State v. Suppah
| Decision Date | 19 February 2016 |
| Docket Number | CC 100016CT,CA A149412,SC S062648. |
| Citation | 369 P.3d 1108,358 Or. 565 |
| Parties | STATE of Oregon, Petitioner on Review, v. Roman Lance SUPPAH, Respondent on Review. |
| Court | Oregon Supreme Court |
David B. Thompson, Assistant Attorney General, Salem, argued the cause and filed the brief for petitioner on review. With him on the brief was Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, and Anna M. Joyce, Solicitor General.
Joshua B. Crowther, Deputy Public Defender, Salem, argued the cause and filed the brief for respondent on review. With on the brief was Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender, Office of Public Defense Services.
Robert M. Atkinson, Portland, filed an amicus curiae brief on his own behalf.
Before BALMER, Chief Justice, and KISTLER, WALTERS, LANDAU, BREWER, BALDWIN, Justices, and LINDER, Senior Justice.**
, J.
The state charged defendant with giving false information to a deputy sheriff who had stopped him for a traffic violation. Later, at a hearing on defendant's motion to suppress, the deputy could not remember the specific traffic violation that had led him to stop defendant. The trial court found that the state's inability to establish the reason for the stop rendered it unlawful, but it denied defendant's motion to suppress the statements that defendant had made following the stop. Focusing on defendant's reasons for giving the deputy false information, the trial court found that defendant's decision to do so was independent of the illegality. The en banc Court of Appeals reversed. State v. Suppah, 264 Or.App. 510, 334 P.3d 463 (2014)
(en banc). We allowed the state's petition for review and now reverse the Court of Appeals decision and affirm the trial court's judgment.
In July 2010, defendant Roman Suppah was driving his girlfriend's car in Sherman County on Interstate 84.1 Deputy Sheriff Hulke stopped defendant for a traffic violation. After being stopped, defendant "told [the deputy that] his name was Harold Pennington, born in 7/21/64." Defendant said that he lived in Warm Springs but that he did not "have a physical address or a mailing address." The deputy contacted the dispatcher to check the name and date of birth that defendant had given him. The dispatcher told him that "Pennington was driving while suspended," and defendant did not offer any proof of insurance.
The deputy cited defendant (as Pennington) for driving while suspended and driving without insurance. The deputy did not cite defendant for the traffic violation that had led him to stop defendant in the first place, nor did he make a written record of the reason why he had stopped defendant. As the deputy later explained, the traffic violation that had led him to stop defendant was one for which he normally gives drivers a warning but no citation.
A month later, in August, defendant called the Sherman County District Attorney's office and told them that his name was not Harold Pennington and that he, not Pennington, was the person whom the deputy had stopped on Interstate 84 in July. Defendant explained that he had been driving his girlfriend's car when the deputy stopped him, that he thought that Pennington had a valid driver's license, and that he had given the deputy Pennington's name because he did not want his girlfriend's car towed since he (defendant) did not have a driver's license. Defendant explained that he was coming forward with that information because he did not want to get his friend Pennington into trouble. Defendant later told the same information to two other law enforcement agencies.
Given defendant's statements in August, the state dismissed the charges against Pennington. However, it charged defendant with two misdemeanors: driving while suspended, ORS 811.182
, and giving false information to a police officer, ORS 807.620. Before trial, defendant moved to suppress the false statements that he had made to the deputy in July and the true statements that he had made to the law enforcement agencies in August. He argued that the deputy had no basis for stopping him in July and that his statements in both July and August were the product of that illegality. At the hearing on defendant's motion, the deputy testified he had stopped defendant in July "for a traffic violation." However, the deputy could not remember "what that violation was." As noted, the deputy had not made a record of that violation but instead had cited defendant for driving while suspended and driving without insurance based on his understanding that defendant was Pennington.
