State v. Derby

                                       134

    Submitted December 6, 2018, vacated and remanded December 4, 2019


                      STATE OF OREGON,
                       Plaintiff-Respondent,
                                 v.
                   MILO DELFORD DERBY, JR.,
                      Defendant-Appellant.
                    Lane County Circuit Court
                      15CR48044; A164616
                                  

     After a traffic stop, defendant was convicted of driving while suspended, ORS
811.182(4). On appeal, he challenges the trial court’s denial of his pretrial motion
to suppress evidence obtained during the stop. Defendant asserts that the officer
lacked probable cause to stop him for a traffic violation and therefore violated
Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution. The trial court denied the motion
to suppress on the basis that the officer had probable cause to stop defendant
for failure to maintain a lane, ORS 811.370. On appeal, the state concedes that,
because the lane in which defendant was traveling was not clearly marked, the
trial court erred in denying defendant’s motion on that basis. However, the state
argues, as an alternative basis to affirm, that the officer had probable cause to
stop defendant for careless driving, ORS 811.135. The state also made that argument to the trial court, but the trial court did not reach it. Held: The state’s
concession is well taken; the trial court erred in denying defendant’s motion to
suppress on the basis that the officer had probable cause to stop defendant for
failure to maintain a lane. As for the alternative basis to affirm, whether the
officer had probable cause to stop defendant for careless driving is an issue that
was raised but not resolved in the trial court, and factual findings are necessary
to decide the legal question. Accordingly, the appropriate disposition is to remand
to the trial court to determine the potentially dispositive questions of fact in the
first instance.
    Vacated and remanded.



    Maurice K. Merten, Judge.
   Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate
Section, and Laura E. Coffin, Deputy Public Defender, Office
of Public Defense Services, filed the brief for appellant.
   Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman,
Solicitor General, and Matthew Maile, Assistant Attorney
General, filed the brief for respondent.
  Before DeHoog, Presiding Judge, and Egan, Chief Judge,
and Aoyagi, Judge.
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 (2019)   135

  AOYAGI, J.
  Vacated and remanded.
136                                             State v. Derby

        AOYAGI, J.
         Defendant appeals a judgment of conviction for
driving while suspended, ORS 811.182(4). He assigns error
to the trial court’s denial of his pretrial motion to suppress
evidence obtained as a result of a traffic stop. Defendant
asserts that the officer who stopped him lacked probable
cause to do so and therefore violated defendant’s right to
be free from unreasonable searches and seizures under
Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution. For the reasons that follow, we vacate and remand.
         In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, we
are bound by the trial court’s findings of historical fact if
there is constitutionally sufficient evidence in the record
to support them. State v. Ehly, 

, 

(1993). That applies to both express and implied factual findings. Ball v. Gladden, 

, 

 (1968) (if
the trial court did not make findings on all relevant historical facts, and the evidence allowed the facts to be decided
more than one way, “we will presume that the facts were
decided in a manner consistent with the ultimate conclusion”). However, we will infer a finding of fact “only where
we can deduce that the trial court’s chain of reasoning must
necessarily have included that fact as one of its links.” State
v. Lunacolorado, 

, 

 (2010).
We state the facts accordingly.
        On the evening in question, defendant was driving
a Subaru station wagon northbound on Territorial Road.
For reasons unclear from the record, the Subaru caught the
eye of Deputy Dornbusch, who was driving southbound in
his patrol car. Dornbusch turned around, pulled in behind
the Subaru, and followed it. The Subaru activated its turn
signal and turned right onto Cottage Court, a smaller road
that ends in a cul-de-sac.
         What the officer saw next is the subject of dispute. According to Dornbusch’s testimony at the suppression hearing, shortly after turning onto Cottage Court, the
Subaru “pulled to its right, drifted to the right outside of its
lane.” Dornbusch could see defendant looking at him in his
rearview mirror. The Subaru came within a foot of a vehicle legally parked on the side of the road. The Subaru then
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“[s]uddenly jerked back into its lane, continued forward.”
The Subaru was going “[f]airly slow” at the time, approximately 10 miles per hour, and it moved to the right a total of
six or seven feet. There was room to do so because the road
was “fairly wide.” Defendant might have used his turn signal when he pulled back to the left. In his report, Dornbusch
wrote that it “looked as if the driver was going to park.”
Asked about that statement at the suppression hearing,
Dornbusch explained, “He drifted as if he was—that was
kind of the best way I could think to describe it at the time.
Drifted over as if he was going to park, but there were cars
parked in the spot that would have been lawful to park in.”
          Defendant’s passenger, Tanner, also testified at the
suppression hearing. According to Tanner, defendant was
driving about five to 10 miles per hour on Cottage Court.
They were preparing to turn around, because they had forgotten something, when Tanner asked defendant what he
was doing, and defendant responded that he thought he
was going to get pulled over. Defendant was looking in the
rearview mirror at the time. Tanner told him, “You can’t
park here. … It’s in front of—you’re blocking—you would
be blocking somebody’s driveway.” According to Tanner,
defendant then quickly adjusted, turned his steering wheel
the opposite way, and “hit his blinker” as he maneuvered
around a van parked just beyond the edge of the driveway.
Defendant got somewhat close to the van in the process,
because he was planning to park right behind it, but, in
Tanner’s estimation, it “wasn’t that close”—she estimated
four or five feet.
         As soon as defendant pulled back to the left,
Dornbusch activated his lights for a traffic stop. At the time,
Dornbusch believed that he had probable cause to stop defendant for failure to maintain a lane, because the Subaru was
“well outside of its lane” and “[t]here was plenty of room to
drive within the center of the lane and to the left, closer to
the dividing line in the roadway.” Dornbusch believed that
he also had probable cause to stop defendant for careless
driving, “[b]ecause the driver was obviously looking up in
his rearview mirror and not at the roadway, which caused
him to drift off the side and come within a foot of striking
this parked car that could have caused property damage.”
138                                            State v. Derby

