State v. Lawton

I agree with the majority that the trial court correctly denied defendant’s motion to suppress. My concern with the majority’s decision is that it assumes that a stop occurred at the time of the officer’s initial contact with defendant. That assumption is misleading in the sense that it can be understood to imply that we agree with defendant and the trial court that a stop did occur at that time. I believe that we should take this opportunity to clarify the law, in particular our decision in State v. Puffenbarger, 166 Or App 426, 998 P2d 788 (2000), the case relied on by both defendant and…