State v. Lewis

278 P.3d 51, 249 Or. App. 480, 2012 WL 1417038, 2012 Ore. App. LEXIS 522
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedApril 25, 2012
Docket880735176; A141202
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 278 P.3d 51 (State v. Lewis) 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. Lewis, 278 P.3d 51, 249 Or. App. 480, 2012 WL 1417038, 2012 Ore. App. LEXIS 522 (Or. Ct. App. 2012).

Opinion

*482 NAKAMOTO, J.

Defendant appeals his conviction and sentence for attempted assault in the first-degree with a firearm, ORS 163.185. In 1989, shortly after the jury’s verdict, but before sentencing, the state sent defendant to Washington for sentencing for separate crimes he had committed. Washington sentenced defendant and did not return him to Oregon until he had completed serving that sentence in 2008. Thus, almost two decades after his attempted assault conviction, defendant was sentenced in Oregon on December 1, 2008. By that time, the transcript of defendant’s trial had been destroyed or lost. On appeal, defendant assigns as error the trial court’s denial of his motions for reversal of his conviction and dismissal of charges against him with prejudice based on the state’s violation of the Interstate Agreement on Detainers (IAD), ORS 135.775, and his constitutional speedy trial and due process rights, as well as the trial court’s loss or destruction of defendant’s trial record. Defendant also makes several pro se arguments. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

In a case like this one, where the trial court did not make factual findings, we recount the undisputed facts and resolve factual disputes in a manner favorable to the trial court’s legal conclusion. See State v. Johnson, 342 Or 596, 608, 157 P3d 198 (2007), cert den, 552 US 1113 (2008) (in a case involving a question of law — defendant’s constitutional right to a speedy trial — the court stated that it is “bound by a trial court’s findings of historical fact if there is evidence in the record to support them”); Ball v. Gladden, 250 Or 485, 487, 443 P2d 621 (1968) (if there is evidence from which facts could be decided more than one way, appellate court “will presume that the facts were decided in a manner consistent with the ultimate conclusion” when trial court has not made findings). We begin with the procedural history surrounding defendant’s convictions for the felonies he committed in Washington and in Oregon.

On December 10, 1988, defendant was convicted of first-degree burglary, assault, and rape in Clark County, Washington. After that conviction, he waived extradition to *483 Oregon to stand trial on charges of attempted murder and attempted assault. Washington issued a release order sending defendant to Oregon to stand trial and specifically provided that

“[t]his release is only for the purpose of being present at your trial in Multnomah County. Upon completion of the trial, you shall immediately be returned to custody of the Clark County Sheriffs Office.”

On January 27, 1989, an Oregon jury acquitted defendant of attempted murder but found him guilty of attempted first-degree assault for shooting at the Washington victims as they were traveling in their car in Portland. Ultimately, the court scheduled defendant’s sentencing for April 10,1989, to allow time for a presentence investigation report and a dangerous offender assessment. The court also intended the schedule to allow time for Washington to sentence defendant before returning him for sentencing in Oregon, because shortly after the guilty verdict, defendant had been transported back to Washington for sentencing for his Washington crimes.

Defendant was sentenced in Washington on March 30, 1989. 1 At the Washington sentencing hearing, the prosecutor informed the trial court that defendant was “willing to waive whatever extradition rights he ha[d],” and that “he ha[d] to go to Oregon to get sentenced over there but their sentencing isn’t for a week or two so his request is to remain here.” The prosecutor suggested that the matter be set over to April 5, 1989, “for entry of a waiver if [defendant’s] willing to waive going to Oregon for sentencing, and if not to the Department of Corrections.” The court responded that it had no objection to that process “if the proper waiver is executed.”

The Washington court cancelled the April 5, 1989, hearing concerning defendant’s transfer to Oregon, and defendant was not sent to Oregon for his scheduled sentencing on April 10,1989. There is no evidence in the record that defendant’s counsel protested the cancellation of the hearing in Washington or attempted to reschedule it. The record also *484 fails to reflect that either defendant or the Washington prosecutor filed a waiver of defendant’s extradition rights with the Washington court before or after the transfer hearing scheduled for April 5.

Rather, on April 5, 1989, the probation department in Oregon reported to the Oregon trial court that, according to the prosecutor, defendant had refused transport. On April 11, 1989, the Oregon court entered an order issuing a bench warrant, which similarly noted that defendant was in custody in Clark County, Washington and “refused to be transported to Multnomah County, Oregon.”

Defendant contends that the April 1989 finding as to his refusal to be transported is unsupported by the record and that he in fact did not refuse to return to Oregon for sentencing. He relies on a photocopy of a note he submitted with a motion filed in the Oregon trial court in 2005. That note appears to be from the records of the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office and is dated April 7,1989. The note states that someone from that office called the Clark County Jail and was told that defendant had been transferred to a Washington prison to begin serving his sentence. The note also references another call, to the Washington prosecuting attorney, who explained that the chief criminal prosecuting attorney had decided not to return defendant to Oregon because he feared that he would not be returned to serve his Washington sentence. The record does not reflect that the note was before the Oregon court in 1989 when it issued the bench warrant.

Although those portions of the record permit several inferences, in accordance with our standard of review, the record supports an implicit finding by the sentencing court in this case that in 1989, as reported to the Oregon trial court, defendant had refused transfer to Oregon. Defendant’s actions after he began serving his prison term in Washington, when Oregon promptly attempted to have defendant returned to the state for sentencing, further support the implicit finding that defendant both initially and then repeatedly thereafter resisted transfer to Oregon for sentencing for strategic reasons.

In May 1989, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s office requested approval from Oregon’s governor *485 to take temporary custody of defendant under the IAD, which was granted on May 24, 1989. Oregon, through the district attorney, then invoked Article IV(a) of the IAD by sending a formal written request to the superintendent of the Washington State Prison where defendant was an inmate. 2

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Related

State v. Washington
337 P.3d 859 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2014)
State v. Shumate
330 P.3d 29 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2014)
State v. Sills
317 P.3d 307 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2013)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
278 P.3d 51, 249 Or. App. 480, 2012 WL 1417038, 2012 Ore. App. LEXIS 522, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-lewis-orctapp-2012.