State v. Pierce

232 P.3d 978, 235 Or. App. 372, 2010 Ore. App. LEXIS 548
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedMay 26, 2010
Docket07CR0007FE; A136976
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 232 P.3d 978 (State v. Pierce) 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. Pierce, 232 P.3d 978, 235 Or. App. 372, 2010 Ore. App. LEXIS 548 (Or. Ct. App. 2010).

Opinion

*374 ORTEGA, J.

Defendant appeals a judgment of conviction for, among other crimes, unauthorized use of a vehicle, ORS 164.135. On appeal, he asserts three assignments of error, two of which we reject without discussion. We write to discuss only defendant’s contention that the trial court erred by instructing the jury on elements of unauthorized use of a vehicle (UUV) that were not alleged in the indictment, in violation of Article VII (Amended), section 5, of the Oregon Constitution. For the reasons that follow, we reverse and remand.

We review the jury instructions for errors of law. State v. Rennells, 213 Or App 423, 425, 162 P3d 1006 (2007). In determining whether an instructional error requires reversal, we assess potential prejudice by considering the jury instructions as a whole. Id. at 426.

Penegor discovered that his white truck was missing from his Goshen business one morning and reported it stolen. That same morning, a witness saw two men and a woman driving away from a burglarized house in Elkton in a white truck that was identified as Penegor’s by the license plate number. The truck was carrying a washer, a dryer, and windows that had been stolen from a home in Drain. About an hour after that, the police stopped Penegor’s truck in Reedsport and arrested a woman, who was driving the truck, along with defendant and another passenger. Nothing about the physical appearance of the truck indicated that it had been stolen: the ignition had not been tampered with, and the truck had its keys.

A grand jury indicted defendant, alleging seven crimes, including UUV. ORS 164.135(1) provides, in part:

“A person commits the crime of unauthorized use of a vehicle when:
“(a) The person takes, operates, exercises control over, rides in, or otherwise uses another’s vehicle, boat or aircraft without consent of the owner[.]”

Count 1 of the indictment alleged, in part, that defendant “did unlawfully and knowingly take a vehicle, to-wit: a Ford *375 pick-up without the consent of the owner.” (Emphasis added.) The indictment alleged only a taking and did not mention any of the other means of committing UUV specified in ORS 164.135(1).

The state’s theory was that defendant participated with two others in taking the truck in Goshen and then using it in their efforts to steal property from the houses in Elkton and Drain. Defendant testified that he did not drive Penegor’s truck or participate in stealing it, but rather that his friends already had the truck when he met them that morning. When the trial judge instructed the jury on Count 1, he gave — at the state’s request — the uniform instructions on UUV “by taking” and UUV by “alternate means”:

“[THE COURT:] Okay, we’re talking about Unauthorized Use of a Vehicle which is Count 1. Oregon law provides that a person commits the crime of Unauthorized Use of a Vehicle when the person knowingly takes another’s vehicle without the consent of the owner.
“In this case to establish the crime of Unauthorized Use of a Vehicle the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt the following four elements:
“The act occurred in Douglas County, Oregon, on or about November 5 of the year 2006. And that the defendant, Mr. Pierce, knowingly took a vehicle, the property of another person, and that finally he did not have the consent of the owner to do that, and that owner is alleged to be David Penegor.
“Okay. The crime of Unauthorized Use of a Motor Vehicle can be committed by either taking, operating, exercising control over, riding in or by otherwise using the vehicle. Proof of any means is sufficient to sustain a conviction.”

Defendant objected to instructing the jury that UUV can be committed by means other than “taking,” the only means alleged in the indictment. The trial court rejected defendant’s argument, taking the state’s view that listing the alternate means in the indictment is not a prerequisite to including them in the jury instruction. The court instructed the jury over defendant’s objection, and the jury found defendant guilty of UUV.

*376 On appeal, defendant renews his argument that, because the indictment alleged only one means of committing UUV (“tak[ing] a vehicle”), it was a violation of Article VII (Amended), section 5, of the Oregon Constitution 1 for the trial court to instruct the jury on other means of committing that offense. Defendant cites State v. Mortenson, 27 Or App 265, 269, 555 P2d 940 (1976), rev den, 277 Or 99 (1977), as support for his view that the various means of committing UUV set forth in ORS 164.135(l)(a) “were not intended by the legislature to mean the same thing.” He contends that the jury instruction added substantively different means of committing the crime not considered by the grand jury and thereby violated the constitutional prohibition against amendments that alter the essential nature of the indictment. See State v. Pachmayr, 344 Or 482, 490-91, 185 P3d 1103 (2008) (discussing whether an amendment to an indictment is one of form or substance).

The state essentially concedes, and we agree, that, “for purposes of the UUV statute, if the indictment alleges just one of the various means of committing that crime, * * * then it is improper to instruct the jury on other means specified by the statute, insofar as those other means are substantively different from the means alleged in the indictment.” The jury here was instructed that it could convict defendant of committing UUV by means of “taking, operating, exercising control over, riding in or by otherwise using the vehicle,” when the indictment alleged UUV only by “tak[ing]” the vehicle. Because those additional bases for a conviction were not alleged in the indictment, the instruction permitted a conviction on an unindicted crime. Accordingly, the trial court’s instruction to the jury violated Article VII (Amended), section 5. See State v. Alben, 139 Or App 236, 241-43, 911 P2d 1239, rev den, 323 Or 153 (1996).

*377 The state contends, however, that any error was harmless in light of the instructions as a whole and the manner in which the UUV question was tried to the jury. Specifically, the state argues that the jury must have based defendant’s UUV conviction solely on whether he took the truck and not on whether defendant committed the other means of UUV, because the paragraphs preceding the challenged portion of the jury instruction focused only on whether defendant took the truck.

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

Related

State v. Lander
339 Or. App. 641 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2025)
State v. Ahrar
330 Or. App. 600 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2024)
State v. Ramoz
483 P.3d 615 (Oregon Supreme Court, 2021)
State v. Basham
456 P.3d 658 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2019)
State v. Lively
430 P.3d 1120 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2018)
State v. Burk
386 P.3d 148 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2016)
State v. Warren
380 P.3d 1191 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2016)
State v. McNally
353 P.3d 1255 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2015)
State v. Vanderzanden
337 P.3d 150 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2014)
City of Beaverton v. Pack
324 P.3d 567 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2014)
State v. Guckert
316 P.3d 373 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2013)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
232 P.3d 978, 235 Or. App. 372, 2010 Ore. App. LEXIS 548, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-pierce-orctapp-2010.