State v. Serini

68                       March 19, 2025                 No. 231

           IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE
                   STATE OF OREGON

                      STATE OF OREGON,
                       Plaintiff-Respondent,
                                 v.
                 CASEY ALEXANDER SERINI,
                        aka Casey Serini,
                      Defendant-Appellant.
                 Washington County Circuit Court
                    23CR01078, 22CR41267;
                   A181477 (Control), A181478

     Erik M. Bucher, Judge.
     Submitted October 22, 2024.
   Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate
Section, and Joshua B. Crowther, Chief Deputy Defender,
Office of Public Defense Services, filed the brief for appellant.
   Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin
Gutman, Solicitor General, and Stacy M. Chaffin, Assistant
Attorney General, filed the brief for respondent.
  Before Aoyagi, Presiding Judge, Egan, Judge, and Joyce,
Judge.
     AOYAGI, P. J.
     Affirmed.
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70                                            State v. Serini

        AOYAGI, P. J.
         Defendant appeals a judgment of conviction for
criminal driving while suspended, ORS 811.182(4). He contends that the trial court erred by (1) denying his motion
to suppress evidence, and (2) overruling his objection to the
admission of Exhibit 1, a set of documents from the Driver
and Motor Vehicle Services Division of the Department of
Transportation (DMV) described as a “suspension packet.”
We conclude that the court did not err in denying the motion
to suppress, because defendant was not unlawfully seized
at the relevant point in time, and that the court did not err
in admitting Exhibit 1, because defendant made a general
objection to the entire packet but at least some of the statements contained therein were admissible. Accordingly, we
affirm the judgment in Case No. 23CR01078. We also affirm
the probation revocation judgment in Case No. 22CR41267,
as defendant has not assigned error to any rulings in that
case.
                 MOTION TO SUPPRESS
         We review the denial of a motion to suppress for
legal error. State v. Maciel-Figueroa, 

, 

 (2017). We are bound by the trial court’s factual
findings if there is evidence in the record to support them.
State v. Ehly, 

, 

 (1993). In the
absence of express findings, we generally assume implicit
findings consistent with the court’s conclusions. 

 The following facts, so stated, are based on the evidence admitted
at the suppression hearing.
         On the evening of December 17, 2022, a police officer on patrol noticed a black Volkswagen Jetta with tinted
windows on the road. Based on prior contacts, the officer
suspected that defendant, who had a suspended license,
was driving the vehicle. The officer confirmed with dispatch
that defendant’s license was still suspended as he turned
to follow the Jetta. The officer was driving an unmarked
police car. He drove behind the Jetta for three blocks on the
main road, then followed as it took two right turns into a
residential neighborhood. Immediately after taking the second right turn, the Jetta pulled to the side of the road. The
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officer had not activated any overhead lights or otherwise
signaled for it to stop. The officer pulled over and parked
behind the Jetta, at which point he could see defendant’s
face in the driver’s side mirror and recognized him.
         As shown on the officer’s bodycam, the officer then
approached the Jetta on foot. The driver’s window was down.
The officer told defendant that he was being stopped for
driving with a suspended license. Defendant asked whether
it was “a traffic stop.” The officer responded, “It is [a] traffic
stop now. You’re not free to go.”
         Defendant was charged with criminal driving while
suspended, ORS 811.182(4). He moved pretrial to suppress
evidence, asserting that he was unlawfully seized because
the officer stopped him without reasonable suspicion that
he was driving while suspended. The trial court denied the
motion. It found that, even if defendant opted to pull over
in response to the officer following him, the officer did not
activate his lights, direct defendant to stop, use force, or
otherwise make a show of authority. Based on its findings,
the court concluded that defendant was not seized when he
pulled over. The court further found that the officer saw
defendant’s face in the side mirror when he parked behind
the Jetta, at which point he developed reasonable suspicion of the crime of driving while suspended. It was only
then, after developing reasonable suspicion, that the officer
approached on foot and seized defendant.
         On appeal, defendant again argues that he was
already seized by the time the officer parked behind him
and that such seizure was unlawful because the officer had
not yet seen his face and therefore lacked reasonable suspicion of a crime. Specifically, defendant argues that the
officer unlawfully seized him by following him for several
blocks then parking behind him. Defendant contends that,
although unmarked, the officer’s car was recognizable as a
police car due to its having push bars on the front grill, bars
on the rear windows, and a visible on-board mobile computer. Defendant also points to evidence that he changed
his course of travel—turning off the main road later than
he intended—because of the officer following him. In defendant’s view, a reasonable person in his position would
72                                               State v. Serini

