We allowed review in this case to consider whether the exclusionary rule, under which illegally obtained evidence is excluded from certain court proceedings, applies to a parent’s motion to suppress evidence in a juvenile dependency proceeding involving the parent’s child. The juvenile court determined that it does not and therefore denied a motion to suppress filed by child’s father. The court then found child to be within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court and placed child in the custody of the Department of Human Services (DHS). Father appealed, arguing that the court had erred in denying his motion to suppress. The Court of Appeals affirmed without opinion. State ex rel Dept. of Human Services v. W. P.,
In March 2007, in connection with a drug investigation involving mother, police executed a search warrant of the home of mother, father, and child. During that search, officers found drugs in the home and on father’s person. Both parents were arrested, and the police contacted DHS concerning child. Due to both parents’ arrests and the fact that drugs were found within child’s reach, DHS placed child in foster care and filed a juvenile dependency petition, requesting that the court take jurisdiction over child. ORS 419B.100.
After the juvenile court denied father’s motion to suppress, father consented to proceed on stipulated facts, and the juvenile court found child to be within the jurisdiction of the court.
Father appealed the juvenile court’s judgment of jurisdiction, arguing that the juvenile court had erred in refusing to apply the exclusionary rule to juvenile dependency cases. As noted, the Court of Appeals affirmed without opinion, and father petitioned this court for review. We allowed review to consider father’s claim that, under Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution
We begin by describing the statutory basis for juvenile dependency proceedings, because those statutes establish specific rights and duties of father, child, and the state that are central to our consideration of father’s constitutional claims. ORS 419B.090 creates the juvenile court and articulates the state policies that proceedings in that court are intended to advance. The state’s policy “recognize[s] that children are individuals who have legal rights” and that those rights include “[p]ermanency with a safe family[,]” “[f]reedom from physical, sexual or emotional abuse or exploitation[,]” and “[flreedom from substantial neglect of basic needs.” ORS 419B.090(2)(a). The statute further states that parents “have a duty to afford their children [those] rights” and to remove “any impediment to [the parents’] ability to perform parental duties that afford [those] rights to their children.” ORS 419B.090(2)(b). Moreover, if a parent “fails to fulfill [those] duties, the juvenile court may determine that it is in the best interests of the child to remove the child from the parent * * * either temporarily or permanently.” Id. In juvenile dependency proceedings, the court is to “guard the liberty interest of parents protected by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution,” including the right “to direct the upbringing of their children,” while also “protecting] the rights and interests of children[.]” ORS 419B.090(4).
In furtherance of those state goals, the juvenile court “has exclusive original jurisdiction” in any case involving a child “[w]hose condition or circumstances are such as to endanger the welfare of the [child] * * ORS 419B.100(l)(c). If DHS determines that a child’s condition or circumstances endanger the welfare of the child, DHS files a petition asking the juvenile court to take jurisdiction over the child, and the court holds a jurisdictional hearing. ORS 419B.305 - 419B.310. If the court determines the child to be within its jurisdiction, the court makes the child a ward of the court. ORS 419B.328. The court then determines whether it would be “in the best interest and welfare” of the child to be placed under protective supervision, and, if it so determines,
With that background, we turn to father’s argument that the evidence that he possessed drugs should have been excluded from the juvenile court jurisdictional hearing. We begin with father’s state constitutional claims. See Sterling v. Cupp,
We turn to a consideration of the nature of father’s liberty interest in this juvenile dependency proceeding. Obviously, this is not a criminal proceeding. See Geist,
Father argues that the juvenile dependency proceeding interferes with his liberty interest in controlling the care and custody of his child. See O’Donnell-Lamont and Lamont,
Although any restriction by the state on father’s control over the upbringing of child interferes with father’s liberty interest, the restriction at issue here — an order determining that child is within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court — is temporary and conditional. In a criminal prosecution, the defendant himself or herself is subject to a final adjudication that may result in incarceration and immediate loss of physical liberty, possible criminal fines, and temporary or permanent restrictions on travel, association, and
Moreover, we do not consider a parent’s interest in controlling a child’s upbringing in a vacuum. As the statutes discussed above demonstrate, a child also has specific legal rights and interests, and the state initiates juvenile dependency proceedings to protect those rights. In exercising jurisdiction over a child, the juvenile court must “protect the rights and interests” of the child, as well as the parent’s interest. ORS 419B.090(4). In contrast to a criminal proceeding, where the principal interests at stake are those of the defendant and the state, the critical interest in a juvenile dependency proceeding is that of a different person, the child. See ORS 419B.100(l)(c) (juvenile court has exclusive jurisdiction when child’s “condition or circumstances are such as to endanger the welfare” of child). If the child is found to be within the jurisdiction of the court, then court decisions as to supervision and custody are made based on “the best interest and welfare” of the child. ORS 419B.331. In our view, given those distinctive aspects of a juvenile dependency proceeding, father’s interest here is not sufficiently analogous to the interests involved in our earlier decisions to require the exclusion of unlawfully seized evidence on father’s motion.
