State v. G. A. K.

384 P.3d 555, 281 Or. App. 815
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedOctober 26, 2016
Docket15CC01028; A159080
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 384 P.3d 555 (State v. G. A. K.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. G. A. K., 384 P.3d 555, 281 Or. App. 815 (Or. Ct. App. 2016).

Opinion

SERCOMBE, R J.

Appellant seeks reversal of a judgment committing her to the custody of the Mental Health Division based on a finding that, because of a mental disorder, appellant was dangerous to others. See ORS 426.005(l)(f); ORS 426.130. Appellant contends that the state failed to establish by clear and convincing evidence that she presented a danger to others. As explained below, we agree and, accordingly, reverse.

We state the facts consistently with the trial court’s findings. However, as explained in more detail below, the trial court failed to address or make a finding regarding one particular factual issue that we consider to be essential to the issue on appeal and, under the circumstances, we exercise our discretion in this case to take de novo review with respect to that factual issue. See ORS 19.415(3)(b) (“Upon an appeal in an equitable action or proceeding other than an appeal from a judgment in a proceeding for the termination of parental rights, the Court of Appeals, acting in its sole discretion, may try the cause anew upon the record or make one or more factual findings anew upon the record.”); ORAP 5.40(8)(d) (among the considerations relevant to the decision whether to exercise discretion to “make one or more factual findings anew on the record” is whether the factual finding in question “is important to the trial court’s ruling that is at issue on appeal”).

Appellant worked for more than 17 years at American Medical Response (AMR) as an account executive. She has a young daughter and, during the time period at issue, was estranged from and in the process of divorcing her husband, who had problems with drug addiction and had been in jail. In February 2015, appellant began behaving in ways that her friends and coworkers found concerning.

Approximately a week and a half before the commitment hearing in this case, appellant began behaving in an erratic and disruptive manner at work. She came to work with “some writing on her car that was disturbing,” looked disheveled, and spoke loudly and abrasively. In a conversation with a coworker that day, she talked about burning down AMR, stating that she was “going to burn down the whole [817]*817motherfucking house.” According to the coworker, appellant’s behavior was out of character. The same day, appellant told another coworker that she had been approached by a man while outside her home the night before. She felt threatened by the encounter, and told her coworker that she had called the police, had a concealed weapon, and wanted to join a gun club.

Appellant’s supervisor at work had meetings with her, along with one of her coworkers, to discuss her behavior. According to the supervisor, among the issues tobe addressed was appellant’s behavior earlier in February where she had been late for a work event and then had made some inappropriate statements — including that, if the supervisor did not pay a particular new hire enough, appellant would “hunt [him] down” — that the supervisor found deplorable and embarrassing. At the meeting regarding that behavior, she described an incident at her in-laws’ home, commenting that she had “left rubber in [her] in-laws’ driveway” and driven “very fast home with her daughter.”

According to the coworker, at the same meeting, appellant told him of some personal issues that she had been having with her estranged husband and “made a comment that she attempted to run her husband over in her car.” The coworker elaborated that appellant had told him that “her husband had her daughter somewhere he was not supposed to have her” and that, “when appellant found them,” she put her daughter in the car and then attempted to run her husband over. At another meeting in February 2015 regarding her behavior, appellant became angry and abruptly resigned her position. She also told her supervisor that she “flies to Greece once every six months without anybody knowing” and that she “kn[e]w people there.”

Approximately a week before the hearing, appellant began sending text messages to a friend saying that she was taking her daughter out of school and going on a road trip, that the federal government was after her, and that there were “20 to 30 unmarked vehicles that were surrounding her house.” Around the same time, appellant engaged in bizarre behavior while at a friend’s house, including telling the friend that “there’s an arsenal stashed on a farm” and [818]*818everything is “part of the plan.” Appellant did not describe any particular plan, however.

Ultimately, while several friends were present with appellant at one friend’s house, another friend called a mental health crisis response line. A mental health responder came to the house, accompanied by a police officer. Appellant was agitated and speaking very loudly, not allowing the responder or officer to get a word in. Her speech seemed “tangential and a little disorganized” to the mental health responder, and, although the responder “couldn’t follow [appellant’s] train of thought,” appellant said “that she was concerned, and she may need to kill someone and she had some weapons stored somewhere.” According to the responder, the statements were “very, very ambiguous” and appellant seemed “agitated and anxious and scared,” rather than angry or threatening.

Appellant was taken to the hospital that day. She was agitated but was cooperative and did not put up a fight. While at the hospital, appellant called one of her friends, angry at being “locked up,” and told the friend that she needed to “watch out” and the friend was “on her list.” She also called a coworker and, when she refused to give appellant another AMR employee’s telephone number, appellant said, “Don’t worry about it, honey, I know where you live.”

Appellant testified at the hearing that she did not actually have any firearms in any location. She also testified that she had been joking when she said that she tried to run her husband over and that she had not done so. She confirmed, however, that she had been extremely angry with her estranged husband for taking their daughter unsupervised.

According to the mental health examiners, appellant had a working diagnosis of psychosis, not otherwise specified. One examiner explained that there was “a fair amount of paranoia there, there was grandiosity there,” and “there was a clearly paranoid and delusional flavor.” Although, under the circumstances, it was “hard to give a more definitive diagnosis other than a psychosis NOS and an affective component,” the examiner believed appellant clearly had “a psychiatric diagnosis.”

[819]*819The trial court found that the witnesses who had testified at the hearing were credible. It also observed that appellant is “a very loving, caring person who has been intelligent and productive and rational for all these years, and all of a sudden the last couple of weeks it just all goes out the window.” The court found it “striking” that the mental health responder, who was a professional, had not been able to calm appellant during their encounter. In addressing whether defendant was a danger to others, the court found:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
384 P.3d 555, 281 Or. App. 815, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-g-a-k-orctapp-2016.