During the stop, Dornbusch learned that defendant’s license
was suspended.
        Defendant was charged with driving while suspended. Before trial, defendant moved to suppress the evidence obtained during the traffic stop. Defendant argued
that Dornbusch lacked probable cause to stop him for failure to maintain a lane, because, among other things, there
was no right-side lane marking, and that Dornbusch lacked
probable cause to stop him for careless driving, because
defendant’s aborted attempt to park did not constitute careless driving. The state opposed the motion, arguing that
Dornbusch had probable cause for both violations.
         The trial court denied the motion to suppress, ruling that “the deputy had probable cause to stop the defendant for the traffic infraction of failure to maintain a single lane.” The court did not make express factual findings.
The court did not reach the issue of whether Dornbusch had
probable cause to stop defendant for careless driving.
        The parties proceeded to a stipulated facts trial.
Defendant was convicted of driving while suspended. He
appeals the resulting conviction, challenging only the denial
of his motion to suppress.
         To stop and detain a person for a traffic violation,
the officer must have probable cause to believe that the person has committed a violation. State v. Matthews, 

, 

 (1994). Probable cause has two components. First, at the time of the stop, the officer must subjectively believe that a violation has occurred, and, second,
that belief must be objectively reasonable under the circumstances. State v. Miller, 

, 

 (2008);
State v. Tiffin, 

, 

 (2005). For
an officer’s belief to be objectively reasonable, the facts, as
the officer perceives them, must actually constitute a traffic violation. Tiffin, 

. Here, there is no
dispute that Dornbusch subjectively believed that the referenced violations had occurred. The question is the objective
reasonableness of that belief.
        On appeal, the state concedes that the trial court
erred in concluding that Dornbusch had probable cause to
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stop defendant for failure to maintain a lane. As relevant
here, a person commits that offense “if the person is operating a vehicle upon a roadway that is divided into two or more
clearly marked lanes for traffic” and does not (a) “[o]perate
the vehicle as nearly as practicable entirely within a single lane” and (b) “[r]efrain from moving from that lane until
the driver has first made certain that the movement can
be made with safety.” ORS 811.370(1). Here, the undisputed
evidence was that there was no fog line or other demarcation of the right side of the lane in which defendant was
driving—i.e., the lane was not clearly marked. See State
v. Ordner, 

, 

 (2012),
rev den, 

 (2013) (recognizing that ORS 811.370
applies only to roadways with “clearly marked lanes for traffic,” and stating that, where the defendant had been driving
on a street with no lane markings except center reflectors,
the trial court could not conclude that an officer’s belief that
a violation of ORS 811.370 had occurred was objectively reasonable). We therefore accept the state’s concession that the
trial court erred in denying defendant’s motion to suppress
on the basis that it did.

         The state argues that we should nevertheless
affirm the trial court’s denial of defendant’s motion on the
alternative basis that Dornbusch had probable cause to
stop defendant for careless driving. A person commits the
offense of careless driving “if the person drives any vehicle
upon a highway or other premises described in this section
in a manner that endangers or would be likely to endanger
any person or property.” ORS 811.135(1). The state argues
on appeal, as it did in the trial court, that the evidence at
the suppression hearing was sufficient to establish that
Dornbusch had probable cause to stop defendant for careless
driving.

          Whether a particular set of facts establishes probable cause to stop someone for a traffic violation is a question of law that we review for legal error. State v. Husk, 

, 739, 

 (2017), rev den, 

(2018). The difficulty in this case, however, is that we do not
have an established set of facts to work from. The trial court
never ruled on whether Dornbusch had probable cause to
140                                                             State v. Derby

stop defendant for careless driving, and its disposition obviated the need to make express or implied findings relevant
to that issue.
          In ruling as it did regarding failure to maintain a
lane, the trial court implicitly found either (1) that defendant was not trying to park and failed to operate his vehicle as nearly as practicable entirely within a single lane, or
(2) that defendant was trying to park but failed to refrain
from moving from his lane until he had first made certain
that he could do so safely.1 Given those alternative possibilities, the trial court must have made a silent finding as
to whether defendant was trying to park or not, but, under
these circumstances, we cannot discern what that finding
was. Moreover, the evidence at the suppression hearing
raised other factual issues, relevant to careless driving but
not to failure to drive in a lane, that the trial court presumably did not resolve because it had no need to do so given its
disposition. At this point, there are unresolved factual questions about, at a minimum, whether defendant’s movement
of his vehicle to the right appeared to be intentional or unintentional (Dornbusch himself variously described the vehicle as having “pulled” to the right, “drifted” to the right, and
“[d]rifted over as if he was going to park”); how slowly defendant was driving (Dornbusch estimated 10 miles per hour,
while Tanner estimated 5 to 10 miles per hour); whether
defendant used his turn signal when he moved back to the
left (the officer did not recall, but Tanner testified that he
did); and how close defendant’s vehicle came to the parked
van (Dornbusch estimated one foot, while Tanner estimated
four or five feet).2
     1
       If a driver is moving forward in a clearly marked lane, any deviation from
the lane—except possibly a truly de minimis one—may constitute failure to
maintain a lane. State v. Rosling, 

, 361-62, 

 (2017),
rev den, 

 (2018); see also State v. McBroom, 

, 

 (2002) (for purposes of ORS 811.370, driving “within a single lane” means
that drivers must stay “within” the lines, which does not include driving “on” the
lines). Conversely, when a driver is intentionally moving out of a lane, such as to
change lanes or park, the driver need not stay in the lane, obviously, but must
“[r]efrain from moving from the lane until the driver has first made certain that
the movement can be made with safety.” ORS 811.370(1)(b).
     2
       An officer’s belief that he has probable cause to stop a person for a traffic
violation is objectively reasonable if the facts “as the officer perceives them” constitute a violation. Tiffin, 

. Thus, the probable-cause analysis
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          When a party argues an alternative basis to affirm
that was raised but not resolved in the trial court, and factual findings are necessary to decide the legal question,
we “will ordinarily remand to the trial court to determine
potentially dispositive questions of fact in the first instance.”
State v. Lovaina-Burmudez, 

, 

(2013).3 Thus, where “the need for a finding on a certain critical fact was obviated by the trial court’s erroneous legal
conclusions,” and the existing record contains “potentially
conflicting evidence on that critical fact,” remand is appropriate. State v. Grover, 

, 

 (2004)
(italics omitted); see also, e.g., State v. Castillo, 

, 

 (2018), rev den, 

 (2019)
(remanding for trial court to determine whether certain
statements made by the defendant were voluntary, where
that issue had been raised but not resolved in the trial court,
was presented on appeal as an alternative basis to affirm,
but required factual findings to resolve).
         That is the case here. Accordingly, we vacate and
remand for the trial court to make findings and to decide in
the first instance whether Dornbusch had probable cause to
stop defendant for careless driving.
           Vacated and remanded.




turns on what the officer perceived, not the objective “truth” of the situation. It
does not follow, however, that the trial court must blindly accept an officer’s testimony as to what the officer perceived. The trial court still must assess witness credibility and resolve factual disputes about what the officer saw. See, e.g.,
Ordner, 

 (in deciding whether an officer’s subjective belief that
the defendant had made an unlawful wide turn was objectively reasonable, the
trial court relied heavily on its own review of a video recording).
    3
       If the state had not argued to the trial court that the officer had probable
cause to stop defendant for careless driving, the state would face other hurdles in
persuading us to affirm on that alternative basis. See Outdoor Media Dimensions
Inc. v. State of Oregon, 

, 

 (2001) (articulating a
three-factor test to determine whether an issue not raised in the trial court is
appropriate to be considered for the first time on appeal, and recognizing that,
even if it is, we have discretion whether to affirm on that basis). But the state did
make the argument below in this case.