State v. Winn

The scope of consent is determined on what a typical, reasonable person would have understood in the totality of the circumstances. Consent to search a closed container inside a purse is not granted by consent to search the entire purse.

Defendant appealed her conviction for possession of methamphetamine, assigning error to the trial court’s denial of her motion to suppress evidence found inside a makeup compact in her purse. She argued that she only consented to a search of her purse and not of containers within her purse. The State argued that Defendant’s consent was broad enough to include a search of closed containers inside the purse. “The scope of consent is determined based upon what a typical, reasonable person would have understood by the exchange between the officer and the [defendant] . . . in light of the totality of the circumstances surrounding the grant of consent in a particular case.” State v. Delong, 275 Or. App. 295, 301 (2015). The Court held that the scope of Defendant’s consent to search was not sufficiently broad to justify a search of a small, closed container inside. Therefore, the Court held that the search of the closed container was unreasonable under Article I, section 9 of the Oregon Constitution, and the trial court should have suppressed evidence found inside the closed container. Reversed and remanded.