Quotes from Watson
by: Ryan • July 6, 2013 • no comments
Three notable quotes you wouldn't get from reading the holding of Friday's opinion in State v. Watson. The first quote is a tip of the hat to the argument that there is, under the Oregon Constitution, a subject matter limitation rather than merely a temporal limitation on investigations during a traffic stop. I will explore that topic in greater detail in a future post. Note that all three suggest suppression arguments that the Oregon Supreme Court made a point of saying it wasn't addressing in this opinion.
"In this case, we do not address whether an officer's inquiries made during the pendency of a valid seizure implicate Article I, section 9."
"Defendant challenged Malek's probable cause to search at trial. He did not advance that argument on appeal. At the time that Malek searched defendant's vehicle, two officers had smelled marijuana, defendant had admitted that there was marijuana in the car, and a drug detection dog had indicated that there were drugs in the car. Pursuant to the "automobile exception," an officer who has stopped a mobile vehicle may conduct a search without a warrant if the officer has probable cause to believe that the vehicle contains evidence of a crime. See State v. Brown, 301 Or 268, 274, 721 P2d 1357 (1986)(describing exception)."
"Malek's warrants check necessitates a different analysis. In Fair, this court upheld a warrants check of a material witness, because the officers were unable to confirm her identity by means of a license check and because knowing whether she had a prior history of domestic violence would advance the officers' investigation of the crime at issue. Fair, 353 Or at __ (slip op at 32-33). In this case, Malek did not testify that the warrants check was similarly related to the investigation of the traffic infraction for which he stopped defendant. Malek asked dispatch to conduct a warrants check because that was his routine practice. Whether a warrants check is reasonably related to the investigation or otherwise constitutionally justified, for instance, to protect officer safety, presents an important question, but one that we need not decide here."
