State v. L. R.

391 P.3d 880, 283 Or. App. 618, 2017 Ore. App. LEXIS 172
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedFebruary 8, 2017
Docket140362820; A156780
StatusPublished
Cited by25 cases

This text of 391 P.3d 880 (State v. L. R.) 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. L. R., 391 P.3d 880, 283 Or. App. 618, 2017 Ore. App. LEXIS 172 (Or. Ct. App. 2017).

Opinion

EGAN, J.

Appellant seeks reversal of a judgment that ordered his involuntary commitment to the Oregon Health Authority for a period not to exceed 180 days, under ORS 426.130(1)(a)(C). Appellant contends that the record does not establish by clear and convincing evidence that he was a danger to others because of a mental disorder. See ORS 426.130; former ORS 426.005(1)(e)(A) (2013), renumbered as ORS 426.005(1)(f)(A) (2015).1 We agree that the evidence in the record is not legally sufficient to conclude that appellant was a danger to others. Accordingly, we reverse.

When reviewing a challenge to a civil commitment judgment, unless we exercise our discretion to review the matter de novo, “we view the evidence, as supplemented and buttressed by permissible derivative inferences, in the light most favorable to the trial court’s disposition and assess whether, when so viewed, the record was legally sufficient to permit that outcome.” State v. R. L. W., 267 Or App 725, 728, 341 P3d 845 (2014) (internal quotation marks omitted). Neither party has asked us to review the matter de novo, and we decline to do so. See ORAP 5.40(8)(c) (providing that the court will exercise its discretion to review de novo “only in exceptional cases”).

Before the events at issue here, appellant, a 24-year-old African-American man, had showed no signs of having a mental disorder. Shortly before these events, appellant’s relationship with his girlfriend, with whom he had been living, had ended, and he had lost his job at Portland International Airport. On March 12, 2014, Officer Ko, on duty at the airport, was doing routine rounds of the terminal and found appellant and another man yelling at each other. Appellant was standing behind a Sky Cap podium yelling and swearing at the other man, an unknown traveler, who was backing away from appellant. Appellant did not pursue the man but instead took his own personal possessions and threw them onto the podium. Ko could not understand what appellant [620]*620was yelling about, but he did recall appellant claiming that he was a gang member and threatening that “he was gonna have us all killed” by the gang.

While facing Ko, appellant took off his jacket and shirt, “clench [ed] his fists and drop[ped] his arms in front of him and just kind of flex[ed] *** and tense[d] up his muscles.” Another officer arrived and appellant walked away from his belongings and Ko. Appellant flexed his muscles at the other officer, and that officer drew his Taser and ordered appellant to the ground. Appellant complied and was arrested for disorderly conduct.

Appellant was calm after he was arrested. He was issued a 90-day exclusion from the airport and taken to jail. Hours later, after appellant was released, he returned to the airport, where he was arrested for trespassing. In jail, appellant was evaluated by mental health staff and transported to Emanuel Hospital where he was further evaluated and given medication for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

On March 13, the investigator who would later write the precommitment investigation report met with appellant at the hospital. According to that report, appellant took his medication while at the hospital and was compliant with the staff directions even when he became upset. Although appellant demanded to be released, he did not threaten the staff and stated that he had no intentions of harming anyone. When he was released, he stayed with his older cousin, whom he had always called his aunt. He later confirmed that he had begun taking the medication that he had received from the hospital but had stopped taking it because it made him tired and unable to function properly.

Two weeks later, appellant was again detained in a hospital, where he remained until the involuntary commitment hearing. The record does not explain how or why appellant was taken to the hospital, but on that day he had been walking through a neighborhood, knocking on strangers’ doors. Appellant later said that he had done that because he did not feel like he had a home and was trying “to go back to [his] roots” and visit the places where he had lived and the people who used to live in the neighborhood.

[621]*621On March 31, the precommitment investigator met with appellant in the hospital. Before their meeting, the investigator heard appellant yell that he was not an animal to be caged and he should not be locked up like a prisoner. Appellant told the investigator that he was sad and that when he is sad he gets mad and, in his words, “I punch out windows or have a temper tantrum.” Appellant asked the investigator to discharge him from the hospital so that he could see his family. When he was told that the investigator could not bring about his release that day, appellant walked away from the investigator while yelling obscenities and demanding to be let out of the hospital.

Less than an hour after the investigator’s interview with appellant, she observed via video monitor that appellant was pacing rapidly, yelling, and demanding to be discharged. According to the investigator, appellant was yelling,

“[o]pen the door and no one has to get hurt. * * * I’m going to blow up little kids. * * * I’m a terrorist. I will break another fucking [television] remote. * * * Let me the fuck out of here. * * * I will have you gang raped * * *. The police work for me. I have all the money in the world in my name. I’ll get all your family members killed.”

Appellant continued to yell and demand to be released while he repeatedly hit and kicked a locked door. He threw the television remote control against the door several times and unsuccessfully tried to pick up a table that was bolted to the floor. Appellant then broke a toilet seat in half and used half of it to beat on the shatter-proof cover of the common area television and on the door while he continued to yell, threatening to kill people unless he was let out. He retrieved the other half of the toilet seat and beat on the shatter-proof cover of a security camera. At that point, from behind a door, a staff member requested that appellant return to his room, and appellant complied. Appellant then left the two pieces of the toilet seat in his room when he returned to the common area.

Twelve to fifteen staff members—including nurses, mental health therapists, and three security officers—then entered the common area and slowly approached appellant, [622]*622led by two security officers with shields and helmets. Appellant continued to demand to be released as he backed into a corner. Staff attempted to calm appellant, but he would not reason with them or take the medications that they offered to him. He yelled that he “owns the police” and that the staff had no right to keep him “locked up.” Appellant threatened to kill or have others kill all of the staff. Appellant yelled that he would fight all of them, took off his shirt and one of two pairs of pants that he was wearing, pounded his chest, and got into a fighting stance.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
391 P.3d 880, 283 Or. App. 618, 2017 Ore. App. LEXIS 172, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-l-r-orctapp-2017.