Blog
An Easy Demurrer (Failure to Register as a Sex Offender)
by: Ryan Scott • October 4, 2024 • no comments
Prosecutors insist that cases should be routinely joined because it promotes judicial efficiency. But the real reason is that it prejudices the defendant. It may not prejudice the defendant enough to merit severance, but it always increases the chance the jury would decide the case on something other than the merits of the state's argument.
Whenever possible, however, a defense attorney should seek to punish the state by demurring to an indictment that is obviously improperly joined. After all, the prosecutor isn't really inconvenienced by severance of charges that shouldn't have been joined in the first place. But if they have to go back to Grand Jury because the indictment was dismissed, maybe they won't be quite so unfairly aggressive next time.
What follows is an example where the indictment will always be subject to a demurrer.
If you have a client that has at least two charges in one indictment, and one of the charges is "failure to register as a sex offender," that indictment is vulnerable. Why? Because there is no legal way that a failure to register charge is every properly joined with any charge other than another failure to register.
So if your client is pulled over, and a gun or drugs are found in the car, and they didn't register on their birthday six months earlier, if all those charges are in one indictment, they're improperly joined.
Or maybe your client is charged with a rape in the third degree, and, oops, he didn't register from a prior conviction for rape in the third degree, putting the new R3 and a FTR on the same indictment is not legal.
Wait, you say! Maybe that's a motion to sever, but I've got that R3/FTR indictment in front of me and the indictment alleges Poston language ("same or similar" or "common scheme or plan", so how can I get past that?
Here's the answer:
Although “it usually is sufficient for the state to allege the basis for joinder by using the language of the joinder statute,” Warren, 364 Or at 120, the alleged basis for joinder must “be possible, given the offenses and facts alleged.” Warren, 364 Or at 122.
And there is no theory where FTR is "same or similar" to anything other than another FTR. (See Garrett and Gialoretto for the analysis of same or similar.) And what possible scheme or plan could be furthered by failing to register?
Proper joinder is legally impossible. File that demurrer. Make them go back to Grand Jury or make you a better offer.
Antoine Demurrers and Election
by: Ryan Scott • September 9, 2024 • no comments
There are a number of cases currently at the Court of Appeals where one of the claims is the denial of an Antoine demurrer/motion to elect. For some, no demurrer was filed at the trial level and it's just the denial of a motion to elect. In theory, we could end up getting a decision any week, though I think this issue is of such importance, and applicable to so many cases, that the COA will be very careful with the first one they issue.
I’m writing this post because I want to highlight the arguments the AG’s office is making at the COA and a couple of things you can do at the trial level to give your appellate attorney the ammunition for the best possible response.
First, one argument the AG’s office is making is that there really is no legal basis for ever compelling the state to elect before they’ve rested and maybe not even then. There argument is that in the most notable cases from the past few years (Payne, Antoine direct, Antoine PCR, Justice Duncan’s concurrence), the language regarding elections are just dicta and not binding on trial courts. It’s partially true that, in a couple of those opinions, the state's failure to elect was discussed in detail but not actually necessary to the final outcome. (I would note that the authors of the Payne opinion and the OSC Antoine concurrence are both current justices, so the AG’s argument faces a serious headwind when one of these cases get to the OSC.) However, it’s not true in the direct appeal in Antoine, where the COA held that the defendant must also argue a motion to elect if he has argued an Antoine demurrer. (I’m simplifying a bit.) The defendant's failure to file a motion to elect was fatal to the appeal and therefore self-evidently essential to the final outcome. Consequently, the AG’s office has backed down slightly, arguing that a standalone motion to elect doesn’t really exist in Oregon law. It only exists as an alternative to a definite and certain demurrer.
I strongly suspect the state will lose that argument, but you can moot it out if you always file an Antoine demurrer along with your motion to elect.
Second, the state will argue that if you want to prevail on a motion to elect before trial, you must explain the harm that will arise if the state does not elect. Of course, the harm may not be obvious until the state elects, but, still, if you can identify some harm, why not do so?
Let’s take a sex case involving thirty allegations but only ten counts. There is enough factual distinction (location, age, etc.) between the allegations that the state could elect if forced. But, as the state says, your defense is all or nothing. You aren’t admitting any of them happened. So what difference does an election make?
