Blaylock v. Laney, A169407

• Decision Date: 28 July 2021
• Docket Number: A169407
• Parties: STEVEN PAUL BLAYLOCK, Petitioner-Appellant, v. Garrett LANEY, Superintendent, Oregon State Correctional Institution, Defendant-Respondent.
• Court: Oregon Court of Appeals

313 Or.App. 519

STEVEN PAUL BLAYLOCK, Petitioner-Appellant,
v.
Garrett LANEY, Superintendent, Oregon State Correctional Institution, Defendant-Respondent.

A169407

Court of Appeals of Oregon

July 28, 2021

Submitted June 18, 2020

Marion County Circuit Court 16CV08541 Linda Louise Bergman, Senior Judge.

Jedediah Peterson and O'Connor Weber LLC filed the brief for appellant. Steven Paul Blaylock filed the supplemental brief pro se.

Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General, and Joanna Hershey, Assistant Attorney General, filed the brief for respondent.

Before Lagesen, Presiding Judge, and James, Judge, and Kamins, Judge.

[313 Or.App. 520]

[313 Or.App. 521] LAGESEN, P. J.

Petitioner appeals a judgment denying his petition for post-conviction relief from his conviction for murder constituting domestic violence, ORS 163.115. Accepting the post-conviction court's supported implicit and explicit factual findings and reviewing for legal error, Green v. Franke, 357 Or. 301, 312, 350 P3d 188 (2015), we affirm.

The facts underlying petitioner's criminal conviction are set forth in the opinion we issued in petitioner's direct appeal, State v. Blaylock, 267 Or App 455, 456-60, 341 P3d 758 (2014), rev den, 357 Or. 299 (2015). Briefly, petitioner killed his wife. He initially made up stories about his wife leaving him, and even participated in a search party for her. Suspicious that petitioner was not telling the truth about his wife's disappearance, police obtained a warrant to search his house, discovering a letter that petitioner had written- an apparent intended suicide note-in which he admitted to killing his wife. Petitioner then admitted that he had killed his wife but told officers that he did so in self-defense, after he woke up to find his wife physically attacking him. While in jail, he wrote another letter to a relative repeating the self-defense version of events. Consistent with these latter stories, petitioner's defense at trial was self-defense. The jury rejected that defense and found petitioner guilty of murder constituting domestic violence. See generally id. We affirmed petitioner's conviction and sentence on appeal but remanded to the trial court for entry of a corrected judgment omitting an impermissible "no contact" provision contained therein. Id. at 475. Petitioner sought review in the Supreme Court but his petition was denied. State v. Blaylock, 357 Or. 299, 353 P3d 594 (2015).

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