State v. Wilcox

• Docket Number: SC S070063
• Decision Date: 21 December 2023
• Parties: STATE OF OREGON, Petitioner on Review, v. JASON THOMAS WILCOX, Respondent on Review.
• Court: Oregon Supreme Court

1

371 Or. 756

STATE OF OREGON, Petitioner on Review, v. JASON THOMAS WILCOX, Respondent on Review.

SC S070063

Supreme Court of Oregon, En Banc

December 21, 2023

Argued and submitted September 12, 2023

On review from the Court of Appeals. (CC 19CR75468) (CA A175891) ^[*]

Rebecca M. Auten, Assistant Attorney General, Salem, argued the cause and fled the briefs for petitioner on review. Also on the briefs were Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, and Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General.

John Evans, Deputy Public Defender, Offce of Public Defense Services, Salem, fled the brief for respondent on review. Also on the brief was Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender Criminal Appellate Section.

The decision of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

JAMES, J.

This criminal case arises from the noncriminal seizure of defendant, pursuant to ORS 430.399(1), the public intoxication law, which provides that "[a]ny person who is intoxicated or under the influence of controlled substances in a public place may be sent home or taken to a sobering facility or to a treatment facility by a police officer." When officers seized defendant for purposes of taking him to a detox facility, they also seized, then inventoried, his backpack, which revealed a butterfly knife. Having previously been convicted of a felony, defendant was ultimately convicted of violating ORS 166.270(2), felon in possession of a restricted weapon.

The Court of Appeals held that the seizure of defendant's backpack was unlawful under Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution. State v. Wilcox, 323 Or.App 271, 276, 522 P.3d 926 (2022). In doing so, the court relied on its decision in State v. Edwards, 304 Or.App 293, 466 P.3d 1034 (2020), which involved the seizure and search of a backpack following a criminal arrest. The state petitioned for review, arguing that the Court of Appeals erred, both in this case, and in Edwards. We allowed review and now vacate the decision of the Court of Appeals and remand for further proceedings consistent with the reasoning of this opinion. The Court of Appeals approached its analysis from a mistaken starting point-this case involves an administrative seizure, not a criminal seizure. As such, it is unnecessary to consider whether Edwards was correctly decided.

BACKGROUND

The undisputed facts were set forth by the Court of Appeals:

"Defendant went to a police station to report being assaulted at a nearby transit station. Officer Baisley and his partner, Deputy Quick, responded. When they arrived to take defendant's statement, defendant had been loaded into an ambulance and was ready for transport to a hospital. The officers followed him to the hospital and waited until he was available to discuss the alleged assault. While waiting to enter the exam room, they could hear defendant yelling at the nurses. As Baisley later recalled, defendant was '[d]isgruntled, argumentative.' When Baisley and Quick were able to enter the exam room, the officers got the sense that defendant was intoxicated. Defendant made it clear that he did not want to talk to them about the alleged assault, so they turned to leave. As they were crossing the parking lot to their vehicle, hospital security stopped the officers to ask for help. Security told the officers that defendant was refusing medical treatment and they were going to discharge him. The officers returned to the exam room, placed defendant in handcuffs, and advised him that he was being taken into custody for transport to a detox facility. Baisley and Quick walked defendant out to the patrol car. Defendant had a backpack with him. Quick conducted a search of defendant's person and then placed him in the patrol car. Meanwhile, Baisley conducted an inventory of defendant's backpack.

"During the inventory search, Baisley found a butterfly knife. Because butterfly knives are restricted weapons, the officer did a criminal history check on defendant and found that he had previously been convicted of a felony. Quick then arrested defendant for the crime of felon in possession of a restricted weapon, and the officers transported him to the jail rather than the detox facility. Baisley conducted an additional inventory search of the backpack at the jail and found a second butterfly knife."

Wilcox, 323 Or.App. at 272-73 (brackets in Wilcox). Defendant was later charged with being a felon in possession of a restricted weapon, ORS 166.270(2) and he moved to suppress the evidence discovered in his backpack. The trial court denied that motion and, thereafter, entered a judgment of conviction.

