SUPREME COURT REINSTATES WINSTON DRUG CONVICTIONS

The Oregon Supreme Court on Thursday reinstated drug manufacture and
delivery convictions won against a Winston couple.

The high court unanimously reversed an earlier decision by the Oregon
Court of Appeals to throw out the 1998 convictions of Craig and Lisa
Trax, who were arrested after a search of their apartment led to the
discovery of two marijuana plants and drug paraphernalia.

The couple argued successfully before a split Court of Appeals that
the warrant used to carry out the search of their residence on Cary
Street was faulty because the house contained two separate apartments
and the document did not specify which residence was to be searched.

Officers obtained the warrant after an informant told a Douglas County
sheriff's deputy that Lisa Trax, now 44, had shown him or her
methamphetamine for sale, according to court records. Members of the
Douglas Interagency Narcotics Team delivered the warrant on Nov. 21,
1997, searching only the first-floor apartment belonging to the Traxes.

Officers had not realized until they entered the house that it was
separated into two residences. They confined their search to the
living area used by the Traxes and did not enter the locked apartment
on the second floor that belonged to another renter.

The Court of Appeals, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that the search was
unlawful because the warrant that authorized it was overly broad, in
allowing the entire residence to be searched. As a result, the appeals
court said that Circuit Judge William Lasswell, whom the case was
tried before, should not have allowed the drugs and other items
collected during the search to be allowed into evidence.

The Supreme Court justices disagreed.

"(The) defendants are correct that a description in the warrant that
the house at 111 Cary St. contained two residences would have made the
warrant more particularized respecting the place to be searched.
However, the inclusion of such a description was not necessary," under
the Oregon Constitution, Chief Justice Wallace P. Carson wrote in the
decision.

The warrant, Carson noted, contained the address of the residence and
listed Craig and Lisa Trax as persons to be searched. The court said
officers used reasonable efforts by talking with Craig Trax, now 35,
to learn which portion of the house he and his wife lived in and only
searching that area.

The high court also rejected a defense argument that the warrant was
faulty because one of the officers involved in the search took part in
an earlier search of the premises in which the other renter was
arrested on drug charges. Because that officer knew the house
contained two residences, defense attorneys claimed, that information
should have been shared with the officer who wrote up the affidavit
for the warrant.

While that information may have been helpful to make the warrant more
specific, it wasn't necessary, the high court ruled.

The case will be sent back to the Court of Appeals for further
consideration. At the time the Traxes appealed the case to the appeals
court, they challenged the reliability of the confidential informant
used by DINT.

Since the convictions were originally overturned on the basis of the
warrant, the Court of Appeals did not address that issue. The court
will now decide that matter.