understand themselves to be the subject of a criminal investigation and not feel free to leave.
         In response, the state agrees that the officer did
not have reasonable suspicion of a crime until he saw defendant’s face and recognized him. However, it argues that the
trial court correctly denied the motion to suppress, because,
prior to seeing defendant’s face, the officer did not do anything that would convey to a reasonable person that they
were required to stop or were not free to leave. We agree
with the state.
         Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution protects individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures.
Or Const, Art I, § 9 (“No law shall violate the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,
against unreasonable search[.]”). Not all interactions with
the police implicate that constitutional protection. There are
three general categories of interactions with the police—
mere encounters, stops, and arrests—the first two of which
are relevant here. State v. Leiby, 

, 

 (2018). Mere encounters do not require constitutional justification; police officers may approach individuals
in public places, seek their cooperation, and request information. State v. Backstrand, 

, 

(2013). By contrast, when an officer restrains a person’s liberty through physical force or a show of authority, the interaction becomes a stop, which is a type of seizure and thus
requires constitutional justification, such as reasonable
suspicion of a crime. State v. True, 

,

, rev den, 

 (2023). A person is seized
when a police officer intentionally and significantly interferes with their liberty or freedom of movement, or when a
reasonable person, under the totality of the circumstances,
would believe that their liberty or freedom of movement has
been significantly restricted. State v. Ashbaugh, 

, 

 (2010).
         Defendant relies on Leiby to argue that he was
stopped by the time that the officer parked behind him. In
Leiby, an officer driving a marked patrol car pulled alongside a car driven by the defendant. 

. The
officer made eye contact with the defendant, who made a
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facial expression indicating that he recognized him as a
police officer. 

 The defendant abruptly turned off the roadway into a parking lot. 

 The officer turned into a nearby
parking lot and circled so that he could see the defendant’s
vehicle, followed him back onto the road when he reentered
the roadway, then followed him into another parking lot.
Id. at 294-95. At that point, the defendant stopped his car,
and the officer parked and approached on foot. Id. at 295.
The officer’s first words were, “Is there any reason or do you
want to tell me why you’re trying to avoid me?” Id. We held
that the defendant was seized in those circumstances. Id. at
299. Despite his obvious efforts to avoid contact, the officer
engaged in a “dogged pursuit” that was reasonably perceived
as coercive and reasonably understood to significantly interfere with the defendant’s liberty or freedom of movement. Id.
at 297-98.
          The circumstances here are not comparable. Here,
the officer was driving an unmarked car, did not do anything to catch defendant’s eye or signal that he was a police
officer, and followed defendant for a short distance on public roads. That is significantly different from doggedly following someone on and off the roadway through multiple
parking lots in a marked police car while they obviously try
to avoid contact. Even assuming that a reasonable person
in defendant’s position would have recognized the vehicle
behind him as an unmarked police car, it does not follow
that a reasonable person in defendant’s position would have
felt coerced against their will to pull over and interact with
the officer, at least at the point that defendant pulled over.
The distinctive features of the officer’s unmarked car might
have alerted defendant to the fact that he had attracted
police attention, but that alone is not enough to constitute a
stop.
         This case is more analogous to State v. Jensen, 

, 

 (1990), and True. In Jensen, a
police officer in a marked car followed a vehicle driven by
the defendant for two blocks on a public roadway, at which
point the defendant pulled over and got out of his vehicle,
and the officer pulled over and did the same. 

. The officer had not activated his overhead lights or
74                                             State v. Serini

done anything else to signal the vehicle to pull over. 

. We held that the defendant was not seized, because the
“mere act of driving a marked police car behind another car
does not constitute a show of official authority sufficient to
constitute a stop.” 

         In True, a sheriff’s deputy was driving a marked
patrol car and looking for the subject of a recent driving
complaint. 

. Upon seeing the defendant’s
truck, he turned around, passed two cars, and drove directly
behind the truck for about two miles on a public road. 

. The deputy did not witness any traffic infractions and
did not activate his overhead lights. 

 It was unclear from
the record whether the defendant noticed that the deputy
was following him. 

. When the truck pulled off the
road and entered the drive-through of a McDonald’s restaurant that the deputy knew was closed, the deputy pulled into
the same parking lot and parked about 50 feet away. 

. He approached the truck on foot, identified himself to
the defendant, said that he was not stopping him, and asked
some questions. 

. The defendant gave incriminating answers, which led the deputy to initiate a stop. 

