Background
Randall Lee Slay was convicted of attempted unlawful delivery of methamphetamine, unlawful possession of methamphetamine, fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer, reckless driving, tampering with physical evidence, and offensive littering. Before trial, he moved to suppress evidence, arguing that police unlawfully expanded a valid traffic stop into a drug investigation without reasonable suspicion.
The officer who stopped Slay deployed a drug-detection dog at another officer’s direction. The directing officer, a member of a narcotics task force surveilling Slay, had received information from a known informant that Slay was driving to a specific location to sell methamphetamine. The trial court denied the suppression motion.
The Court’s Holding
The Oregon Court of Appeals affirmed. It held that the trial court permissibly treated the known informant’s information as reliable and correctly concluded that the totality of the known facts supplied reasonable suspicion of drug activity. The trial court therefore did not err by denying suppression.
The court declined to consider Slay’s separate contention that neither the stopping officer nor the directing officer individually possessed reasonable suspicion and that the trial court had misapplied the collective-knowledge doctrine. Slay had not raised that issue below, and the state likely would have developed a different factual record if he had, so the argument was unpreserved.
Key Takeaways
- Information from a known informant, considered with the surrounding circumstances, may provide reasonable suspicion of drug activity.
- An officer may direct another officer to perform lawful investigative activity when the directing officer possesses the required justification.
- A defendant who does not raise a collective-knowledge argument in the trial court generally cannot obtain appellate review of that issue.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates both the substantive and procedural limits on challenges to drug investigations arising during traffic stops. Reliable informant information can support reasonable suspicion, while a distinct challenge to how knowledge was shared among officers must be preserved in the trial court.
The opinion is a nonprecedential memorandum opinion under ORAP 10.30 and may be cited only as that rule permits.