OR: 911 call did not justify detaining caller

911 call alone did not justify the officer in detaining the caller. State v. Fair, 233 Ore. App. 298 (2010):

In sum, the test for determining whether a contact exceeded mere conversation is whether the officer engaged “in conduct significantly beyond that accepted in ordinary social intercourse.” [Holmes] The “mere encounters” in Holmes and the cases underlying it occurred in streets or other public places. There is a significant difference between the typical circumstances of a police officer approaching a person on a public street–for example, by flagging down a motorist in order to conduct a brief exchange of information, as was the case in Holmes, Gerrish, and McFarland–and a police officer going to the door of a person’s home, ordering the person out of the home, and instructing the person to remain with the police officer, which is what occurred in this case.

Exigent circumstances justified dispensing with a search warrant because the defendant was under surveillance and moving drugs. The time to get a warrant would have defeated the search entirely. State v. Sanders, 233 Ore. App. 373, 226 P.3d 82 (2010).*

Defendant’s patdown revealing nothing made reasonable suspicion evaporate because the officer lacked any reason to believe that what she might have been handed made it to her backpack while he was watching. State v. Lovell, 233 Ore. App. 381, 226 P.3d 76 (2010):

Nothing in the record indicates that defendant put anything in her backpack after the contact with Payne. Heinen testified that she was out of his view for only about five seconds, and nothing in his testimony suggests that she might have placed anything in the backpack during that time. Thus, once the patdown of defendant’s person revealed nothing, Heinen no longer had reason to believe that Payne had handed her illegal drugs. It follows that he lacked reasonable suspicion to detain defendant when she consented to the search of the backpack.