State v. Dodge

563 P.3d 339, 373 Or. 156
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 16, 2025
DocketS069859
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 563 P.3d 339 (State v. Dodge) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Dodge, 563 P.3d 339, 373 Or. 156 (Or. 2025).

Opinion

156 January 16, 2025 No. 1

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON

STATE OF OREGON, Respondent on Review, v. DARRON DUANE DODGE, Petitioner on Review. (CC CR1301852) (CA A174232) (SC S069859)

On review from the Court of Appeals.* Argued and submitted May 16, 2023. Stacy M. Du Clos, Deputy Public Defender, Office of Public Defense Services, Salem, argued the cause and filed the briefs for petitioner on review. Also on the briefs was Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender. Doug Petrina, Assistant Attorney General, Salem, argued the cause and filed the brief for respondent on review. Also on the brief were Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, and Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General. Before Flynn, Chief Justice, and Duncan, Garrett, DeHoog, Bushong, James, and Masih, Justices.** DUNCAN, J. The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings. Bushong, J., concurred and filed an opinion.

______________ * Appeal from Clackamas County Circuit Court, Susie L. Norby, Judge. 321 Or App 775 (2022) (nonprecedential memorandum opinion). ** Baldwin, Senior Judge, Justice pro tempore, participated in oral argu- ment, but did not participate in the consideration or decision of this case. Cite as 373 Or 156 (2025) 157 158 State v. Dodge

DUNCAN, J. This case involves two trials and defendant’s claim that the second trial violated his state and federal constitu- tional rights against double jeopardy. Or Const, Art I, § 12; US Const, Amend V. 1 The Court of Appeals resolved the case on preservation grounds. State v. Dodge, 321 Or App 775, 776- 77 (2022) (nonprecedential memorandum opinion). For the reasons explained below, we reverse and remand to the Court of Appeals to address the merits of the double jeopardy issue. I. OVERVIEW Defendant was charged by indictment with 46 sex crimes alleged to have been committed against the same person during an eight-year period. The counts alleging each type of crime were identical; they did not specify the incidents on which they were based. The case was tried to a jury. During the trial, the complainant testified and described some specific incidents. But the state did not link any of the specific incidents to any of the counts. The jury found defendant not guilty of 40 counts and guilty of six. Defendant appealed his convictions, arguing that the trial court had committed an evidentiary error. The Court of Appeals agreed and reversed and remanded the case to the trial court. State v. Dodge, 297 Or App 30, 32, 46, 441 P3d 599, rev den, 365 Or 533 (2019). On remand, defendant filed a motion to dismiss the indictment, asserting that retrying him on the six counts of conviction would violate his constitutional rights against double jeopardy. He contended that, because of the lack of specificity in both the indictment and the first trial, it was impossible to tell what incident each count in the indict- ment was based on, and, therefore, if he were retried on the six counts of conviction, he would be at risk of being con- victed based on incidents “of which he [had] already been 1 Article I, section 12, of the Oregon Constitution provides, “No person shall be put in jeopardy twice for the same offence [sic][.]” The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides, “No person shall * * * be subject for the same offence [sic] to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb[.]” The Fifth Amendment’s double jeopardy provision applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Benton v. Maryland, 395 US 784, 794, 89 S Ct 2056, 23 L Ed 2d 707 (1969). Cite as 373 Or 156 (2025) 159

acquitted.” The trial court denied defendant’s motion. The case proceeded to a second jury trial, at which the jury con- victed defendant of the six remanded counts. Defendant appealed again, this time assigning error to the trial court’s denial of his motion to dismiss. He asserted that, because it was “unclear on what basis the jury reached its initial verdict,” retrial on the counts of con- viction put him “in jeopardy again for conviction on offenses of which he had already been acquitted.” In doing so, defen- dant invoked the double jeopardy doctrine of “issue preclu- sion” for the principle that the state cannot retry “an issue that was decided against the state in a former trial, even if the former trial was not on the identical charge.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Relying on that principle, defen- dant contended that, as a result of the state’s failure in the first trial “to align the evidence with particular counts,” it was “impossible to determine the basis for the [first] jury’s verdicts.” Therefore, he argued, his motion to dismiss should have been granted because retrial on the counts of conviction carried the risk that he would be convicted based on factual issues that “the jury in the first trial already rejected.” In response, the state argued, among other things, that defendant’s trial and appellate arguments were differ- ent. According to the state, defendant’s trial argument was a “successive prosecution” argument, whereas his appellate argument was an “issue preclusion” argument. Based on that perceived difference, the state argued that defendant had abandoned his trial argument and failed to preserve his appellate argument. The Court of Appeals agreed with the state and resolved the case on preservation grounds. Dodge, 321 Or App at 776-77. We reverse. As we explain below, ever since the case was remanded to the trial court, defendant has raised the same issue; indeed, he has raised the same argu- ment: that he is entitled to dismissal of the indictment on double jeopardy grounds because of the risk that, if he were retried on the six counts of conviction, he would be convicted based on incidents of which he was acquitted in the first trial. We remand the case to the Court of Appeals to address that argument. 160 State v. Dodge

II. PROCEDURAL FACTS As mentioned, this case concerns two trials. We begin by describing the indictment and the state’s evidence and arguments during the first trial. We then turn to defen- dant’s first appeal, which resulted in the remand. Next, we recount the trial court proceedings on remand, focusing on the arguments that defendant made in support of his motion to dismiss on double jeopardy grounds, and the responses by the state and the trial court to those arguments. Finally, we review defendant’s second appeal, examining the arguments defendant made in support of his assignment of error to the trial court’s denial of his motion to dismiss, and the state’s counterarguments. A. Indictment A grand jury issued a 46-count indictment against defendant. The indictment was based on allegations that defendant had sexually abused his adoptive niece, DD, over a period of years. During most of that time, defendant and DD were living with defendant’s mother, who is DD’s adop- tive grandmother. The indictment charged defendant with multi- ple counts of each of the following crimes: second-degree rape (ORS 163.365), second-degree sodomy (ORS 163.395), second-degree unlawful sexual penetration (ORS 163.408), first-degree sexual abuse (ORS 163.427), and second-degree sexual abuse (ORS 163.425). The counts did not describe the incidents on which they were based. Instead, as is common, the counts used the statutory definitions of the crimes that they alleged.

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Bluebook (online)
563 P.3d 339, 373 Or. 156, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-dodge-or-2025.