Justia Oregon Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Defendant was convicted on a single count of first-degree sex abuse. On appeal of his sentence, he argued the trial court erred in denying his motion in limine to exclude expert testimony concerning a diagnosis of child sexual abuse, in addition to the evaluative criteria underlying that diagnosis. Defendant contended that the testimony impermissibly commented on the credibility of the complaining witness in this case. The Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction. And finding no reversible error in either the trial or appellate courts' judgments, the Supreme Court affirmed too. View "Oregon v. Beauvais" on Justia Law

Plaintiff initiated this action against the Secretary of State, challenging the constitutionality of ORS 250.048(9), which provided that a person who registered with the Secretary of State to collect initiative petition signatures for pay may not, “at the same time, obtain signatures on a petition or prospective petition for which the person is not being paid.” At the time he initiated the action, plaintiff had registered to collect initiative petition signatures for pay and had been hired to do just that. At the same time, he wanted to collect signatures on other measures on a volunteer basis. He contended that ORS 250.048(9) violated his constitutional rights of freedom of expression and association. During the pendency of the litigation, however, plaintiff stopped working as a paid signature collector, and his registration expired. The secretary moved for summary judgment on the ground that the action had become moot. Plaintiff opposed the motion, submitting an affidavit stating that he intended to work as a paid signature collector in the future and that he might be interested in collecting signatures on a volunteer basis on other measures at the same time. He also argued that, even if his action had become moot, the action nevertheless should proceed because it was “likely to evade judicial review in the future,” and ORS 14.175 expressly authorized courts to adjudicate such cases. The trial court granted the secretary's motion to dismiss, and the Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal. The issues, therefore, before the Supreme Court were: (1) whether the averments in plaintiff’s affidavit were sufficient to establish that his action was not moot; (2) even if the action was moot, whether it was nevertheless justiciable under ORS 14.175 because it was likely to evade review; and (3) if it is subject to ORS 14.175, whether the legislature possessed the constitutional authority to enact it. The Court concluded: (1) plaintiff’s affidavit was insufficient to establish that his action was not moot; (2) the action nevertheless was likely to evade judicial review under the standard set out in ORS 14.175, because it was not necessary to request expedited consideration to meet its terms; and (3) the legislature did possess the constitutional authority to enact the statute. Accordingly, because the Court concluded that the case was justiciable under ORS 14.175, it reversed the decision of the Court of Appeals and trial court and remanded for further proceedings. View "Couey v. Atkins" on Justia Law

An Oregon state trooper drove by a busy Portland intersection and noticed that, after he did so, defendant crossed the street against a “Don’t Walk” sign, a Class D violation under ORS 814.020(1) and (3). The trooper turned his car around and drove to a position near defendant, who was sitting on a bench at a bus stop. When defendant saw the trooper’s car approach, he got up and began to walk away. The trooper honked his horn and motioned to defendant to come and talk to him, which defendant did. The trooper knew that the intersection was in a high-crime area where a lot of recent gang activity had occurred. He observed that defendant was wearing an “oversized” or “puffy” jacket over a “hoodie sweatshirt,” “oversized baggy gray pants,” and “white tennis shoes,” and was carrying what could have been a green lanyard, garb that the trooper thought might indicate gang affiliation. Defendant replied that he had seen somebody else doing the same thing and “thought it was okay.” At that point, the trooper asked “do you have any weapons on you?” Defendant “kind of sighed and closed his eyes and said yes.” Defendant revealed that he was carrying a gun. Without being asked, defendant then separated his feet, leaned forward, separated his hands, and put his hands on the hood of the trooper’s car. The trooper frisked defendant, located the gun, and learned that defendant kept the gun for “protection” and that he was indeed a gang member. Defendant was taken to the police station where he was ultimately was charged with one count of unlawful possession of a firearm. Prior to trial, defendant filed a motion to suppress. The trial court denied the motion, and defendant was subsequently tried and convicted. Defendant appealed to the Court of Appeals, which reversed the circuit court judgment. On appeal to the Supreme Court, the State did not claim that the trooper’s inquiry was independently justified by reasonable suspicion that defendant ran afoul of Oregon's firearms laws. Nor did the state argue that the trooper’s inquiry in this case was justified by officer-safety. Rather, the state took issue with the Court of Appeals’ preliminary conclusion that a weapons inquiry was an investigation of an unrelated matter: the state argued that “questions about the presence of weapons are reasonably related to the safe investigation of a traffic violation.” The Supreme Court concluded the state did not meet its burden to demonstrate that the officer’s weapons inquiry was reasonably related to his traffic investigation and reasonably necessary to effectuate it. The decision of the Court of Appeals was affirmed. The judgment of the circuit court was reversed, and the case remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings. View "Oregon v. Jinenez" on Justia Law

