State v. Kawamoto

359 P.3d 305, 273 Or. App. 241, 2015 Ore. App. LEXIS 998
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedAugust 19, 2015
Docket110531946; A151448
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 359 P.3d 305 (State v. Kawamoto) 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. Kawamoto, 359 P.3d 305, 273 Or. App. 241, 2015 Ore. App. LEXIS 998 (Or. Ct. App. 2015).

Opinion

GARRETT, J.

Defendant was convicted of one count each of first-degree assault, ORS 163.185; first-degree sodomy, ORS 163.405; and first-degree unlawful sexual penetration, ORS 163.411; and two counts of first-degree kidnapping, ORS 163.235. The trial court sentenced defendant to a total of 280 months in prison and 20 years of post-prison supervision (less time served). The two kidnapping counts merged.

On appeal, defendant contends that the trial court should have granted his motion for a judgment of acquittal on the charges of kidnapping and unlawful sexual penetration because the state failed to prove necessary elements of those offenses. Defendant held the victim in a bedroom at defendant’s home for approximately two days, during which time he committed a series of violent sex acts against her, including penetrating her anus with a baseball bat. As to the kidnapping conviction, defendant argues that the state failed to prove that defendant “secretly confine [d] the person in a place where [she] [was] not likely to be found,” ORS 163.225(l)(b), because other people were present at the house at various times and knew that the victim was there. As to the charge of unlawful sexual penetration, defendant argues that the state failed to prove “forcible compulsion.” For the reasons that follow, we disagree with both of defendant’s arguments and conclude that the evidence was sufficient to allow a rational factfinder to find the elements of both crimes beyond a reasonable doubt.

The nature of defendant’s arguments requires us to recount the facts in detail. Although defendant challenges the sufficiency of the state’s evidence on narrow grounds discussed later in this opinion, the following facts are not disputed. On April 28, 2011, defendant attended a sporting event with his cousin, Longshore. When defendant returned home, his roommate, Burgoon, was there, but he soon left for the evening. Meanwhile, Longshore went to the victim’s hotel room; they drank at a bar, where the victim became heavily intoxicated, and then went to defendant’s house, where the victim fell asleep on a couch. The record reflects that the victim and defendant were acquainted because [244]*244defendant was the victim’s drug dealer and that they shared several mutual acquaintances.

The victim awoke on the couch in defendant’s house when defendant punched her in the face and said, “bitch, get in the room.” Longshore was also “right there.” The victim went to defendant’s bedroom. She later testified that she was intermittently conscious and that defendant continued to punch her and hit her with a baseball bat. When asked by the prosecutor to describe “the first thing” the victim remembered, she recalled being on the floor, and defendant was hitting her in the face and telling her to “suck his dick.” The victim was screaming and refused. Defendant inserted his penis into her mouth. The victim also testified that defendant was “really, really angry,” and that he had urinated on her and had inserted a baseball bat into her anus, but she could not recall how many times. Defendant did not tell the victim that she could not leave, but she believed that she could not leave. She was “hurt really bad” and could “barely lift up [her] head” and did not want to anger defendant again. Defendant later apologized, cried, and held the victim. The victim said defendant told her that she was “going to stay [t]here for a couple days” to “heal” or “get better.”

Burgoon returned to the house the next day, April 29. He saw defendant, the victim, and Longshore there. He testified that the victim’s face was bruised and swollen and that she looked beaten up to the point that Burgoon “barely” recognized her. Defendant told Burgoon that he “took it to” the victim. The victim was in defendant’s room. Blood was on the floor and in the hallway. Burgoon considered calling an ambulance but did not. He did not stay at the house that night. When Burgoon returned to the house again around noon on April 30, the victim was still there.

That same day, around 4:00 p.m., Portland Police Officer Kraner received a call regarding a welfare check on a person by the victim’s name. According to Kraner’s trial testimony, the caller reported that a woman with the victim’s first name was being “held against her will in a home” in North Portland, that she was being held by a man with defendant’s first name, that she had been “severely beaten” and “was not allowed to leave the location.” The caller also informed [245]*245Kraner that defendant “and his associates” who lived at the house in question were “low[-]level drug dealers *** armed with baseball bats.” Police took the caller in a patrol car to identify the house in question, which was defendant’s house.

At 5:00 p.m., Kraner and four other officers arrived at defendant’s house. Kraner observed someone in the house close the front door. Burgoon was standing on the sidewalk outside of the house. Kraner testified that Burgoon’s “hands were shaking” and that he “repeatedly was glancing towards the house, very nervously.” Officers then took him into custody.

Inside the house, defendant told the victim and Sonia, a friend of the victim’s who had just arrived, to be quiet, and he covered the victim, including her face, with bedding materials. Police commanded that the door of the house be opened; after getting no response, Kraner forced entry into the home. Kraner then saw defendant and Sonia, who both looked to be “extremely surprised and in shock.” Officers removed defendant and Sonia from the house and placed them into custody.

In one of the bedrooms, Kraner saw a pile of bedding with “two hands sticking straight up” out of the pile. Kraner identified himself as a police officer, and he heard “someone faintly calling out for help.” Kraner found the victim “swaddled * * * [and] wrapped really tightly” in the bedding. Upon uncovering the victim’s face, Kraner testified that

“[h]er head was extremely swollen. Her eyes were purple, swollen completely shut. Her head was like the size of a basketball; it was that swollen. I noticed that her hairline was actually — her scalp was swollen, which caused her hair to be pushed straight up off of her head. Her lips were swollen. I could see kind of inside of her mouth, and it seemed like the inside portion of her mouth was swollen. I pulled back the bedding even more and exposed parts of her body, like her arms and her legs, and the exposed portions that I could see were covered in dark purple bruises, anywhere on her body that I could * * * see.”

The victim told Kraner that “[defendant] did this to me” and wanted to make sure he was no longer at the house. Paramedics transported the victim to a hospital.

[246]*246At the hospital, the victim was treated by a sexual assault nurse, Anderson.

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Related

State v. C. A. F.
326 Or. App. 824 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2023)
State v. Litscher
397 P.3d 511 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2017)
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379 P.3d 766 (Lane County Circuit Court, Oregon, 2016)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
359 P.3d 305, 273 Or. App. 241, 2015 Ore. App. LEXIS 998, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-kawamoto-orctapp-2015.