On appeal of that conviction to the Court of Appeals, defendant advanced multiple arguments, only two of which are pertinent to our discussion. First, defendant argued that the warrantless seizure of his backpack violated his rights against unreasonable search and seizure under Article I, section 9. Second, defendant argued that the search of his backpack also violated his rights under Article I, section 9. The Court of Appeals viewed the first issue-the seizure of the backpack-as dispositive and did not reach the question of the legality of the search. Id. at 273-74. In holding the seizure unlawful, the Court of Appeals cited to our decision in State v. Juarez-Godinez, 326 Or. 1, 6, 942 P.2d 772 (1997), for the proposition that "a 'seizure' of property occurs when police physically remove property from a person's possession." Wilcox, 323 Or.App. at 275 (emphasis in Juarez-Godinez ).

Next, the Court of Appeals summarized its decision in Edwards:

"In Edwards, the defendant had an outstanding arrest warrant for failure to appear. A police officer spotted her riding a bicycle, wearing a backpack. The officer stopped her and arrested her on the warrant. The backpack was removed from defendant, and she was placed in handcuffs. Once removed, the backpack's contents were examined pursuant to a local inventory policy ***. The defendant moved to suppress the evidence obtained from the search of her backpack on the ground that it had been unlawfully seized without a warrant. The state argued that the seizure was lawful because arresting officers have authority to seize the property of an arrestee. The trial court agreed.

"We reversed. We concluded that, because the seizure of the backpack occurred without a warrant, the state had the burden of showing that the seizure was justified by a well-established exception to the warrant requirement. * * * [A] person's lawful arrest does not allow for the seizure of all the arrestee's personal property. It may authorize a seizure of 'narrow categories' of personal effects, such as effects related to the probable cause for arrest or readily apparent contraband. But the defendant's backpack did not fall within such narrow categories."

Wilcox, 323 Or.App. at 274-75 (citations omitted).

The Court of Appeals concluded that the seizure of the backpack was unlawful, viewing Edwards as controlling:

"In this case too, the state's only argument is that its seizure of defendant's backpack was justified by its lawful seizure of his person for the purpose of transporting him to detox. As we observed in Edwards, with the exception of certain narrow categories of property, the lawful seizure of a person does not justify the warrantless seizure of the person's property. And, as in Edwards, the state in this case has not established that defendant's backpack falls within any of the narrow categories of effects that lawfully may be seized upon the seizure of the person."

Id. at 276 (citation omitted).

Before us, the state advances several arguments as to why, in its view, the Court of Appeals erred. First, the state argues that the backpack was not seized. As the state argues, "[d]ue to his custodial status, defendant was not able to exercise all the property rights that he otherwise would have had with respect to his backpack. But that was a result of the officers' interference with his liberty, not any interference with his possessory interests in the backpack." (Emphases in original.) In essence, the state appears to argue that although defendant's person was seized, his property was not also seized.

Additionally, the state argues that, because the officers did not interfere with defendant's right to direct the control of his backpack, it was not a seizure, and alternatively, if it was a seizure, it was a lawful seizure, either because it was analogous to consent or because it was lawful to seize the backpack incident to lawfully taking defendant into custody pursuant to ORS 430.399. The state argues:

"Under the circumstances here, the police did not interfere with defendant's right to dispose of his backpack in a way other than taking it with him into police custody. Initially, defendant never attempted to exercise any right to transfer possession or otherwise dispose of the backpack, so the officers never interfered with that right. The trial court found that defendant 'ha[d] the backpack with him' when he was in custody, up until he was placed in the car; it was therefore indisputably within his immediate possession and control at that time. And he never asked to or attempted to dispose of the property in some way other than bringing it with him. To the contrary, he kept it with him when leaving the hospital and walking to the police car."

(Brackets and emphasis in original.)

Finally the state argues that the Court of Appeals' decision in Edwards is wrong. According to the state, the "Edwards court first determined-in the abstract-that a seizure occurs when police physically remove property from an individual. In so doing, the court erred by omitting the first step of the seizure...