During a traffic stop, a deputy sheriff placed defendant William Delong in custody and then asked him, without first advising him of his Miranda rights, “if there was anything we should be concerned about” in his car. Defendant “told [the deputy] ‘no,’ and that if we wanted to search the vehicle, we could.” On appeal, the State conceded that the deputy violated Article I, section 12, of the Oregon Constitution when he asked defendant that question without first advising him. However, the State argued that the physical evidence that the deputies later found in defendant’s car did not “derive from” the Miranda violation. The Court of Appeals reversed, reasoning that both defendant’s offer and the resulting evidence derived from the violation. The State appealed, and the Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals: "[n]othing that defendant said in the first part of his response to [the deputy's] unwarned question impaired defendant’s ability to make an independent decision to invite the deputies to search his car if they wanted to do so. [. . .] defendant’s invitation to search his car attenuated the taint flowing from [the deputy's] unwarned question. The evidence that the deputy found in defendant’s car did not derive from the preceding Miranda violation." View "Oregon v. Delong" on Justia Law

A jury convicted petitioner Kyle Green of eighteen sex offenses involving nine victims, ages twelve through seventeen. After an unsuccessful direct appeal, petitioner sought post-conviction relief, alleging he received ineffective assistance of trial counsel. Specifically, petitioner alleged in his pleading that counsel performed inadequately by failing to request an instruction directing the jury to consider the evidence concerning each alleged victim separately and only as that evidence pertained to a specific charge or charges relating to that victim. The post-conviction court entered a judgment denying post-conviction relief. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that “there was no evident downside to requesting such an instruction; the upside, however, was plain: The jury would have been prohibited from concluding that petitioner had committed the charged acts based on a belief that he had a propensity to commit such acts.” The State petitioned for the Supreme Court's review of "recurring" issues of what a postconviction petitioner must show to establish inadequate performance of counsel and what a petitioner must prove to establish that counsel’s inadequate performance prejudiced the petitioner’s case. After review, the Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals. The Court concluded the post-conviction court applied the wrong legal standard for prejudice, so the Court reversed with regard to that issue. The judgment of the circuit court denying post-conviction relief was reversed and remanded with respect to petitioner’s instructional claim, and was otherwise affirmed. View "Green v. Franke" on Justia Law

The state charged defendant with identity theft for signing two documents with another person’s name. After a police officer stopped defendant for speeding, defendant identified himself as Sergio Molina, told the officer his date of birth, and explained that he used to live in Washington. Defendant, however, did not present a driver’s license or other type of identification to the officer. The officer called the dispatcher, who could not locate any person named Sergio Molina in either Oregon or Washington. The officer arrested defendant for failure to present a driver’s license and took defendant to the local police station. After checking the fingerprints on the card, AFIS notified the police department that defendant’s name was Emilio Medina. On further questioning, defendant admitted that the name and date of birth that he had given the officer were fake. After learning defendant’s real name, the officer also discovered that defendant was on probation. He contacted defendant’s probation officer, who explained that defendant might have given the officer a fictitious name because he was aware of a warrant for his arrest. At trial, defendant moved for a judgment of acquittal on the ground that no reasonable person could find that, in signing those documents, he had committed the crimes. Further, defendant argued that, if he had committed those acts, no reasonable person could find that he had done so with the requisite mental state. The trial court denied defendant’s motion, and convicted him of identity theft as well as three other charged offenses. The Court of Appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court granted defendant's petition for certiorari review, then reversed the Court of Appeals' and the trial court’s judgment as to defendant’s conviction for identity theft and remanded this case to the trial court concluding the trial court should have granted defendant’s motion for judgment of acquittal because defendant did not utter the fingerprint card and property receipt nor did he convert those documents to his own use. View "Oregon v. Medina" on Justia Law