Although father acknowledges that this court has applied the exclusionary rule only in criminal cases and in the analogous setting of a juvenile delinquency probation revocation hearing, he argues that this court’s statements about the rule in earlier cases support his position. In particular, he points to Davis, where this court stated that it has given effect to the prohibition on unlawful searches “by restoring the parties to their position as if the state’s officers had remained within the limits of their authority.” 295 Or at
Father’s reliance on Davis is misplaced. First, Davis did not purport to state a rule that would apply in every case. Rather, Davis simply reviewed this court’s earlier cases (and some federal cases) discussing when the exclusionary rule had and had not been applied, id. at 233-37, and then attempted to summarize those holdings in the sentence that father cited. However, every Oregon case that the court cited involved the application of the exclusionary rule in a criminal proceeding, and Davis itself was a criminal case. Thus, the holding in Davis provides little guidance with respect to the application of the exclusionary rule to other proceedings.
Second, a closer examination of the statement upon which father relies shows that it does not support his position here. The court stated in Davis that protections against illegal searches should be “given effect” by “restoring the parties to their position” as if the illegal search had not occurred.
Father is correct that Article I, section 9, protects his right to be “secure” against “unreasonable search, or seizure[,]” and nothing in the constitutional text or in this court’s cases suggests that that right is only a rule of criminal procedure. If the warrant here was not properly based on probable cause, then father’s rights under Article I, section 9, were violated. However, that conclusion does not answer the different question of whether the juvenile court must exclude that evidence in this dependency proceeding based on father’s motion. As we have discussed above, the answer to that question, applying the test that this court articulated in Rogers, depends on the nature of father’s liberty interest in the juvenile court’s determination that child is within the jurisdiction of the court and whether that interest was “sufficiently analogous to the liberty interest at stake in traditional criminal prosecutions that the reasons for the sanction of suppression of evidence are equally applicable[.]” Rogers,
Having concluded that the Oregon Constitution does not require exclusion of the evidence illegally seized from father, we now turn to whether the Fourth Amendment requires the exclusion of such evidence in a juvenile dependency proceeding. The federal exclusionary rule is “a judicially created remedy designed to safeguard Fourth Amendment rights generally through its deterrent effect[.]” United States v. Calandra,
In determining the likely social benefits, the Supreme Court has stated that “the ‘prime purpose’ of the [exclusionary] rule, if not the sole one, ‘is to deter future unlawful police conduct.’ ” Janis,
In contrast, the likely costs of applying the exclusionary rule to juvenile dependency proceedings are great. In any proceeding, the cost of the exclusionary rule includes “the loss of often probative evidence and all of the secondary costs
The decision of the Court of Appeals and the judgment of the circuit court are affirmed.
Notes
ORS 419B.100(1) provides, in part:
“[T]he juvenile court has exclusive original jurisdiction in any case involving a person who is under 18 years of age and:
“(c) Whose condition or circumstances are such as to endanger the welfare of the person or of others[.]”
The court had entered a judgment of jurisdiction with respect to mother on May 17,2007. That judgment is not at issue here.
Under the statutory scheme for children who are determined to be within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court, the court must hold an additional hearing at least every 12 months that the child remains in substitute care, such as foster care. ORS 419B.470(6). If the juvenile court finds that the parent has made sufficient progress so that the child can be safely returned to his care, the court may order the child returned to the parent’s home. See ORS 419B.476(2), (4) (describing determinations to be made and dispositional alternatives available to juvenile court following later hearings).
Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution provides:
“No law shall violate the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable search, or seizure; and 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.”
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
In State Forester v. Umpqua River Nav.,