I would say this. In cross-examination, you aren’t going to challenge every single allegation. After all, you don’t want the complaining witness to have an opportunity to repeat every allegation. You want to target a specific sample of counts to undermine their credibility. In that situation, you will want to target those allegations – if you know them – that line up with certain counts. Instead, the state wants to play whac-a-mole. You have a good argument that one incident couldn’t have happened the way the witness says, they’ll just switch out that allegation in their final election. This is a serious fairness and due process problem. Before trial, the state would have said X is the allegation described in count five. You show X almost certainly didn’t happen so halfway through trial, the state decides that count 5 is now Y.
It's also a GJ problem. There is a rebuttable presumption that when the state elects, it mirrors what the GJ found. When the state elects halfway through trial, it’s highly unlikely that’s true.
When the State Wants to Offer the GJ Testimony Under the Child Abuse Hearsay Exception
by: Ryan Scott • August 19, 2024 • no comments
This analysis applies to GJ testimony offered under OEC 803(18a)(b) but also prior trial testimony if the case is back from appeal or post-conviction.
I don't know how widespread the practice is. I know it is fairly routine in Washington County child sex cases for the DA's office to offer at trial the child's testimony from GJ. (If you haven't looked closely at the notice they've filed out there, you might want to do so.) I know it has been done in Multnomah County and at least once in Clackamas County. If the practice hasn't gotten around to the rest of the state yet, it will.
For those of you on the OCDLA listserve, you have probably seen the motion I've been sending around that challenges the admission of anything but the "disclosure," that is, the initial statement or two by the child. That argument would theoretically exclude the forensic interview of the child, especially when nothing new is learned or gained in the interview and it's the fourth or fifth time the child has talked about it.
The argument for exclusion is two-fold. One, it is beyond the scope of what the statute intended. The primary purpose of the statute is to help the jury evaluate the circumstances under which the child revealed the abuse and their demeanor when they did so. That would not apply, in theory, to situations where the child repeats the allegations. The second argument for exclusion is OEC 403, specifically, that repetition of essentially the same testimony is highly prejudicial because people will believe things not from any persuasive logic but because they've heard it repeated multiple times. E-mail me if you need those motions.
Both of those arguments have much greater force when applied to a child's GJ testimony and/or prior trial testimony.
But what if we're wrong? Is there an alternative argument to be made that perhaps wouldn't accomplish as much but still increase the fairness of the trial? Let's focus just on the scope of 803(18a)(b) argument. I think we will always be the underdog with regard to the argument that the child abuse hearsay exception does not apply to forensic interviews. It is just too familiar, too much a part of the legal landscape, and there is a belief -- which I increasingly find without merit -- that these interviews have evidentiary value. At the same time, I think trial courts will be more sympathetic to the argument that the legislature didn't intend the hearsay exception to GJ testimony or prior trial testimony, which is a relatively new addition to prosecutorial strategy and any evidentiary value is even less, well, evident.
So assume we lose the argument with regard to the forensic interview. Is there are limiting principal that would exclude the GJ testimony as a matter of law (and not just under OEC 403)?
I think there is. I think a reasonable line can be drawn between initial statements to family, friends, and law enforcement made for the purpose of investigation (and I'm including the forensic interviews in the latter group), and statements made to authority figures that aren't for any investigatory purpose. (And to be clear, the GJ is not being used an investigative body in these cases. The investigation has been completed by then.)
I like this distinction because it relies on common sense. First, it makes sense that there is a limiting principal of some sort. If not, the state could admit a hundred statements made before the child turned 18. It is reasonable to assume the legislature intended some rational limit. If the legislature did intend a limit, limiting statements to law enforcement that are made for an investigatory purpose is an entirely reasonable limit. And even if the trial court is not entirely convinced, at the very least, making this argument will help indirectly on the OEC 403 argument you'd also be making.
Don't Ask for Jury Instructions You Don't Want
by: Ryan Scott • July 16, 2024 • no comments
This is a small bit of advice that won't matter most of the time, but every now and then it might.
There are jury instructions given in every case. If you don't specifically want them, don't ask for them.
For example, in a kidnapping case, why ask for the standard instructions? Oh sure, you may want to modify those instructions. You may want to add additional instructions. But why ask for the standard ones? The state will ask for them. If you don't object, the judge will give them.