Defendant Michael Lykins was convicted of the crime of tampering with a witness after he tried to persuade his girlfriend to testify falsely in his impending trial on charges of criminal trespass and criminal negligence. At defendant's sentencing hearing following the tampering conviction, the State asked the trial court to impose an upward departure sentence, based on the fact that defendant's girlfriend was a "vulnerable victim" under the administrative rule governing departure sentences. Defendant objected on the ground that the state, not the witness, is the victim of the crime of tampering with a witness and, therefore, that the departure factor did not apply. The trial court disagreed with defendant and imposed a 48-month durational departure sentence on the tampering conviction. On appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court, however, reversed and remanded. Because the word "victim" was not expressly defined for purposes of the departure rule, defendant urged the Court to interpret that word by reference to the substantive offense for which the defendant is being sentenced. For purposes of OAR 213-008-0002(1)(b)(B), which permits a trial court to enhance a defendant's sentence when the defendant "knew or had reason to know of the victim's particular vulnerability, * * * which increased the harm or threat of harm caused by the criminal conduct," the term "victim" had the same meaning as it has in the relevant statutory provision defining the offense for which the defendant is being sentenced. In this case, defendant was being sentenced for the offense of tampering with a witness in violation of ORS 162.285. The girlfriend was not a victim of that crime; it followed that the trial court erred in imposing a departure sentence for defendant's conviction of that offense based on OAR 213-008-0002(1)(b)(B). View "Oregon v. Lykins" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with two counts of first-degree sexual abuse for conduct involving a five-year-old child. The state offered evidence that defendant possessed two pairs of children’s underwear at the time that he committed the charged acts. Defendant opposed the admission of the evidence as irrelevant under Oregon Evidence Code (OEC) 401 and unfairly prejudicial under OEC 403. The trial court admitted the evidence under OEC 404(3) to show that defendant had touched the victim with a sexual purpose rather than accidentally. A jury convicted defendant on both counts. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the underwear evidence was not logically relevant to any disputed issue and thus was inadmissible under OEC 401. The State appealed. After review, the Supreme Court concluded that the trial court did not err in admitting the underwear evidence, and reversed the decision of the Court of Appeals. View "Oregon v. Williams" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of second-degree criminal mischief after aiding and abetting his son to shoot two state-owned deer decoys that they believed to be deer. Oregon’s criminal mischief statute prohibits persons from intentionally damaging “property of another.” The issue in this case was whether wild deer were “property of another” for purposes of that statute. Defendant appealed his criminal mischief conviction, arguing that the trial court had erred in denying his motion for judgment of acquittal because wild deer do not become property until reduced to physical possession. The Court of Appeals affirmed defendant’s conviction. The Oregon Supreme Court affirmed: because the state, as a trustee, holds a legal interest in wildlife, the Court concluded that the state has a “legal * * * interest” in wildlife, as that phrase is used in ORS 164.305(2). Therefore, wild deer are “property of another,” for purposes of ORS 164.354 (1)(b) and ORS 164.305(2), and that the trial court did not err in denying defendant’s motion for judgment of acquittal on the second-degree criminal mischief count. View "Oregon v. Dickerson" on Justia Law

A police officer stopped defendant Dina Mazzola for two traffic violations. The officer observed signs of intoxication and developed probable cause to arrest defendant for driving under the influence of one or more controlled substances. The officer then asked defendant to perform several field sobriety tests (FSTs). After performing them, defendant was arrested for controlled-substance DUII. Before trial, defendant moved to suppress the results of certain of the FSTs. The trial court denied that motion. Defendant appealed, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. The issue this case presented for the Supreme Court's review centered on whether, in denying defendant’s motion to suppress, the trial court erred in concluding that exigent circumstances had existed that, when coupled with probable cause to arrest defendant for driving under the influence of a controlled substance, justified the warrantless administration of the FSTs under Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution. Finding that the trial court did not err in denying defendant's motion to suppress, the Supreme Court affirmed the ruling of the trial court and the decision of the Court of Appeals. View "Oregon v. Mazzola" on Justia Law