State v. Taylor
| Decision Date | 07 February 2019 |
| Docket Number | CC C201216842 (SC S062310) |
| Parties | STATE of Oregon, Respondent on Review, v. David Ray TAYLOR, Appellant on Review. |
| Court | Oregon Supreme Court |
Daniel Bennett, Deputy Public Defender, Office of Public Defense Services, Salem, argued the cause and filed the briefs for the petitioner on review. Also on the briefs was Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Deputy Defender.
Timothy Sylwester, Assistant Attorney General, Salem, argued the cause and filed the brief for the respondent on review. Also on the brief were Ellen Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General, and Joanna L. Jenkins, Assistant Attorney General.
Before Walters, Chief Justice, and Balmer, Nakamoto, Flynn, Duncan, Nelson, and Garrett, Justices.*
A jury sentenced defendant to death after convicting him of aggravated murder, kidnapping, and other crimes against Celestino Gutierrez, as well as multiple offenses arising out of two bank robberies. In this automatic and direct review of his convictions and sentence of death,1 defendant primarily raises arguments that are contrary to controlling precedent without offering persuasive reasons to depart from that precedent, or arguments that otherwise lack merit. However, some of defendant's assignments of error raise significant issues that this court has yet to expressly address, including: whether the state must expressly allege its theory for joining multiple offenses, whether the governor's moratorium on imposing the death penalty affects the jury's ability to constitutionally consider that punishment, and whether this court should presume that the undisclosed bias of an alternate juror impaired defendant's constitutional right to trial by an impartial jury. We write to address those assignments of error as well as several other significant challenges that defendant raises to the trial court's rulings. Ultimately, having fully considered all of defendant's arguments, we conclude that none of defendant's assignments of error identifies a basis for reversing the judgment, and we affirm.
The crimes at issue in this appeal include the robbery of a Siuslaw Bank branch in Creswell, Oregon; the robbery of a Siuslaw Bank branch in Mapleton, Oregon, two months later; and the kidnapping and murder of a young man in order to steal his car to use in committing the Mapleton bank robbery. In addition to defendant, the participants in these crimes were Toni Baker (defendant's friend), Mercedes (Sadie) Crabtree (Baker's 18-year-old niece), A.J. Nelson (Crabtree's longtime friend), and Wretha Breckenridge (defendant's girlfriend). Both Breckenridge and Crabtree testified in detail about the crimes at defendant's trial—Breckenridge after being given immunity and Crabtree as a condition of her agreement to plead guilty to several offenses, including murder. The facts described below are supported by the testimony of those two witnesses, as well as by other key evidence at trial.
Defendant and Breckenridge, who both lived in Eugene, decided to rob a Siuslaw Bank branch in Creswell, a small town in Lane County. Defendant enlisted Baker and Crabtree to help with the robbery, and the four met at defendant's home in Eugene to discuss the robbery plan. The plan involved defendant using a bicycle to ride up to and away from the bank while Crabtree waited nearby in a get-away vehicle. Defendant planned to use a bicycle that he had spray painted and stored in Breckenridge's garage.
On the morning of June 8, according to the plan, Crabtree drove defendant and the bicycle to an alley near the bank. Crabtree drove a red Dodge Caravan registered to Breckenridge's mother and waited in the van while defendant rode the bicycle to the bank to commit the robbery.
Defendant carried two guns into the bank—one a small, pink revolver that belonged to Breckenridge, and the other a larger "western style" .44 magnum revolver with a wood grip. He ordered bank employees and customers to get down on the ground. Several of the employees in the bank activated alarms, which triggered an audio recording, and surveillance video also recorded the robbery. Defendant pointed a gun at the bank employees and ordered them to give him the money from their tills. He also demanded their wallets and purses. Defendant ordered everyone in the bank to remain on the ground while he fled on the bicycle with the stolen money. When he reached the alley where Crabtree was waiting, defendant abandoned the bicycle and rode away with Crabtree in the van.
