State v. Rich

Summary

The Oregon Court of Appeals addresses double-jeopardy issue preclusion, retrial, merger of criminal convictions, sentencing departures, criminal-history scoring, and restitution in a prosecution involving injuries to a child. The court held that the acquittal on first-degree assault did not preclude retrial or related evidence for other counts, but that two first-degree criminal-mistreatment convictions had to merge. The court reversed and remanded for entry of a single conviction on the merged counts and for resentencing, while otherwise affirming.

Holdings

1. The acquittal of first-degree assault on Count 1 did not necessarily decide that defendant had not intentionally or knowingly caused W's head injury; therefore, issue preclusion under the Double Jeopardy Clause did not bar retrial on Count 2.
2. The trial court did not err in denying defendant's motion to exclude evidence suggesting that he violently attacked W and intentionally or knowingly caused W's head injury in a subsequent prosecution involving Counts 6 and 7.
3. Counts 2 and 7 had to merge into a single conviction for first-degree criminal mistreatment because the state failed to prove a sufficient pause between the acts.
4. The trial court erred by imposing upward departure sentences on Counts 2 and 7 because the state neither pleaded enhancement facts nor provided timely notice of its intent to rely on them.
5. The trial court did not err in reconstituting defendant's criminal-history score for Count 3 because the injury offenses and the withholding-of-care offense arose from separate criminal episodes.
6. Defendant was not entitled to a jury determination of restitution under Article I, section 17, of the Oregon Constitution, the Sixth Amendment, or the Seventh Amendment.
7. The restitution award for future medical expenses was affirmed because the record supported that the expenses would be incurred and that they were objectively verifiable.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the jury's acquittal of first-degree assault on Count 1 barred retrial on Count 2 or barred the state from using evidence concerning the head injury in a prosecution involving Counts 6 and 7 under the Double Jeopardy Clause's issue-preclusion component.
2. Whether the convictions on Counts 2 and 7 for first-degree criminal mistreatment had to merge because the state failed to prove a sufficient pause between the acts.
3. Whether the trial court erred by imposing departure sentences without the state pleading or timely providing notice of enhancement facts.
4. Whether the trial court improperly reconstituted defendant's criminal-history score or imposed consecutive sentences based on convictions arising from the same criminal episode.
5. Whether defendant was entitled to a jury determination of restitution under the Oregon or federal constitutions.
6. Whether the restitution award for future medical expenses was unsupported because such expenses were not objectively verifiable or were too speculative.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded