State v. Wise-Welsh

                                     146

   Argued and submitted December 15, 2020, affirmed March 2, petition for
                 review denied July 28, 2022 (

)


                 STATE OF OREGON,
                  Plaintiff-Respondent,
                            v.
          ROSEMERY ECHO FAITH WISE-WELSH,
                 Defendant-Appellant.
               Lane County Circuit Court
                 18CR70028; A170156
                                 

   Debra E. Velure, Judge.
   Sara F. Werboff, Deputy Public Defender, argued the
cause for appellant. Also on the briefs was Ernest G. Lannet,
Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate Section, Office of Public
Defense Services.
   David B. Thompson, Assistant Attorney General, argued
the cause for respondent. Also on the brief were Ellen F.
Rosenblum, Attorney General, and Benjamin Gutman,
Solicitor General.
  Before Mooney, Presiding Judge, and Pagán, Judge, and
DeVore, Senior Judge.*
   PER CURIAM
   Affirmed.




______________
   * Págan, J., vice DeHoog, J. pro tempore.
Cite as 

 (2022)                              147

        PER CURIAM
        Defendant was convicted by a jury of one count
of unlawful possession of methamphetamine. On appeal,
defendant challenges the trial court’s denial of her motion
to suppress. We affirm.
         The relevant facts are undisputed. In a parking lot
of a closed public boat ramp, an officer encountered defendant with two others in a parked vehicle. The officer initially
contacted the occupants of the car to investigate the crime of
trespassing. The driver volunteered to have the officer search
the vehicle for drugs. The officer opened the passenger door
where defendant was seated and saw a glass pipe containing
crystalline residue in between the passenger seat and door.
The officer ordered defendant to leave the vehicle and saw
her open purse on the floor in front of her seat. A syringe,
with the plunger pulled back suggesting it was ready for
use, was visible inside the open purse. Believing that the
pipe contained methamphetamine and that the syringe was
likewise going to be used for ingesting methamphetamine,
the officer seized the syringe. The officer later determined
that the syringe contained methamphetamine.
        Defendant moved to suppress the syringe and
statements she made after it was seized. The trial court
denied the motion and defendant was subsequently found
guilty by a jury of a single count of unlawful possession of
methamphetamine.
         On appeal, defendant makes two arguments. First,
she argues that the officer unlawfully extended the stop and
the scope of the investigation beyond the initial trespass
inquiry. We reject that argument as unpreserved. Second,
she argues that the plain-view doctrine did not justify seizure of the syringe because the incriminating character of
the syringe was not “immediately apparent.”
         Regarding the second argument, the facts of this
case are most analogous to State v. Stock, 

, 

 (2006), where we concluded that, in the totality of
the circumstances, the search of a folded bottle cap containing a plastic bag was supported by probable cause. Although
Stock was decided in the context of a vehicle inventory
148                                       State v. Wise-Welsh

search, the probable cause determination is identical in the
context of the plain-view doctrine. Compare Stock, 

, with State v. Currin, 

, 

 (2013) (applying the plain-view doctrine and explaining
that, under Article I, section 9, probable cause requires that
an officer subjectively believe that a crime has been committed, and thus that a person or thing is subject to seizure,
and that the belief be objectively reasonable in the circumstances); see also Texas v. Brown, 

, 

, 

 (1983) (equating the “immediately
apparent” standard required for plain view with probable
cause for Fourth Amendment purposes).
         Although we agree with defendant that syringes
are not contraband categorically subject to seizure, State v.
Oller, 

, 

 (2016), rev den, 

 (2017), we have consistently explained that normally
benign objects may nonetheless be subject to seizure as evidence of a crime. See, e.g., Stock, 

. “Whether
an officer may be said to have probable cause to believe that
a particular [object] contains drugs depends on the nature of
the [object] itself, as well as on the context in which [it] was
found and on the knowledge and experience of the officer
who finds it.” Id.; see also State v. Sargent, 

,

 (1996) (plain-view seizure of pager, needles, and
papers containing numbers was justified based on circumstances of being lawfully present in an apartment where
drug dealing was reported with persons who had history of
drug use). In light of the circumstances of this case, the officer’s subjective belief that the syringe contained contraband
was objectively reasonable. The officer had probable cause
that defendant was in possession of methamphetamine and,
thus, he properly seized the syringe under the plain-view
doctrine.
        We conclude that the trial court did not err by denying the motion to suppress.
        Affirmed.