were required. The state further argued that defendant had volunteered his consent to a search of the vehicleand, because no one else claimed to own the fanny pack, the officers had consent to search the fanny pack.
The trial court agreed with the state. It concluded that no Miranda warnings were required until Poe returned to defendant after having discovered the fanny pack and that defendant volunteered his consent to a search of the car, upon which Poe was entitled to rely when he opened the fanny pack.
On appeal, the state's position and the locus of the disputed issues have shifted. The state now concedes that Miranda warnings were required because defendant was in custody while handcuffed and being questioned in the police vehicle. Nevertheless, the state contends that the trial court correctly denied suppression of the evidence given defendant's spontaneous offer of consent to search his car while he was in custody. Defendant generally reprises the arguments he made in the trial court, asserting that, under State v. Vondehn, 348 Or 462, 236 P3d 691 (2010), his consent to a search of the vehicle, other statements he made, and the discovery of the physical evidence all derived from a violation of Article I, section 12, and should be suppressed. To address the trial court's determination that he spontaneously volunteered consent to search his car, defendant asserts that the questioning without a Miranda warning directly affected his responses and that he offered the search in an attempt to extricate himself from the situation by appearing to have nothing to hide; thus, the fact that he volunteered, rather than was asked to give, consent is of no consequence in the causal chain of events that led from a violation of his rights to the state's acquisition of evidence against him.
As noted at the outset, we conclude that the trial court erred when it denied defendant's motion to suppress. This case is largely governed by the principles and reasoning that the Supreme Court set forth in Vondehn, and so we discuss that case in some detail.
The Supreme Court also examined the remedies for a violation of an individual's Article I, section 12, rights. The court explained that, since State v. Magee, 304 Or 261, 744 P2d 250 (1987), it consistently had held "that the Oregon Constitution requires suppression of statements made without the benefit of Miranda warnings." Vondehn, 348 Or at 472. It further held that, when the police violate Article I, section 12, such as by failing to give Miranda warnings, "the state is precluded from using evidence derived from that violation to obtain a criminal conviction," id. at 475-76, including "physical evidence that is derived from that constitutional violation," id. at 476.
On facts similar to those in this case, the court applied those principles to suppress evidence of the defendant's statements and the marijuana found in his backpack during a brief custodial interrogation before he was given Miranda warnings. The defendant in Vondehn was handcuffed and placed in the back seat of a patrol car. An officer then asked the defendant two questions about the backpack that the police had found in the car in which the defendant had been a passenger. In response to the first question, the defendant admitted that he owned the backpack and that it contained marijuana. The officer next asked whether the police could search it, and the defendant consented. Relying on his consent, the officer searched the backpack, discovered marijuana, gave the defendant Miranda warnings,...
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