State v. Anderson
Decision Date | 02 August 2018 |
Docket Number | CC 123592 (SC S064633) |
Citation | 363 Or. 392,423 P.3d 43 |
Parties | STATE of Oregon, Petitioner on Review, v. Adam Francis ANDERSON, Respondent on Review. |
Court | Oregon Supreme Court |
Rolf C. Moan, Assistant Attorney General, Salem, argued the cause and filed the brief on behalf of petitioner on review. Also on the brief were Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, and Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General.
Emily P. Seltzer, Deputy Public Defender, Office of Public Defense Services, Salem, argued the cause and filed the brief on behalf of respondent on review. Also on the brief was Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender.
Before Walters, Chief Justice, and Balmer, Kistler, Nakamoto, and Nelson, Justices.**
A trial court may exclude relevant evidence if the "probative value [of the evidence] is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice." OEC 403. In this case, the trial court admitted a booking video of defendant over an OEC 403 objection because the video bore on the central issue in the case—the identity of the person who had taken money from the victim's bank account. A divided Court of Appeals reversed the trial court's ruling, not because the trial court had abused its discretion in admitting the video but because it had failed to sufficiently explain the basis for its ruling. State v. Anderson , 282 Or. App. 24, 386 P.3d 154 (2016). We allowed the state's petition for review to consider that recurring issue. We now reverse the Court of Appeals decision and affirm the trial court's judgment.
Three people—Debra, Michelle, and Charles—shared a house in Lincoln City. Defendant needed a place to stay, and Debra and Michelle agreed that defendant could "crash" at their house for a couple of days.1 The weekend after defendant began staying at their house, Debra tried to withdraw money from her Wells Fargo bank account at an ATM but was unable to do so.
On Monday morning, Debra checked with Wells Fargo and learned that someone had withdrawn $300 from her account at a Wells Fargo ATM and that the personal identification number (PIN) for her account had been changed. She also learned that, six or seven minutes after $300 had been withdrawn from the Wells Fargo ATM, someone had attempted to withdraw additional funds from her account at a nearby Bank of America ATM.
After learning that information, Debra went home and found that her emergency ATM card, with her PIN attached, had been taken from the dresser drawer in her bedroom. She also realized that defendant had moved out of her house on Sunday rather than later, as he initially had planned.
Debra notified the police, who obtained a surveillance video from the Bank of America ATM.2 The police showed Debra and Michelle stills taken from the video, which depicted a person attempting to use Debra's ATM card at the Bank of America ATM and also walking away from the ATM. The stills either do not show the person's face or do not do so clearly. Despite that fact, both Debra and Michelle identified the person in the stills as defendant, based on the clothing that the person was wearing and the person's general physical resemblance (height and build) to defendant.
When asked at trial what stood out to her about the person depicted in the stills, Debra testified:
Both Debra and Michelle described the red gloves pictured in the stills as distinctive; there is a print of a skeleton's fingers on the gloves, which were similar to gloves that Debra and Michelle had seen defendant wear.
On cross-examination, defense counsel brought out that the person's face in the stills could not be seen clearly, that the clothes were relatively common, and that it was not completely clear from the stills how tall the person was. Defense counsel also elicited testimony from Debra and Michelle that they had had "prior theft issues at the house," that their roommate Charles had a gambling problem, and that Charles had twice stolen the rent money. Both Debra and Michelle testified, however, that the person in the stills did not resemble Charles, who had a moustache.
To support its claim that defendant was the person depicted in the stills, the state offered a booking video of defendant taken approximately two weeks after the withdrawal from Debra's bank account. The state wanted to introduce the video to show that defendant was wearing the same or similar clothing in the booking video as the person depicted in the Bank of America stills. Defendant objected to the video's admission, and the parties engaged in the following colloquy with the court outside the jury's presence:
After the trial court viewed the video, the colloquy continued.
After the court viewed the booking video a second time, the colloquy continued.
After the trial court overruled defendant's objection, the state introduced the video through a sheriff's deputy, who described it to the jury as a booking video that is taken "when peopl...
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