Why does it matter? Because let's say by the time your case is briefed, the appellate courts have ruled that the standard instruction is wrong. You didn't preserve the argument, which happens. Maybe it was a genuinely unexpected change, which somebody else preserved but didn't tell anyone else about. The appellate attorney in your case nevertheless briefs the issue as plain error. There's no dispute it's error. There's no dispute it's harmful. So your client wins, right? Not if you invited error. And how would you have invited error? You specifically asked for the erroneous instruction.
Would the COA agree that it was invited error? I don't know. But you could avoid that by not asking for the state's instructions. And if nothing else, it's less work.
Can sentencing arguments that don't win still impact the overall sentence?
by: Ryan Scott • July 14, 2024 • no comments
Judges really don't like being reversed. I base this on the fact that judges who were rarely reversed and who I thought wouldn't have cared about the occasional, inevitable reversal will still complain about it when it does happen.
Consequently, I believe it's always a good thing at any sentencing to have the judge take into account the possibility that even if I'm wrong about the law, there's a chance the COA will think I'm right.
What am I talking about? Let me provide a couple of examples. If you've read many of my blog posts, or read me on the defense lawyer listserve, you know that I believe that when the gun minimum is charged on multiple counts, it must be imposed on the primary offense and only the primary offense. For example, if the defendant is charged with murder with a firearm and felon in possession of a firearm with a firearm, the gun minimum of five years must be imposed on the murder charge (assumingf it's the first gun minimum that defendant has ever faced -- if it's the second gun minimum, it gets a little complicated, in some ways good for the defendant, in other ways bad.) (Why does it matter if it's imposed on the murder charge or, say, the felon in possession? Because if imposed on the felon in possession, the judge has the ability to impose a longer sentence than if it's imposed on the murder charge.)
I have argued this at the trial level, and no judge has expressly said I'm right about the law, but some of them haven't said I was wrong either. The judge simply chose to impose the gun minimum on the most serious count, simply because they wanted to (or so they said) and not because I told them they legally had to. From a judge's point of view, this had the advantage of avoiding the possibility of reversible error. At the same time, it didn't bind them to a legal outcome they would have to follow in future cases.
I personally think in some of the cases at least, the judge was motivated in part to avoid reversible error. Maybe not. There's no way to know for certain. (Incidentally, this issue has been preserved in a number of cases by a number of great attorneys, so we should have a definitive answer within two years.)
I want to give another example of a legal argument that didn't win, yet maybe influenced the outcome of a sentencing. I had a client back for re-sentencing. He was already servicing a life/25 sentence for murder, but that case wasn't back for re-sentencing. It was a separate case in which he got twenty years to be served consecutively to the murder charge that was back for re-sentencing.
As it turned out, the client had done great in prison. Truly impressive stuff. I used that information to argue why she shouldn't run twenty years consecutively to the murder sentence. But I also argued at re-sentencing that any sentence run consecutively to a murder charge was subject to the proportionality analysis under Article I, section 16, of the Oregon Constitution. Specifically, I noted that my client wouldn't serve any of the consecutive sentence unless the parole board had found his rehabilitation was imminent. (And they would likely make that finding, given how well he had done in the past ten years, but who knows.) If Article I, section 16, requires that courts take into account the personal characteristics of the defendant when determining the constitutionality of the long sentence, the fact that rehabilitation is imminent certainly should impact whether the additional twenty years was proportionate.
On the law, the judge disagreed. But she only ran eight years consecutively to the life/25 he was already serving, a substantial reduction to what she had imposed the first time around. Was it due entirely to my client's remarkable accomplishments while in prison? Or did she worry that an additional twenty-year sentence might trigger the proportionality analysis and have the case sent back for a third sentencing? Or was it simply that she recognized the absurdity -- even if it were constitutional -- of adding another twenty years to be served -- and only served -- after the defendant was rehabilitated?
That last question is key. Even if I'm wrong about the application of Article I, section 16, in that situation, there is something totally absurd about a lengthy sentence that's only served after rehabiliation. Even my pro-prosecution, non-lawyer family members think that's crazy.
Again, there is no way of knowing why the judge reduced the sentence or if she would have reduced it to the same degree minus the proportionality argument. That's sorta my point. Judges may reject legal arguments but still be swayed, by either the logic of the legal argument or the risk of reversal, to end up at the same place.
And if the legal arguments don't seem to make a difference at all at sentencing, then at least your client has a shot at re-sentencing, which, per my first post today, can also lead to a much better outcome down the road.
