State v. Reams

616 P.2d 498, 47 Or. App. 907, 1980 Ore. App. LEXIS 3241
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedAugust 18, 1980
Docket112,276 CA 16280, No. 113,303 CA 16281 and No. 113,304 CA 17551
StatusPublished
Cited by23 cases

This text of 616 P.2d 498 (State v. Reams) 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. Reams, 616 P.2d 498, 47 Or. App. 907, 1980 Ore. App. LEXIS 3241 (Or. Ct. App. 1980).

Opinion

*909 JOSEPH, P.J.

Defendant appeals from his convictions for felony murder, burglary and attempted murder. We consider the seven assignments of error seriatim.

Defendant had had a tumultuous relationship with his wife. Their eight years of marriage were marked by separations and, on at least two occasions, suicide threats by defendant. There were two children. In April, 1979, defendant’s wife decided to leave him. While he was away from home, she had the household furniture moved without informing him. He returned to find an empty house. Defendant drove to his parents’ house and obtained their pistol, without their knowledge. Then he drove toward his wife’s parents’ house and parked several blocks away. No one was home. He let himself in with a key he had obtained from his wife but which he had not been authorized by her parents to use. Inside, he obtained a second gun from his father-in-law’s night table. He loaded it, kept it with him and remained in the house.

When his in-laws returned home, defendant did not announce his presence but moved to the living room, where he could overhear them talking in the adjoining room. They had just returned from helping their daughter move into a new place. The father-in-law was sitting reading a newspaper when, without warning, defendant came into the room and shot him from behind with both guns, killing him instantly. Defendant then fired a shot at his mother-in-law, wounding her in the side. He tried to shoot her again, but the gun misfired. Defendant then forced his mother-in-law out of the house to take him to his wife. Outside, his mother-in-law managed to get someone to call the police, who apprehended defendant.

*910 Defendant was indicted separately for murder, 1 felony murder, 2 burglary 3 and attempted *911 murder. 4 The first three indictments related to the killing of the father; the last to the shooting of the mother. Defendant went to trial with the objective, as stated by his counsel on appeal, that the homicide might be reduced to manslaughter by the jury, based on his claim of extreme emotional disturbance. The jury, by separate verdicts, convicted defendant of felony murder and burglary. Defendant then pled guilty to attempted murder. The trial court merged the burglary into the felony murder and imposed a sentence of life imprisonment (25 years of which to be served without possibility of parole) for the felony murder and 20 years for the attempted murder, consecutive to the murder sentence.

Defendant first assigns as error the overruling of his demurrer to the felony murder indictment for failure to negative a statutory exception. ORS 163.115(1)(b) 5 provides in felony murder cases that the death must be of a person other than one of the *912 participants in the felony. Defendant contends that the indictment was required to include the statement that the victim was not a participant in the crime. We held in State v. Keys, 25 Or App 15, 22, 548 P2d 205, rev den (1976), that extreme emotional disturbance is not required to be negated in a murder indictment, despite its being a statutory exception. We stated:

"The rules governing the sufficiency of indictments are statutory. ORS 132.510. The only relevant statute, ORS 132.550, provides:
" 'The indictment shall contain substantially the following:
« * * * *
"'(7) A statement of the acts constituting the offense in ordinary and concise language, without repetition, and in such manner as to enable a person of common understanding to know what is intended * **
"In recent years, the trend in Oregon courts has been to require substantially less specificity in indictments. The rationale in the cases has been that, although the defendant has a constitutional right to notice, this need not be accomplished solely by the indictment. Notice can be based on the indictment plus the language of the relevant statute. Notice can be based on the indictment plus the relatively new criminal discovery statutes. And the ultimate form of *913 notice is the prosecution’s evidence; we have held that if the defendant is genuinely surprised thereby, he is entitled to a continuance.”

In State v. Fish, 282 Or 53, 57, n 5, 577 P2d 500 (1978), the Supreme Court noted prior cases holding that felony murder need not be pled separately from intentional murder. See, e.g., State v. Earp, 250 Or 19, 26-27, 440 P2d 214, cert den 393 US 891, 89 S Ct 212, 21 L Ed 2d 170 (1968). The state here did more than it was required to do by indicting defendant by a specific felony murder indictment. Even though that indictment also contained terms relating to intentional homicide, it was sufficient to direct attention to the felony murder statute and thus to notify defendant fully of the charge against him. The indictment was not defective. See also, State v. Taylor, 13 Or App 192, 193, 509 P2d 50 (1973) (no requirement to negative lack of justification or excuse in murder indictment); State v. Alexander, 6 Or App 526, 532-533, 487 P2d 1151 (1971) (unnecessary to negative exceptions in indictment for unlawful possession of drugs).

Defendant next assigns as error the instruction that extreme emotional disturbance is not a defense to felony minder. On its face, ORS 163.115(2), supra n 5, appears to allow the consideration of extreme emotional disturbance in mitigation only in cases of intentional murder under ORS 163.115(1)(a). Furthermore, we held in State v. O’Berry, 11 Or App 552, 557, 503 P2d 505 (1972), rev den (1973), overruled on other grounds in State v. Corbin, 15 Or App 536, 549-550, 576 P2d 1314 (1973), rev den (1974), that extreme emotional disturbance is not an available defense in felony murder based on rape, which is not a crime involving premeditation. See also, State v. Jensen, 209 Or 239, 271, 289 P2d 687, 296 P2d 618 (1957) (mental defectiveness short of insanity not an available defense to reduce felony murder based on robbery to manslaughter). It follows that extreme emotional *914

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Bluebook (online)
616 P.2d 498, 47 Or. App. 907, 1980 Ore. App. LEXIS 3241, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-reams-orctapp-1980.