State v. Snyder
| Decision Date | 15 May 2003 |
| Citation | 187 Or. App. 648,69 P.3d 802 |
| Parties | STATE of Oregon, Respondent, v. Marshall Lovejoy SNYDER, Appellant. |
| Court | Oregon Court of Appeals |
David E. Groom, Acting Executive Director, Office of Public Defense Services Defender, argued the cause for appellant. With him on the brief was Beth A. Corbo, Deputy Public Defender.
Daniel J. Casey, Assistant Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Hardy Myers, Attorney General, and Mary H. Williams, Solicitor General.
Before LANDAU, Presiding Judge, and ARMSTRONG and BREWER, Judges.
Defendant appeals his conviction for driving under the influence of intoxicants (DUII). ORS 813.010.1 He assigns error to the trial court's admission of documentary and testimonial evidence of the results of a chemical analysis of his blood alcohol content. Specifically, he contends that the state failed to lay a foundation for that evidence as required by ORS 813.160(1)(a).2 Although we conclude that the evidence was erroneously admitted, we affirm because the error was harmless.
Defendant was involved in a car accident. Officer McLeod observed defendant at the scene of the accident and also in the hospital emergency room. At the hospital, defendant's blood was drawn for a chemical blood alcohol analysis. In the aftermath of the incident, defendant was prosecuted for DUII. On the day of trial, defendant made an oral motion in limine to exclude evidence of the results of the chemical analysis. The trial court denied the motion.
At trial, the results of the analysis were admitted into evidence in the form of a certified copy of a hospital record, authenticated by the affidavit of the records custodian, and through the testimony of McLeod. McLeod read the hospital record and stated that the results correlated to a .17 blood alcohol content. Defendant testified in his own defense. In response to direct examination by his counsel, he stated, In his closing argument, defense counsel stated, "And the question here obviously is not that he was drunk, but that he drove the car" and "[Defendant] drank until he was in the blackout stages of intoxication and the blackout stages of intoxication doesn't mean necessarily the person can't carry a conversation, it just means that he can't remember anything after the event." The jury convicted defendant.
On appeal, defendant asserts that the trial court erred in admitting evidence of the chemical analysis of his blood because the state was required, but failed, to prove that the evidence satisfied the foundational requirements established by ORS 813.160.3 That statute provides, in part:
The state concedes that it did not present evidence that the chemical analysis complied with that statute. The record does not disclose who performed the analysis, whether the person was "qualified," the methods used to perform the analysis, and whether those methods were approved by the Department of Human Services.
Nevertheless, the state asserts that, in light of ORS 813.320(2)(a), it was not required to prove compliance with ORS 813.160(1)(a). ORS 813.320 provides, in part:
The state argues that the evidence of the chemical analysis results was admissible because the blood was taken while defendant was receiving medical care at a hospital and the evidence was "otherwise competent." In particular, the state asserts that the legislature intended the exception for "otherwise competent" evidence to be a broader exception than the one for "otherwise admissible" evidence in ORS 136.432, which limits the court's authority to exclude relevant evidence but does not relieve the state from establishing the "foundational requirements" in ORS 813.160(1). See State v. Warner, 181 Or.App. 622, 634-35, 47 P.3d 497,
rev. den., 335 Or. 42, 57 P.3d 581 (2002); State v. Chipman, 176 Or.App. 284, 294, 31 P.3d 478 (2001).4
The parties' disagreement presents a problem of statutory interpretation, which we resolve using the methodology established by PGE v. Bureau of Labor and Industries, 317 Or. 606, 610-12, 859 P.2d 1143 (1993). We first consider the text of ORS 813.320(2) in context. PGE, 317 Or. at 610-11, 859 P.2d 1143. Assuming without deciding that ORS 813.160(1)(a) is a "provision[ ] of the implied consent law" within the meaning of ORS 813.320(2),5 we conclude that the phrase "otherwise competent" in the latter statute nonetheless required the state to demonstrate compliance with ORS 813.160(1)(a).
"Competent," when used to describe evidence, is a legal term of art, and we therefore look to its "well-established legal meaning." McIntire v. Forbes, 322 Or. 426, 431, 909 P.2d 846 (1996) (). Ordinarily, "competence" is a foundational requirement that qualifies evidence to establish a particular fact for a particular purpose. Depending on the context, such a requirement may derive from decisional law, legislation, or some other source. See, e.g., Kotera v. Daioh Int'l U.S.A. Corp., 179 Or.App. 253, 271 n. 14, 40 P.3d 506 (2002)
(); see also ORCP 47 D; OEC 601; OEC 703.6
The context of ORS 813.320(2) supports that interpretation. According to ORS 813.160(1), "[t]o be valid under ORS 813.300," a chemical analysis of a person's blood must comply with directives set out in ORS 813.160(1). ORS 813.300 establishes the legal significance of the results of such an analysis; for example, under subsection (2), a result of "[n]ot less than .08 percent by weight of alcohol in a person's blood" constitutes legal intoxication. As we previously have recognized, the "to be valid" phrase establishes a "foundational requirement." Warner, 181 Or.App. at 634,47 P.3d 497. As discussed, competence likewise is a foundational requirement that qualifies evidence to prove a particular fact for a particular purpose. In this case, the challenged evidence was offered to establish defendant's blood alcohol content for the purpose of showing that he was intoxicated. As pertinent here, then, evidence of the results of a chemical analysis was not "otherwise competent" to prove defendant's blood alcohol content for that purpose unless the foundational requirements of ORS 813.160(1)(a) were satisfied.
Our interpretation is consistent with the Supreme Court's decision in State v. Heintz, 286 Or. 239, 594 P.2d 385 (1979). Heintz was a manslaughter case interpreting former ORS 487.820 (1977), repealed by Or. Laws 1983, ch 338, § 978, the predecessor to ORS 813.320. At that time, former ORS 487.815(1) (1977), repealed by Or. Laws 1983, ch 338, § 978, the predecessor to ORS 813.160, required that chemical analyses be performed by a person "possessing a valid permit * * * issued by the Health Division." The defendant argued that the challenged blood test evidence was inadmissible under former ORS 487.820, providing that provisions of the implied consent law shall not be construed to limit the introduction of "otherwise competent, relevant evidence" in non-DUII proceedings, because the state had not shown that the technician who performed the analysis had the permit required by former ORS 487.815(1). The Supreme Court rejected that argument. The court held that the evidence was "competent, relevant evidence," because the person performing the analysis was a nationally certified medical laboratory technician with substantial prior experience in performing such analyses, and she had used a procedure approved by the Health Division. Heintz, 286 Or. at 252-54, 594 P.2d 385.
Heintz did not dispense with the requirement that the state lay a foundation for the admission of chemical blood analysis results; it merely held that the requisite foundation could be laid by some means other than strict adherence to the requirements of former ORS 487.815(1).7 Indeed, current ORS 813.160(1)(a) requires a foundational showing that is substantially identical to the one that the court in Heintz concluded was sufficient for such evidence to be deemed "competent" under former ORS 487.820. However, here, unlike in Heintz—where a foundation regarding the blood test results was laid by the lab technician who performed the test—the results were offered through the testimony of a police officer who had no apparent knowledge about the qualifications of the person performing the analysis or the methods by which it was conducted. Thus, even under the reasoning in Heintz, the evidence in this case was not "otherwise competent."
The state nonetheless remonstrates that the certified hospital record, coupled with testimony that, in accordance with ORS 813.320(2)(a), the blood draw was "taken from the defendant while the defendant was hospitalized," rendered evidence of the amount of alcohol in defe...
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State v. Snyder
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