Justia Oregon Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

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

Defendant Arnold Nix was found guilty of 20 counts of second-degree misdemeanor animal neglect. The state asked the trial court to impose sentence on 20 separate convictions. Defendant objected, arguing that the violations “merged” into a single conviction under Oregon’s anti-merger statute, ORS 161.067, when there were multiple violations of a single statute and only one victim. In this case, defendant argued animals were not “victims” within the meaning of that statute, so the trial court should have imposed a sentence on a single, merged, conviction. The trial court agreed and did just that. The state appealed, challenging the lawfulness of the sentence. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for resentencing. The Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeals. Shortly after the Supreme Court's opinion was published, however, the state filed a motion to stay the issuance of the appellate judgment and a motion to determine jurisdiction; the state noted that, although it had prevailed on its appeal, it perhaps had lacked authority to file an appeal in the first place, because no statute authorized it to appeal a judgment of conviction for a misdemeanor. Defendant responded by moving to vacate both opinions and dismiss the appeal. The Supreme Court, after review of the state's motion and defendant's response thereto, concluded that the State lacked authority to appeal the judgment of conviction in this misdemeanor case. Both the Court of Appeals and Supreme Courts lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the appeal. As a result, the Court vacated both opinions and dismissed the appeal. View "Oregon v. Nix" on Justia Law

Petitioners sought review of the Attorney General’s certified ballot title for Initiative Petition 8 (2016), arguing that the ballot title did not satisfy the requirements of ORS 250.035(2). IP 8 would alter the authority of metropolitan service districts in Oregon by eliminating the authority of a metropolitan service district to engage in various planning functions related to land use, urban growth, air and water quality, and transportation. The Attorney General did not dispute that the reference in the results statements to a “regional plan for managing urban growth” was too broad to apprise potential petition signers and voters of the effect of the elimination of districts' authority to engage in those planning functions; it necessitated assuming that they would readily understand all that was entailed in a regional plan under current state law. Moreover, it failed to cover the role of a metropolitan service district as the federally mandated metropolitan planning organization charged with carrying out federal air and water quality planning responsibilities. The Supreme Court therefore referred the ballot title back to the Attorney General for modification. View "Schoenheit v. Rosenblum" on Justia Law

Petitioner was convicted of first-degree robbery. After pursuing a direct appeal, he filed a petition for postconviction relief, alleging he received ineffective assistance of trial counsel. Among other things, petitioner argued that his trial counsel either did not decide or reasonably could not have decided to forego giving the jury the option of convicting him of the lesser-included offense of third-degree robbery. The post-conviction court ruled that no reasonable counsel would have failed to ask for an instruction on that lesser-included offense and entered judgment in petitioner’s favor. The Court of Appeals affirmed the post-conviction court’s judgment but on a different ground, concluding that the failure to make a conscious decision regarding that issue was sufficient, without more, to establish constitutionally inadequate assistance. The State appealed. After its review, the Supreme Court reversed both the appellate and postconviction courts: "Although the post-conviction court did not say so expressly, its conclusion may well reflect the view that, given the particular facts in this case, the risk that an 'all or nothing' strategy posed was so high (seven and a half years of certain confinement on conviction), and the cost of seeking a lesser-included offense instruction was so low (adding a possibility of short-term imprisonment without relinquishing an argument for acquittal), that it is more probable than not that petitioner’s trial counsel did not engage in the necessary decision-making." This case was remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings. View "Pereida-Alba v. Coursey" on Justia Law

Defendant was found in what appeared to be an unconscious state, sitting in his stopped car with the engine running in the left turn lane of a public road. When police arrived, they conducted field sobriety tests, which defendant failed. The police then arrested defendant. At the police station, defendant agreed to take an Intoxylizer alcohol breath test and was found to have a blood alcohol level of 0.30. At his trial for reckless driving under ORS 811.140, defendant requested "a minimum of a ten-person jury, under Article 1, section 11 of the Oregon Constitution[.]" The trial court refused, instead empanelling a six-person jury that unanimously found defendant guilty. Defendant renewed his objection to the jury size before and after the verdict, as well as at sentencing. After its review, the Court of Appeals concluded that the intended effect of Article I, section 11, was to permit nonunanimous jury verdicts in felony cases in circuit court, but not to create a right to a jury of a particular size. The appellate court affirmed the trial court's decision to empanel a six-person jury. The Supreme Court affirmed (but using slightly different reasoning). View "Oregon v. Sagdal" on Justia Law

This case presented the question of what standard applied to determine whether an unequivocal invocation of the right against self-incrimination was made and the particular question of whether, in the context in which they were communicated, defendant's words, "I won't answer any questions," constituted an unequivocal invocation of that right. The trial court found, in light of contextual indicia on which it relied, that defendant's words did not amount to an unequivocal invocation and denied his motion to suppress. The Court of Appeals reversed that ruling and remanded to the trial court. Upon review of the trial court record, the Supreme Court disagreed with the appellate court, reversed, and remanded this case for further proceedings. View "Oregon v. Avila-Nava" on Justia Law