We held that the deputy did not seize the defendant by following him on the road and into the McDonald’s parking lot
or during the initial questioning. 

.
         Here, defendant was not seized when a police officer drove behind his vehicle in an unmarked car for a few
blocks on public roadways, without activating any overhead
lights or doing anything to signal defendant to stop. The car
having some distinctive features that might make it recognizable as an unmarked police car does not change that fact,
nor does the officer taking two turns that might have tipped
defendant off to the fact that the officer was purposefully
staying behind him. As for the officer stopping when defendant stopped and parking behind him on the side of the
road, it was defendant’s choice to stop—it was not the result
of any coercion by the officer—and there was no reason that
the officer could not then stop to talk to him. In other words,
defendant’s choice to stop did not mean that the officer was
required to keep driving and that any effort to interact with
defendant at that point would amount to a seizure.
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        The trial court did not err by denying the motion to
suppress.
                           DMV RECORDS
          Defendant next challenges an evidentiary ruling
at trial. Because he waived his right to a jury, the charge
of criminal driving while suspended was tried to the court.
To prove that charge, the state had to show that defendant
drove a motor vehicle on a public highway on December 17,
2022, while his driving privileges were suspended or revoked
by the Department of Transportation for one of the reasons
in ORS 811.182(4). ORS 811.175; ORS 811.182(4). Notably, the
state was required to prove “the existence, but not the validity, of the suspension of the defendant’s driving privileges.”
State v. Rust, 

, 

 (2011).
          As part of its case, the state offered into evidence
Exhibit 1, which it described as “the DMV suspension
packet.” Each page was stamped and signed by a DMV
employee to certify that it was a true and correct copy of
the original. Although neither the parties nor the trial court
discussed the various documents included in the packet
when it was offered, we briefly describe them here. The first
document is a “certified court print” of defendant’s driving
record, which includes basic identifying information (name,
birthdate, address, license number), a list of current licenses,
the current status of all licenses, the issuance history for
all licenses, a list of convictions for driving violations, and
a list of “withdrawals” that includes suspensions. The second document is a “Notice of Suspension or Revocation (For
Conviction of a Traffic Crime)” dated October 24, 2022,
which appears to be a preprinted DMV form that was completed and signed by a circuit court judge. The third document is a “Corrected Notice of Suspension” dated November
22, 2022, which is in the form of a letter addressed from
DMV to defendant, and which provides a corrected end date
for defendant’s license suspension.1 The fourth document is
a certified mail receipt dated December 1, 2022, signed by
defendant. The fifth document is a DMV hardship permit
    1
      The date that defendant was alleged to have driven while suspended—
December 17, 2022—fell within the suspension date range in both the original
notice of suspension and the corrected notice of suspension.
76                                                           State v. Serini

issued to defendant, valid January 25, 2023 to October 24,
2023, with stated requirements and conditions.
         Defendant objected to Exhibit 1 on “hearsay” and
“confrontation” grounds. He did not detail his hearsay objection, stating only that “these statements”—by which he
appears to have meant statements in the packet regarding
his license suspension—were being offered for the truth of
the matter asserted and were therefore hearsay. He then
discussed his confrontation objections at length, mostly
discussing case law that he felt supported his position that
admission of DMV records without a DMV witness to crossexamine would violate his state and federal confrontation
rights.
        The court asked defendant if his position was that,
in every driving-while-suspended case, DMV records are
inadmissible unless the state calls a DMV witness to testify
about them. Defendant answered yes. The trial court overruled the objection, stating, “This is a certified DMV record.
It’s admissible, and we’re receiving it.”
         On appeal, defendant contends that it violated his
confrontation right under Article I, section 11, of the Oregon
Constitution for the trial court to admit the hearsay statements in Exhibit 1 without requiring a DMV employee to
testify at trial and be subject to cross-examination regarding them.2 The state responds that the entirety of Exhibit
1 was admissible under the official records exception to the
hearsay rule, OEC 803(8), and that its admission did not trigger defendant’s confrontation right because the statements
therein were not “witness” statements under Article I, section 11. We review for legal error. State v. Kini, 

, 

 (2020).
         As a preliminary matter, we note that the state
offered the suspension packet as a single exhibit, defendant objected to it in its entirety, and the trial court ruled
on it in its entirety. “[W]hen evidence is offered as a whole
and an objection is made to the evidence as a whole and
is overruled, the trial court will ordinarily not be reversed
on appeal if any portion of the offered evidence was properly
     2
         Defendant no longer makes a federal constitutional argument.
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admissible, despite the fact that other portions would not
have been admissible had proper objections been made to
such portions of the offered evidence.” State v. Brown, 

