State v. Oatney
| Decision Date | 10 April 2003 |
| Citation | 66 P.3d 475,335 Ore. 276,335 Or. 276 |
| Parties | STATE of Oregon, Respondent, v. Billy Lee OATNEY, Jr., Appellant. |
| Court | Oregon Supreme Court |
Eric Johansen, Deputy Public Defender, Salem, argued the cause and filed the brief for appellant. With him on the brief was David E. Groom, State Public Defender.
Janet Klapstein, Assistant Attorney General, Salem, argued the cause and filed the brief for respondent. With her on the brief were Erika L. Hadlock, Assistant Attorney General, Hardy Myers, Attorney General, and Michael D. Reynolds, Solicitor General. Before CARSON, Chief Justice, and GILLETTE, DURHAM, RIGGS, De MUNIZ, and BALMER, Justices.1
This case is before us on automatic and direct review of defendant's convictions for eight counts of aggravated murder and sentence of death. Defendant challenges trial court rulings in the pretrial, guilt, and penalty phases of his trial, seeking reversal of his convictions or, in the alternative, vacation of his sentence of death and remand for resentencing. For the reasons set out below, we affirm the convictions for aggravated murder and the sentence of death.
Because the jury found defendant guilty, we review the evidence in the light most favorable to the state. State v. Thompson, 328 Or. 248, 250, 971 P.2d 879 (1999).
The victim disappeared on August 27, 1996. Her family told police that defendant might have information about her whereabouts because the victim had been planning to meet with defendant to ask him to make some jewelry for her upcoming wedding. On September 2, 1996, the Tualatin police interviewed defendant, who stated that he had not seen the victim for three weeks. Later that evening, a Milwaukie police officer, who had no knowledge of the Tualatin police's questioning of defendant regarding the victim's disappearance, stopped defendant because the license plate light on his van was not working. Defendant's license check revealed no reason to detain him, but the police determined that defendant's passenger, Johnston, had an outstanding warrant for his arrest for a parole violation. The police arrested Johnston.
During the traffic stop and investigation of Johnston, one of the police officers saw defendant and Johnston moving a duffel bag inside the van as if to conceal it. The officer asked defendant for consent to look into the bag, and defendant consented. The police found, among other things, a replica of a Colt.45, a stun gun, a dart gun, a large knife, a lock-pick set, a pair of scissors, and a roll of duct tape. The police inventoried the items and returned them to defendant, but did not detain him further.
On September 9, 1996, the victim's badly decomposed body was found in Champoeg Park. In a subsequent interview with defendant, the Tualatin police learned of Johnston's September 2, 1996, arrest. They listened to tapes of Johnston's telephone conversations with defendant from jail and learned that defendant might have been involved in the victim's disappearance.2 Over the next few weeks, the Tualatin police interviewed defendant several times. They also searched defendant's apartment and found blood matching the victim's blood on the carpet.3 The Tualatin police continued to keep defendant under surveillance. After obtaining a search warrant, the police searched defendant's van. Among other items, they found the items from the duffel bag that the Milwaukie police had found during the September 2, 1996, stop.
Meanwhile, as a result of the continuing investigation of the victim's death, the state charged Johnston with one count of aggravated murder. Johnston pleaded guilty to aggravated murder, and, in exchange for his cooperation and testimony, the state agreed not to seek the death penalty.
Defendant was ultimately charged with eight counts of aggravated murder. At trial, both defendant and Johnston testified. Johnston testified that, while he was staying with defendant at defendant's apartment, defendant said that he had a date with the victim, left the apartment, and brought the victim back with him later that evening. While Johnston was on the telephone in another room, he heard defendant's stun gun being used. Johnston returned to the living room and saw the victim on the floor with defendant holding his stun gun to her neck. Johnston and defendant then tied up the victim and took her to the bedroom. They cut off her clothes with scissors and both of them raped and sodomized her. After forcing her to give them the personal identification number to her bank card, defendant sent Johnston out to get some money from an ATM using the victim's card. When Johnston returned, he saw that the victim had blood on her face and was not moving. Johnston testified that defendant had told him that defendant had hit and choked the victim because she "just wouldn't [have sex with] me." Defendant said that he had tried to kill her, but "the [victim] just won't die." Defendant and Johnston then held a plastic bag over the victim's head until she stopped breathing.
Defendant argued at trial that Johnston had lied in his testimony to avoid the death penalty. Defendant testified that Johnston had killed the victim while defendant was away from the apartment. According to defendant, he had not learned of the victim's murder until the following day. He testified that he had helped Johnston cover up the murder because he had been afraid of being implicated in the murder because it had occurred in his apartment.
The jury convicted defendant of all eight counts of aggravated murder. In a separate sentencing proceeding, the jury determined that defendant had acted deliberately, that defendant posed a continuing risk to society, and that defendant should receive a death sentence. The trial judge then entered a sentence of death. After defendant's conviction, the court sentenced Johnston to life without the possibility of parole.
Defendant now raises 43 assignments of error. We have examined each of those assignments of error, and we reject each one. Three of the assignments of error merit discussion, and we now turn to them.
Defendant assigns as error the trial court's "accomplice-witness" instructions and, in particular, the instruction that stated that, "as a matter of law," Johnston was "an accomplice witness in the commission of the crimes charged in this indictment."4 The trial judge gave the jury the following accomplice-witness instructions:
"You are instructed that as a matter of law, Willford Nathaniel Johnston, III, is an accomplice witness in the commission of the crimes charged in this indictment." (The accomplice-witness-as-a-matter-of-law instruction.)
"You should view an accomplice witness's testimony with distrust." (The credibility instruction.)
(The corroboration instruction.)5
As noted, at trial, Johnston had testified that he and defendant had committed the crimes together. Defendant testified that Johnston had committed the crimes alone, admitting his own culpability only as to helping to dispose of some of the victim's property, cleaning up his apartment to remove evidence of the victim's murder, and related conduct after the victim had been killed. Defendant first argues that, when the trial court instructed the jury that Johnston was an accomplice witness "as a matter of law," the trial court, in effect, directed a verdict of guilty by instructing the jury that defendant had committed the crimes along with Johnston. Second, defendant argues that, even if that instruction did not amount to a directed verdict of guilty, "the trial court effectively instructed the jury that the crime was in fact committed," thus depriving defendant of his right to a jury trial on each element of the offenses. Third, defendant argues that the accomplice-witness instructions invaded the factfinding role of the jury by improperly undermining his assertion that Johnston alone had killed the victim. Defendant contends that it is reversible error for a trial court to give the accomplice-witness instructions unless a defendant requests them.
As authority for his arguments, defendant relies on State v. Simson, 308 Or. 102, 775 P.2d 837 (1989), in which a criminal defendant objected to similar accomplice-witness instructions. In that case, three men had been convicted of the theft of a truck that the defendant drove for his employer. The defendant also had been charged with the theft, but the trial testimony of the three convicted witnesses did not implicate the defendant, contrary to the prosecution's expectation. Over the defendant's objection, the trial court gave the accomplice-witness instructions, including the accomplice-witness-as-a-matter-of-law instruction, to the jury. This court reversed the resulting conviction on the ground that the instructions were "inappropriate to give" under the circumstances:
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