State v. Meyer

100                   April 23, 2025              No. 363

   This is a nonprecedential memorandum opinion
    pursuant to ORAP 10.30 and may not be cited
         except as provided in ORAP 10.30(1).

         IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE
                 STATE OF OREGON

                 STATE OF OREGON,
                  Plaintiff-Respondent,
                            v.
               MICHAEL RAY MEYER,
                  Defendant-Appellant.
              Malheur County Circuit Court
                  23CR21097; A182559

  Erin K. Landis, Judge.
  Submitted February 12, 2025.
  Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate
Section, and Meredith Allen, Deputy Public Defender,
Oregon Public Defense Commission, filed the brief for
appellant.
   Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman,
Solicitor General, and Adam Holbrook, Assistant Attorney
General, filed the brief for respondent.
  Before Shorr, Presiding Judge, Powers, Judge, and Pagán,
Judge.
  POWERS, J.
  Affirmed.
Nonprecedential Memo Op: 

 (2025)                             101

         POWERS, J.
         In this criminal proceeding, defendant challenges
his convictions for fentanyl possession and methamphetamine possession, which were based on his conditional
guilty pleas. Officers found the drugs when they took defendant into custody on an arrest warrant issued after defendant had been in a fight with Baker. Defendant moved to
suppress the drug evidence, contending that the affidavit
and police reports supporting the warrant were not sufficient to establish probable cause. The trial court denied the
motion to suppress, defendant entered conditional guilty
pleas, reserving the right to appeal that ruling, and defendant now timely appeals, raising a single assignment of
error. We affirm.
         On appeal, defendant argues that the information
contained in the police reports and affidavit supporting the
warrant application were not sufficient to establish probable
cause to issue an arrest warrant. He contends that there
was evidence that Baker was the aggressor and that defendant was acting in self-defense.1 Acknowledging that there
was evidence that runs to the contrary, defendant asserts
that the evidence was not sufficient to make it more likely
than not that he was the aggressor. The state remonstrates
that, although there was evidence to support both contentions, the evidence that defendant was the aggressor was
corroborated and included evidence that defendant had fled
the scene by the time the police arrived, which indicates
consciousness of guilt.
         As an initial matter, because the parties are familiar with the underlying factual and procedural history, we
do not provide a recitation of the facts for this nonprecedential memorandum opinion. Article I, section 9, of the Oregon
Constitution provides that “no warrant shall issue but upon
probable cause, supported by oath, or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or thing to be seized.” In the arrest context, “[p]robable
    1
       Defendant’s argument on appeal is based on the premise that the availability of self-defense under ORS 161.209 will factor into the issuing magistrate’s
probable cause determination. We do not decide that legal issue; rather, we
assume for purposes of this appeal that defendant’s premise is correct, and we
proceed on that basis.
102                                           State v. Meyer

cause means that there is a substantial objective basis for
believing that more likely than not an offense has been committed and a person to be arrested has committed it.” State
v. Foster, 

, 

 (2010), aff’d,

, 

 (2011) (internal quotation marks
omitted).
         When a defendant moves to suppress evidence on
the basis that probable cause did not exist, “the defendant
bears the burden of proof when the search or seizure is authorized by a warrant.” State v. Perrodin, 

,

 (2021) (citations omitted). That burden is consistent with “the principle that warrants are presumptively
valid,” which is a principle that we apply “[w]hen a defendant challenges a warrant-based search or seizure.” Id.; see
also State v. Cazee, 

, 

 (2021)
(explaining that, when the defendant challenges a search
warrant, courts are to “resolve doubtful cases in favor of
warrant validity”). The Supreme Court has explained, “to
uphold [a] warrant, the reviewing court need only conclude
that the issuing magistrate reasonably could conclude that
the facts alleged, together with the reasonable inferences
that fairly may be drawn from those facts, establish” probable cause. State v. Castilleja, 

, 

, adh’d to on recons, 

, 

 (2008).
We view the affidavit in a “commonsense, nontechnical and
realistic fashion, with doubtful cases to be resolved in favor
of the magistrate’s determination of probable cause.” State
v. Nelson, 

, 

 (2020) (internal
quotation marks omitted).
         Our task in reviewing defendant’s assignment of
error is not to decide whether defendant’s or Baker’s side of
the story is more convincing or to count the number of witnesses on one side or the other; rather, our task is to determine whether the issuing magistrate could have reasonably
determined that there was probable cause to support the
issuance of the arrest warrant. Here, the issuing magistrate
could reasonably have determined that there was probable
cause to arrest defendant. Baker and his wife gave statements to the police that largely corroborated each other soon
after the fight, and defendant fled the scene before police
Nonprecedential Memo Op: 

 (2025)        103

arrived. In short, given all of the information before the
issuing magistrate and the reasonable inferences that may
fairly be drawn from that information, the trial court did
not err in denying defendant’s motion to suppress.
        Affirmed.