State v. Carter

I must dissent. I believe that the majority analysis (or misanalysis) of pretext stops fails to protect privacy and that its newly spun restrictions on police action following a stop either are illusory or, if effective, unnecessarily bar hitherto permissible police activity.

The majority correctly characterizes the state of Oregon case law as sketchy and inconclusive on this issue.1 There is only one case directly in point, State v. Christensen, 151 Or 529, 51 P2d 835 (1935), and the difference of opinion between the majority and me is crystallized by our differing approaches to that case. In…