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Case decided August 25, 2011
State of Oregon v. Petronilo Lopez-Minjarez, (TC C053660CR) (CA A134227)
(SC S059045)
On review from the Court of Appeals in an appeal from the Washington
County Circuit Court, Gayle Nachtigal, Judge. 236 Or App 270, 237 P3d 223 (2010),
adh'd to on recons, 237 Or App 688 (2010). The decision of the Court of Appeals is
reversed in part and affirmed in part. The judgment of the circuit court is reversed, and
the case is remanded for further proceedings. Opinion of the Court by Justice Virginia L.
Linder.
Today, the Oregon Supreme Court held in a unanimous decision that a trial
court erred when it instructed a jury that a defendant may be found criminally responsible
for any crime that was a natural and probable consequence of a crime that the defendant
had aided or abetted another in committing. The Court also held that giving the
instruction prejudiced defendant on his convictions for assault, felony murder, and
aggravated murder because the jury could have used the instruction to convict defendant
of those crimes based on an erroneous understanding of the law, but the error did not
prejudice defendant on his convictions for first-degree burglary and first-degree
kidnapping.
Defendant accompanied his father to the victim's parents' house, and the
victim arrived shortly thereafter. Either defendant or his father (or both of them) pushed
the victim into the house, where one of them shot and wounded the victim. The victim
was then forced into defendant's truck and taken, at gun point, to a remote logging spur,
where he was shot and killed. A witness had called the police with the license plate
number of the truck, and defendant was arrested at his house the night of the murder.
Defendant's father was never apprehended. Defendant was charged with burglary in the
first degree, assault in the second degree, kidnapping in the first degree, felony murder,
and aggravated murder. At trial, defendant denied having any intent to harm the victim,
and denied any direct involvement in the shooting of the victim inside the house or at the
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logging spur. According to defendant, he drove his father to the victim's parents' house,
but he was unaware that his father was armed until his father got out of the truck and
pushed the victim into the house; defendant denied ever entering the house. Defendant
admitted to driving his father, who was holding the victim at gunpoint, away from the
house, but claimed that he drove to a McDonald's restaurant, where he remained while
his father drove away with the victim. About 30-40 minutes later, according to
defendant, his father returned without the victim, and defendant then returned home. The
state presented evidence that contradicted defendant's testimony. The state argued, based
on its evidence, that defendant personally participated in all of the crimes, but that, in all
events, even if defendant was not directly involved in all of the crimes, he was guilty as
his father's accomplice.
After the parties concluded their arguments, the trial court instructed the
jury that defendant was liable as an accomplice if he had aided or abetted his father in the
planning or commission of a crime, with the intent to promote or facilitate the
commission of the crime. The court also gave the jury a uniform criminal jury instruction
stating that a person is criminally responsible for the natural and probable consequences
of any crime that the person aided or abetted. Defendant challenged the uniform
instruction, arguing that it was not consistent with Oregon law. The trial court disagreed
and gave the challenged instruction. The jury convicted defendant of all the crimes
charged. Defendant appealed, asserting that giving the uniform instruction was
prejudicial error because it allowed the jury to find him guilty of crimes that, based on his
version of the facts, he neither aided nor abetted nor intended to promote or facilitate, as
Oregon's statute defining accomplice liability requires. The Court of Appeals agreed
with defendant that giving the instruction was error and that it prejudiced defendant on
his felony murder and aggravated murder convictions, but that defendant had presented a
version of facts that conceded his guilt of the burglary, assault, and kidnapping charges.
The state petitioned for review.
In a unanimous opinion authored by Justice Virginia L. Linder, the
Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part the Court of Appeals decision. The
Court began by comparing the challenged jury instruction to the Oregon statute
governing accomplice liability, and concluded that the challenged instruction was an
incorrect statement of Oregon law. The challenged instruction was erroneous, the Court
determined, because it allowed a jury to convict a defendant of crimes that the defendant
neither aided or abetted, nor intended to facilitate or promote the commission of, based
only on a conclusion that the crimes were the natural and probable consequences of
crimes that the defendant did aid or abet. The Court held that the error prejudiced
defendant on his convictions for assault, felony murder, and aggravated murder, because
the jury could have believed defendant's version of the facts and nonetheless have used
the erroneous instruction to convict defendant of those crimes despite his denial of
intentional assistance of their commission. As to the burglary charges, the Court held
that the erroneous instruction was not prejudicial because burglary was the first crime,
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chronologically, for which the jury could have found defendant guilty. The jury therefore
could not have concluded that the burglary was the "natural and probable consequence"
of a crime that defendant, at an earlier point, had aided his father in committing. As to
the kidnapping charge, the Court held that the erroneous instruction was not prejudicial
because defendant conceded facts constituting kidnapping in the first degree. The Court
therefore affirmed in part and reversed in part the Court of Appeals decision, and
reversed the trial court's judgment.
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