, 

 (1990) (emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted); see also State v. Camarena, 

, 33 n 3, 

 (2008) (“remind[ing] both bench and
bar” of that principle in a case in which the defendant raised
only general objections to certain evidence based on the
state and federal confrontation clauses); State v. Martinez,

, 

, rev den, 

 (2015)
(that principle applies to both testimony and exhibits).
         For example, in State v. Hasson, 

, 

 (1998), the state offered into evidence a
15-minute recording of a 9-1-1 call, the defendant objected
on hearsay grounds, and the trial court admitted it under
the excited utterance exception to the hearsay rule. On
appeal, we explained that, because the defendant “objected
to the admission of the entire tape recording and did not
distinguish among the various statements that the victim
had made during the 15 minutes of the conversation[,]”
we would affirm the trial court’s ruling “if any one of the
victim’s statements contained on the tape recording meets
the requirements of an excited utterance.” 

 We then concluded that “the initial portions of the tape” were admissible
as excited utterances. 

. “Because [the] defendant
made no specific objection about any of the other statements
on the recording, the court’s ruling allowing the admission
of the entire tape recording was not error.” 

         The question before us, then, is whether any of the
out-of-court statements in Exhibit 1 were properly admissible under the hearsay exception in OEC 803(8) without
violating defendant’s confrontation right under Article 1,
section 11, such that the trial court did not err in overruling
defendant’s general objection to the entire exhibit.3
     3
       We note that defendant does not dispute that the trial court relied on the
official records exception in OEC 803(8) in admitting Exhibit 1. Defendant’s
arguments both below and on appeal have focused almost entirely on the confrontation issue, without any discussion of hearsay exceptions. On appeal, the only
hearsay exception even mentioned in defendant’s opening brief is OEC 803(8), the
state’s answering brief makes clear that it understands the trial court to have
relied on OEC 803(8), and no reply brief was filed to contest that position. We
therefore accept the parties’ understanding of the court’s ruling.
78                                                     State v. Serini

          We understand Exhibit 1 to have been offered and
received as evidence that defendant’s license was suspended
on December 17, 2022, and perhaps also as evidence that no
hardship permit was in effect on that date, so we focus on
statements relating to those issues. Exhibit 1 contains out-ofcourt statements by DMV through its employees that defendant’s license was suspended from October 24, 2022 to October
24, 2023, and that defendant’s only hardship permit was valid
from January 25, 2023 to October 24, 2023. Those statements
were offered for their truth and, thus, were hearsay. See OEC
801(1), (3) (a hearsay statement includes any “oral or written
assertion[,]””other than one made by the declarant while testifying at the trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the
truth of the matter asserted”); see also State v. Bowman, 

, ___ P3d ___ (2025) (so reading OEC 801).
         Hearsay is generally inadmissible under OEC
802. However, the legislature has deemed some hearsay
sufficiently reliable for admission, regardless of witness
availability, including certain official records. OEC 803(8)
provides:
        “The following are not excluded by [OEC 802], even
     though the declarant is available as a witness:
        “…
         “(8) Records, reports, statements or data compilations,
     in any form, of public offices or agencies, including federally recognized American Indian tribal governments, setting forth:
        “(a) The activities of the office or agency;
        “(b) Matters observed pursuant to duty imposed by
     law as to which matters there was a duty to report, excluding, in criminal cases, matters observed by police officers
     and other law enforcement personnel;
        “(c) In civil actions and proceedings and against the
     government in criminal cases, factual findings, resulting
     from an investigation made pursuant to authority granted
     by law, unless the sources of information or other circumstances indicate lack of trustworthiness; or
          “(d) In civil actions and criminal proceedings, a sheriff’s return of service.”
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That exception is described as the “official records” or “public records” exception to the hearsay rule. See, e.g., State v.
Edmonds, 

, 

 (2019) (“the official
records exception in OEC 803(8)(b)”); State v. Copeland, 

, 

 (2013) (“the official records hearsay
exception, OEC 803(8)”); State v. Cantwell, 

,

, rev den, 

 (2023) (“the public records
exception, OEC 803(8)(b)”).
          Under OEC 803(8), the statements in defendant’s
official driving record regarding the dates that his license
was suspended and the statements in defendant’s hardship
permit regarding the dates that the permit was in effect
were admissible as official records of a public agency setting
forth agency activities. Indeed, we understand defendant
to no longer contest that Exhibit 1 was properly admissible under OEC 803(8) over a general hearsay objection.4 Cf.
Rust, 