Given the deputy's inability to remember the specific traffic violation that had led him to stop defendant, the state conceded that the stop was unlawful because it could not show any justification for the stop.2 The state argued, however, that defendant's statements were attenuated from the unlawful stop. For the most part, the state's attenuation argument focused on the statements that defendant had made in August, while defendant's counterargument focused on the statements that he had made in July. The trial court found that, although the stop was unlawful, defendant had given the deputy a false name and date of birth in July "to keep * * * [from] having the car towed" and that he had come forward with truthful information in August "to keep his friend [Pennington] out of trouble." Given those findings, the trial court concluded that defendant's decision to give the deputy a false name in July and his decision to come forward with truthful information in August were not the product of the unlawful stop. The trial court accordingly denied defendant's motion to suppress.
Approximately six months later, the parties agreed to try the two charges to the court, primarily on the record created at the suppression hearing. Defendant moved for a judgment of acquittal on both charges. Regarding the charge of driving while suspended, he argued (and the state did not dispute) that the record failed to show whether his driver's license was suspended when the officer stopped him in July. Regarding the charge of giving false information to a police officer, defendant argued that there was no evidence to prove an element of that offense—that the deputy "[wa]s enforcing [the] motor vehicle laws" when defendant told him that he was Harold Pennington. See ORS 807.620(1)
.3 The state responded that, because the deputy had testified that he stopped defendant "for a traffic violation," his testimony proved that he had been "enforcing [the] motor vehicle laws" when he stopped defendant. In the state's view, the deputy's lack of memory bore only on the constitutionality of the stop. After considering the evidence, the trial court found defendant guilty of giving false information to a police officer but not guilty of driving while suspended.
On appeal, defendant assigned error to the trial court's ruling denying his motion to suppress.4 The Court of Appeals agreed with defendant that the trial court had erred and reversed the trial court's judgment. Relying on State v. Hall, 339 Or. 7, 115 P.3d 908 (2005)
, the majority held that there was a casual connection between the stop and defendant's July statements and that the state had failed to establish attenuation. Suppah, 264 Or.App. at 518–28, 334 P.3d 463. In particular, the majority observed that there was no temporal break between the stop and those statements, that defendant reasonably believed that he had to answer the deputy's questions, and that no circumstances intervened to break the causal connection. Id. at 528, 334 P.3d 463. The majority explained that it was immaterial whether defendant made a conscious decision to lie to the deputy or to respond truthfully to his question. Id. at 530, 334 P.3d 463
. Additionally, although the majority recognized that defendant's misrepresentation constituted a new crime, it held that only new crimes that threaten an officer's safety will attenuate the taint of an unlawful stop. Id. at 530–31, 334 P.3d 463.
The majority reached a different conclusion regarding the statements that defendant had made in August. It held that those statement were not a product of the unlawful stop. Although those statements were properly admitted, the majority concluded that their admission did not render the erroneous admission of the July statements harmless. Specifically, the majority accepted defendant's argument that the statements that he made in August were confessions, that uncorroborated confessions are insufficient to prove a crime, and that, without the July statements, nothing corroborated his August confessions. Id. at 531, 334 P.3d 463
. The court accordingly concluded that the erroneous admission of defendant's July statements prejudiced him and required that his conviction for giving false information to a police officer be reversed.5
Judge Hadlock dissented. The dissent recognized that, "but for" the unlawful stop, defendant would not have given the deputy a false name and date of birth. Id. at 535–36, 334 P.3d 463
(Hadlock, J., dissenting). The dissent reasoned, however, that "but for" causation does not require suppression and that defendant had made an independent decision to give the deputy a false name to avoid having his girlfriend's car towed. Id. It was important to the dissent's analysis that the state had not sought to exploit the stop by asking defendant questions that were intended or likely to reveal any further criminal activity. Rather, the deputy had asked for defendant's name in the ordinary course of enforcing the motor vehicle code. Id. at 538–39, 334 P.3d 463. Finally, the dissent found it significant that, in committing a new crime, defendant made a decision that went beyond what the officer had asked. Id. at 536, 334 P.3d 463. The dissent would have held that, because defendant's choice attenuated the taint of the unlawful traffic stop, his July statements were not the product of the illegality. Id. at 536, 334 P.3d 463.
On review, the state argues...
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