State v. Munoz

348 P.3d 296, 270 Or. App. 490, 2015 Ore. App. LEXIS 463
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedApril 22, 2015
DocketC092027CR; A147842
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 348 P.3d 296 (State v. Munoz) 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. Munoz, 348 P.3d 296, 270 Or. App. 490, 2015 Ore. App. LEXIS 463 (Or. Ct. App. 2015).

Opinion

DUNCAN, P. J.

In this criminal case, defendant was convicted of murder for the stabbing of a person he and two associates believed to be a rival gang member. Defendant appealed and assigned error to the trial court’s failure to instruct the jurors that they must concur as to whether he was criminally liable as a principal or as an accomplice. In State v. Munoz, 255 Or App 735, 298 P3d 595 (2013), we affirmed defendant’s conviction based on our reasoning in State v. Phillips, 242 Or App 253, 255 P3d 587 (2011) (Phillips I), which had rejected a similar argument regarding a concurrence instruction. The Supreme Court subsequently disagreed with our reasoning in Phillips I, holding that the trial court erred in that case in failing to give a concurrence instruction; nevertheless, the court affirmed on the ground that the error was harmless. 354 Or 598, 317 P3d 236 (2013) (Phillips II).

In the wake of Phillips II, the Supreme Court vacated and remanded this case for reconsideration. State v. Munoz, 355 Or 567, 329 P3d 770 (2014). On reconsideration in light of Phillips II, we conclude that the trial court erred in failing to give a jury concurrence instruction but hold that, as in Phillips II, any error was harmless. Accordingly, we affirm.

Defendant and two codefendants, Sias and Corbett, were indicted for murder for “unlawfully and intentionally causing] the death” of the victim. The state presented evidence that the three defendants—all members of the same gang—were driving around looking for members of a rival gang when they came upon the victim and his friend, who were walking down the street. The victim had associated with members of the rival gang, but was not himself a gang member. The defendants stopped their car, got out, and confronted the victim and his friend, who ran once they saw that one of the defendants had a knife. The defendants ran after them and caught up to the victim. The victim was punched, kicked, stabbed, and left to bleed to death, and the defendants returned to their car and drove away. The entire encounter, from the time the defendants stopped their car until they left, lasted approximately a minute and a half.

[493]*493Although there were several witnesses who had observed three people kicking and punching the victim, there was conflicting evidence at trial about which of the three defendants actually stabbed the victim, and whether the victim had been stabbed by one knife or two. The state presented evidence, including Corbett’s knife and statements that he had made about “going savage” on the victim, to prove that Corbett had stabbed the victim. Yet the state also presented evidence that, while in jail, defendant had claimed to be responsible for the stabbing. Specifically, the state presented evidence that defendant told a fellow inmate that he had run up quickly on the victim, stabbed him three times, and then left him “spread eagle” on the ground. The inmate testified that defendant said, “I wasn’t fighting him, I was just stabbing him.”

Both defendant and Corbett used that conflicting evidence at trial to blame each other for the killing. Corbett admitted that he had stabbed the victim twice in the back, but he argued that defendant had chased down the victim and inflicted fatal stab wounds to the victim’s chest and side before Corbett arrived. Defendant, meanwhile, argued that Corbett was the only one who stabbed the victim, and that defendant’s jailhouse confession was invented to make him appear tougher to other inmates. Defendant’s theory of the case was that he and Sias, who were faster than Corbett, had chased down the victim and punched and kicked him, and that Corbett arrived later and—to their surprise—“brought a knife to a fist fight.”

In light of the different factual theories, defendant asked the trial court to require the state to elect whether it was proceeding on the theory that defendant had committed murder as a principal or by aiding and abetting one of his codefendants. Alternatively, he asked the court to instruct the jurors that they must agree on whether he was guilty of murder “because he aided and abetted in the commission of the crime or in the alternative *** intentionally and actually caused the death of [the victim].” The trial court did not require the state to elect a theory and declined to give the instruction, and the jury ultimately found defendant guilty of murder.

[494]*494Defendant appealed and assigned error to the trial court’s failure to instruct the jury that its members had to agree on whether he was liable as a principal or for aiding and abetting. In a per curiam opinion, we rejected that argument based on our then-recent decision in Phillips I. We explained that, under our reasoning in Phillips I, a concurrence instruction was necessary to avoid the possibility that the requisite number of jurors did not agree on what crime, if any, the defendant committed, not the possibility that the jurors failed to agree on what particular acts of the defendant constituted an element of a single crime. Munoz, 255 Or App at 736. We then held that, although “[s]ome jurors might have believed that defendant was the principal during the stabbing, and others might have believed that he was an accomplice to one of the other gang members who stabbed the victim, *** the requisite number of jurors agreed that defendant, either as principal or accomplice, intentionally caused the victim’s death.” Id. at 736-37. Thus, we concluded that, because there “was no danger that defendant would be convicted without juror agreement as to all of the elements of the crime of murder, * * * the trial court did not err in refusing to give a concurrence instruction.” Id. at 737.

At the time that we decided Munoz, review of our decision in Phillips I was pending in the Supreme Court. 351 Or 586 (2012). Thereafter, the Supreme Court issued an opinion that affirmed our decision in Phillips I, but on different grounds. In Phillips II, the Supreme Court explained that “jurors usually will have to agree on the elements necessary to prove that a defendant is liable for aiding and abetting another person’s commission of a crime.” 354 Or at 606. Thus, “if the state seeks to hold a defendant liable either as the principal or as an aider and abettor and if a party requests an appropriate instruction, the trial court should instruct the jury that at least 10 jurors must agree on each legislatively defined element necessary to find the defendant liable under one theory or the other.”1 Id.

[495]*495After concluding that the trial court erred in failing to give the concurrence instruction, the Supreme Court turned to whether that error was harmless. The court explained that the facts would have permitted the jury to find the defendant liable for third-degree assault on one of two bases: “(1) defendant hit the victim in the face while defendant’s friends held the victim’s arms or (2) one of defendant’s friends hit the victim in the face while defendant hit the victim’s brother to keep him from coming to the victim’s aid.” Id. Under either theory, the defendant could be said to have “caused” the injury—by directly inflicting it (the first set of facts) or by engaging in conduct “‘so extensively intertwined with [another person’s] infliction of the [victim’s] injury’” (the second set of facts). Id. at 607 (quoting State v. Pine, 336 Or 194, 207, 82 P3d 130 (2003)).

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

State v. Jaimes-Radilla
337 Or. App. 159 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2024)
State v. Bull
335 Or. App. 612 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2024)
Sanchez-Perez v. Kelly
500 P.3d 772 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2021)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
348 P.3d 296, 270 Or. App. 490, 2015 Ore. App. LEXIS 463, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-munoz-orctapp-2015.