State v. Russell

482 P.3d 799, 309 Or. App. 554
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedMarch 3, 2021
DocketA167702
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 482 P.3d 799 (State v. Russell) 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. Russell, 482 P.3d 799, 309 Or. App. 554 (Or. Ct. App. 2021).

Opinion

Argued and submitted March 10, 2020, affirmed March 3, 2021

STATE OF OREGON, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. DUANE DARNELLE RUSSELL, Defendant-Appellant. Washington County Circuit Court 17CR62329; A167702 482 P3d 799

Defendant broke into an apartment looking for a particular person, planning to rob him of money and drugs, as payback for a botched drug transaction. He had already committed burglary when he discovered that he was in the wrong apart- ment. At that point, defendant decided to commit an entirely different robbery, which he then carried out. As a result, he was convicted of first-degree robbery, ORS 164.415, second-degree robbery, ORS 164.405, and first-degree burglary, ORS 164.225. At defendant’s sentencing hearing, the trial court merged his first- and second-degree robbery convictions and sentenced him consecutively on the robbery and burglary convictions. On appeal, defendant assigns error to, among other things, the trial court’s imposition of consecutive sentences. He argues that his burglary conviction was “merely incidental” to the more serious offense of robbery, which precluded the court from imposing consecutive sentences under ORS 137.123(5)(a). Held: The trial court did not err in imposing consecutive sen- tences. The record demonstrates that, after defendant burglarized the victim’s apartment and discovered that he had targeted the wrong person, he formed a distinct “willingness” to commit the separate offense of robbery. Accordingly, the burglary was not “merely incidental to” the robbery, and consecutive sentences were appropriate. Affirmed.

Janelle F. Wipper, Judge. Stephanie J. Hortsch, Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant. Also on the opening brief and a supplemental brief was Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate Section, Office of Public Defense Services. Duane Russell filed a supplemental brief pro se. Doug M. Petrina, Assistant Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent. Also on the brief were Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, and Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General. Cite as 309 Or App 554 (2021) 555

Before DeVore, Presiding Judge, and DeHoog, Judge, and Mooney, Judge. MOONEY, J. Affirmed. 556 State v. Russell

MOONEY, J. Defendant and his accomplice broke into an apart- ment and robbed its occupant at gunpoint. Their original plan was to commit both a burglary and a robbery, home- invasion style. They were targeting a particular individual from whom they had planned to steal $50,000 and cocaine in retaliation for a botched drug deal. When they realized that they had broken into the wrong apartment, they had already committed burglary. At that point, they decided to commit a different robbery than the one they had originally planned. As a result, defendant was convicted of both first-degree rob- bery with a firearm and first-degree burglary with a fire- arm. The trial court ordered defendant to serve the burglary sentence consecutively to the robbery sentence. On appeal, defendant contends in his first assignment of error that the trial court erred in imposing that sentence.1 He argues that the record does not support a finding that the burglary and robbery were sufficiently distinct to justify consecutive sen- tences under ORS 137.123(5)(a). Because the record supports a reasonable inference that defendant formed a willingness to commit each crime, independent of the other crime, we conclude that the court did not err in ordering the sentence on the burglary conviction to run consecutively to the sen- tence on the robbery conviction. We affirm. “We review a trial court’s decision to impose consec- utive sentences for errors of law and to determine whether the trial court’s predicate factual findings are supported by any evidence in the record.” State v. Traylor, 267 Or App 613, 615-16, 341 P3d 156 (2014). We review both the evidence pre- sented and inferences reasonably derived from that evidence. State v. Anderson, 208 Or App 409, 417, 145 P3d 245 (2006), rev den, 343 Or 33 (2007) (citing State v. Warren, 168 Or App 1, 6, 5 P3d 1115, rev den, 330 Or 412 (2000)). We state the facts of this case consistently with our standard of review.

1 We reject defendant’s unpreserved second, third, and fourth assignments of error without further discussion. We also reject the assignments of error raised by defendant in his supplemental briefs, including the one directed to the trial court’s nonunanimous jury verdict instruction. Although instructing the jury that it could return a nonunanimous verdict was erroneous, that error was harm- less beyond reasonable doubt because the verdicts were, in fact, unanimous. State v. Ciraulo, 367 Or 350, 354, 478 P3d 502 (2020). Cite as 309 Or App 554 (2021) 557

The victim, K, was alone in his Tualatin apartment one evening when a woman, Dubrie, knocked on his door and frantically shouted, “I need help.” K opened the door, but Dubrie “barely finished the sentence before [K] saw the shot- gun come through the door.” At that point, “two masked men came in with guns and demanded drugs and money[.]” K fell to his knees and appeared to surrender himself by putting his hands up. While one of the men checked the apartment to make sure that no one else was home, the other kept his gun pointed at K. After they determined that the apartment was otherwise empty, one man held a shotgun and the other searched the master bedroom, telling K that they were look- ing for “50,000 and coke.” The man who held the shotgun told K that he had “just been testing out his shotgun” and it felt “good to shoot.” The two men were wearing ski masks, so K was not able to identify which of the men was defendant, and which was his accomplice, Williams.2 As the two men searched K’s apartment for the $50,000 and cocaine, they found two safes in his closet. They forced K to open them. There was no money or cocaine in the safes. Instead, they found tax documents, two handguns, wedding bands, passports, and Social Security cards. They also found a handgun in K’s nightstand and another in his wife’s nightstand. At that point, they contacted Dubrie by walkie-talkie to ask for the name of the intended target. She did not know the name. K overheard one suspect ask his accomplice whether he knew the target’s name and who lived in the apartment, but he did not know either. They asked K “if Boogie was lying,” to which K responded that he had no idea what they were talking about. “Boogie” was Williams’s nickname. Defendant and his accomplice decided to leave the apartment. As they left, they forced K out of the bedroom and into the hallway, still at gunpoint, where they filled a duffel bag with K’s wallet and other items. They threatened to return if he called the police, and then they left. K immediately called the police and provided them with the serial numbers of the stolen guns and information

2 The lack of specific identification is not material to this case because, as the jury found, the evidence was sufficient to support defendant’s conviction for both burglary and robbery regardless of which masked person had been defendant. 558 State v. Russell

about the other stolen items. The police suspected a failed “drug rip.” Six days later, a Utah law enforcement officer stopped defendant for a window-tint violation.

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Related

State v. Bogosian
347 Or. App. 836 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2026)
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545 P.3d 1252 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2024)

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Bluebook (online)
482 P.3d 799, 309 Or. App. 554, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-russell-orctapp-2021.