State v. Saravia

Opinion

No. 806 August 26, 2026 519

This is a nonprecedential memorandum opinion pursuant to ORAP 10.30 and may not be cited except as provided in ORAP 10.30(1).

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF OREGON

STATE OF OREGON, Plaintiff-Respondent,

v.

MANUEL ALEJANDRO SARAVIA, Defendant-Appellant. Lane County Circuit Court 23CR26860; A183358

Kamala H. Shugar, Judge. Submitted July 9, 2025. Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate Section, and Emily P. Seltzer, Deputy Public Defender, Oregon Public Defense Commission, filed the brief for appellant.

Dan Rayfield, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General, and Michael A. Casper, Assistant Attorney General, filed the brief for respondent.

Before Ortega, Presiding Judge, Joyce, Judge, and Hellman, Judge.

ORTEGA, P. J. Affirmed.

520 State v. Saravia

ORTEGA, P. J. Defendant was convicted of two counts of first-

degree sexual abuse. On appeal, he challenges the trial court’s refusal to give a special instruction about the meaning of an “intimate” body part for purposes of first-degree sexual abuse, seeking reversal and remand for a new trial. However, the trial court correctly declined to give defendant ’s requested instruction because it was contrary to the definition articulated by the Supreme Court in State v. Woodley, 306 Or 458, 462-63, 760 P2d 884 (1988). Although defendant claims that Woodley’s definition has been “abrogated ” by subsequent case law regarding culpable mental states, we disagree. Accordingly, we affirm.

This court reviews the trial court’s refusal to give a requested instruction for errors of law. State v. Moore, 324 Or 396, 427, 927 P2d 1073 (1996) (citing State v. Brown, 310 Or 347, 355, 800 P2d 259 (1990)).

Defendant was charged with four counts of first-

degree sexual abuse based on evidence that he had subjected two girls under the age of 14 to sexual contact. ORS 163.427(1)(a)(A). To prove those charges, the state needed to prove, among other things, that defendant had knowingly touched the girls’ “sexual or other intimate parts.” ORS 163.305(5) (defining “sexual contact” as “any touching of the sexual or other intimate parts of a person or causing such person to touch the sexual or other intimate parts of the actor for the purpose of arousing or gratifying the sexual desire of either party”).

At trial, the state presented evidence that defendant touched one girl on her chest, tried to take off her pants, and kissed her on the lips, and also evidence that he climbed into bed with the other girl and then touched her buttocks and vaginal area over her clothing. Following the presentation of the evidence, defendant asked the court to give the following special instruction regarding the meaning of an “intimate” body part:

“A body part is intimate if the person touched regarded it as intimate and the defendant knew that the person touched regarded it as intimate.

Nonprecedential Memo Op: 352 Or App 519 (2026) 521

“In order to find that a body part is intimate, you must find beyond a reasonable doubt that the person touched regarded the part touched as intimate and the defendant knew that the person touched regarded the part as intimate.”

The state objected to defendant’s proposed instruction , and the trial court declined to give it. Instead, the court instructed the jury using a modified version of the uniform criminal instruction based on State v. Woodley, UCrJI 1602, as follows:

“A body part is intimate if the person touched regards it as intimate and either the defendant knew that the person touched regarded it as intimate or any reasonable person would know the part is intimate. “In order to find that a body part is intimate, you must find beyond a reasonable doubt that the person regarded the part touched as intimate and that the defendant knew either, one, that a person—that the person regarded the part as intimate or, two, that any reasonable person would know that the part touched is intimate.” The jury convicted defendant on all counts.

The trial court correctly declined to give defendant’s requested instruction because it was contrary to the test that the Oregon Supreme Court set forth in Woodley. The defendant in that case was convicted of attempted sexual abuse and the issue on appeal was the meaning of “intimate parts” for purposes of that offense. Analyzing the relevant statutory text, context, and legislative history, the court determined that genitalia were “sexual parts” as a matter of law, and breasts were “intimate parts” as a matter of law, but that all other body parts required guided jury determinations of whether they were “subjectively intimate to the person touched, and either known by the accused to be so or to be an area of the anatomy that would be objectively known to be intimate to any reasonable person.” Woodley, 306 Or at 463.

Defendant does not dispute that his proposed instruction was inconsistent with Woodley, but he claims that Woodley is no longer good law. Though he acknowledges that, under Woodley, the state may prove that a part 522 State v. Saravia

is “intimate” if it “would be objectively known to be intimate by any reasonable person,” 306 Or at 463, he contends that that aspect of Woodley has been “abrogated” by State v. Simonov, 358 Or 531, 368 P3d 11 (2016). We disagree.

At issue in Simonov was the minimum culpable mental state that applies to one of the elements of the crime of unlawful use of a vehicle (UUV). 306 Or at 535. To commit UUV, a person must use a vehicle “without consent of the owner,” ORS 164.135(1)(a), and the question in Simonov was what the minimum culpable mental state was that applied to that element. Simonov had nothing to do with the meaning of “intimate” parts, and it did not mention Woodley, much less abrogate it. Nor does Simonov implicitly overrule Woodley or even call it into question. Simonov is about the minimum culpable mental state that applied to an element. Woodley is not about the culpable mental state that applies to an element, but about the nature of an element itself—i.e., what it means for a body part to be “intimate.” Those are two different issues.

In this case, defendant claims that the trial court erred by refusing to give his special instruction regarding the definition of “intimate” body parts. That definition was directly at odds with Woodley, which remains binding on this court. See, e.g., Re v. PERS, 256 Or App 52, 54, 301 P3d 932, rev den, 353 Or 867 (2013) (“It is not this court’s role to overrule, directly or indirectly, Supreme Court case law.”); State v. Probst, 192 Or App 337, 347, 85 P3d 313 (2004), rev’d on other grounds, 339 Or 612, 124 P3d 1237 (2005) (noting “the prerogative to overrule an Oregon Supreme Court decision belongs to that court, not to us”).

Affirmed.