 (accepting the defendant’s concession that his DMV driving record was admissible under the
official records exception to the hearsay rule).
         The real dispute is the confrontation right.
Defendant contends that admitting Exhibit 1 without requiring the testimony of a DMV employee violated Article I, section 11, because the exhibit consists of “witness” statements.
The state disagrees and argues that none of the statements
in Exhibit 1 qualify as “witness” statements.
         Because defendant made only a general confrontation objection, we do not evaluate every statement in every
document included in Exhibit 1 for confrontation purposes.
We again limit our discussion to the statements in defendant’s official driving record regarding the dates that his
license was suspended and the statements in the hardship
permit regarding the dates that it was in effect—which, in
this case, are really the only parts of Exhibit 1 that were
relevant to proving the charged crime. We conclude that
those statements do not qualify as “witness” statements and
that the state was therefore not required to produce a DMV

    4
      Given the posture of this case, we need not address whether every statement in every document included in Exhibit 1 was admissible under OEC 803(8),
as the state contends, or whether some statements might fall outside the exception in OEC 803(8).
80                                             State v. Serini

witness to testify regarding them. It follows that the trial
court did not err in admitting Exhibit 1 over defendant’s
general confrontation objection.
         Under Article I, section 11, a criminal defendant
has the right “to meet the witnesses face to face,” which is
why out-of-court statements made by a declarant who does
not testify at trial are generally inadmissible, unless the
declarant is unavailable and the statements meet certain
standards of reliability. State v. Supanchick, 

, 

 (2014). But some out-of-court statements
are not considered “witness” statements for purposes of
Article I, section 11.
         As relevant here, under the “official records doctrine,” an out-of-court statement by a public official that is
“confined to matters that the officer is bound by administrative duty to report” and that does “not include investigative or gratuitous facts or opinions” is not considered a
“witness” statement for purposes of Article I, section 11.
Copeland, 

. The official records doctrine “dates
back in criminal cases to at least the eighteenth century in
England.” 

. A qualifying statement may be admitted through documentary evidence, without accompanying
testimony, without violating the defendant’s confrontation
right. 

 Thus, for example, in Copeland, admission of a
deputy sheriff’s certificate of service of a restraining order
did not violate the defendant’s confrontation right, because
it was an official record created pursuant to a statutory duty
that did not contain any investigative or gratuitous facts or
opinions. 

. By contrast, in State v. Birchfield,

, 

 (2007), it violated the defendant’s
confrontation right to admit a laboratory report that contained investigative facts and opinions regarding suspected
criminal activity.
         In this case, DMV is a public agency that has a statutory duty to maintain driving records, including records
of suspended licenses and issued permits. See ORS 802.200
(enumerating records that the Department of Transportation
must maintain); ORS 802.200(8) (requiring that records be
kept of all driver licenses and permits issued); ORS 802.200(8)
(d) (requiring that records be kept of all suspended licenses);
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ORS 802.200(9)(c) (stating requirements for content of nonemployment driving records); ORS 807.240 (providing for
issuance of hardship permits). Statements in DMV records
regarding the dates of defendant’s suspension and the dates
of his hardship permit therefore qualify as matters that
DMV is bound by administrative duty to report, and those
statements themselves do not contain any investigative or
gratuitous facts or opinions.
         To the extent that other statements contained in
Exhibit 1 might be subject to challenge as investigative or
gratuitous, that is not a basis for reversal on appeal, given
defendant’s general objection to the entire exhibit. There
is only one out-of-court statement in Exhibit 1 as to which
defendant arguably preserved an individual challenge,
which is a statement in the corrected notice of suspension
explaining why the suspension end date was corrected. It is
unlikely that the state intended that particular statement to
be considered at all, let alone considered for its truth, given
that it was factually and legally irrelevant. See Rust, 

 (for purposes of ORS 811.182, the state must
prove “the existence, but not the validity, of the suspension
of the defendant’s driving privileges”); State v. Jones, 

, 

, adh’d to as modified on recons,

, 

, rev den, 

 (2008)
(holding that “DMV’s order suspending defendant’s driving
privileges was not subject to collateral attack in his prosecution” for driving while suspended). In any event, any error
in admitting that statement was harmless, as it “played no
role in defendant’s conviction.” State v. Davis, 

, 

 (2007).
        Affirmed.