Lane County law enforcement officers identified a red Caravan as likely involved in the robbery, and they publicized that information. They began coordinating with an FBI bank robbery task force, which eventually connected defendant to the Creswell bank robbery, to Breckenridge, to the red Caravan registered to Breckenridge's mother, and to a silver Dodge Intrepid registered to Breckenridge. The task force used that information to obtain a warrant to place GPS tracking devices on both vehicles in late July, and the devices allowed officers to track the movements of those vehicles during the series of crimes that followed.
Shortly after the Creswell robbery, defendant broke both of his heels and was incapacitated until late July. When defendant was finally able to walk without crutches, he and Breckenridge drove around in Breckenridge's Intrepid looking for another bank to rob. This time they settled on a Siuslaw Bank branch located in Mapleton, Oregon, another town in Lane County. But two challenges required defendant to form a different plan for this robbery. First, defendant's injuries left him unable to ride a bike and in need of assistance inside the bank. Second, defendant knew that law enforcement officers had publicized a red Caravan's link to the Creswell robbery, so defendant did not want to use the Caravan.
Defendant again recruited Crabtree to help with the bank robbery and arranged for her to bring from Portland an older Toyota that he wanted to use for the robbery. Crabtree also brought her friend, Nelson, to assist defendant inside the bank. The plan for the Mapleton robbery was for defendant and Nelson to drive the Toyota to the bank and then abandon it after the robbery at a location where Crabtree would pick them up in the Intrepid.
On the day planned for the robbery, however, the Toyota broke down on the way to the bank, and defendant abandoned it. He then decided to steal a car and kill the owner so that the owner could not report the theft before defendant had the opportunity to use the car for the robbery. Defendant told Nelson and Crabtree to wait outside a bar near his house and watch for a single man to emerge. He explained that Nelson should stage a fight with Crabtree and then drive away alone. Defendant directed Crabtree to then approach the man and ask for a ride home, to lure him to defendant's house.
As directed, Nelson and Crabtree waited outside of the bar to carry out defendant's plan. Around midnight, Gutierrez left the bar alone. Crabtree and Nelson staged their fight, Crabtree convinced Gutierrez to give her a ride, and she directed him to defendant's house. Gutierrez went inside the house to use the bathroom and, when he emerged, defendant and Nelson were waiting for him. Defendant was carrying an assault-type rifle and ordered Gutierrez to get to his knees. Defendant directed Nelson to bind Gutierrez's feet and arms and then directed him to stab and choke Gutierrez. Nelson did so, but Gutierrez remained conscious. Eventually, defendant used a chain to strangle Gutierrez until he died.
Several hours later, at about 7:00 a.m., defendant drove to Breckenridge's house and told her that they had killed someone and gotten a car, and that she should wait for him to return with the others. Defendant, Crabtree, and Nelson then carried out the Mapleton bank robbery according to their original plan but using Gutierrez's car in place of the abandoned Toyota.
Defendant and Nelson drove to the Mapleton bank in Gutierrez's car. When they entered the bank, defendant was carrying a long revolver with a wood grip—the .44 magnum—and Nelson was carrying the assault-type rifle. They yelled for the employees to get on the ground, threatened to kill anyone who did not comply, and demanded the employees' wallets. After taking money from the tills, they ordered everyone in the bank to remain on the ground and fled. As would later prove significant, Nelson dropped a bullet, which a teller noticed and collected for police, and some of the money that the tellers handed over included "bait bills"—bills that had been photocopied and had their serial numbers recorded.
Defendant and Nelson drove from the bank to a location at which Crabtree had arranged to meet them with the Intrepid. Defendant moved the robbery proceeds into the Intrepid and abandoned Gutierrez's car. The three then drove to Breckenridge's house in the Intrepid, where they divided the money, before returning to defendant's house to dispose of the murder evidence.
Five days later, law enforcement officers arrested defendant on a warrant for an unrelated crime. At the time of his arrest, defendant was carrying the .44 magnum wood-grip revolver that he had used in both bank robberies. Because defendant had become a primary suspect in the Mapleton robbery and the murder by that time, he was questioned about those crimes.
Shortly after defendant's arrest, a detective also questioned Breckenridge at her home. Breckenridge provided information about both bank robberies, as well as information about Gutierrez's murder. In a search of Breckenridge's home, officers found the pink handgun that defendant had used in the Creswell robbery. They also found a...
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