Case Title: State v. Amini

Citation: 

Docket Number: S45699

State: oregon

Court: Oregon Supreme Court

Date: 2000-12-14T00:00:00Z

Document:
Filed:  December 14, 2000
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON

STATE OF OREGON,
	Petitioner on Review,
	v.
DARIUSH DAVID AMINI,
	Respondent on Review.
(CC 94-01-30513; CA A88710; SC S45699)

	On review from the Court of Appeals.*
	Argued and submitted November 10, 1999.
	Ann Kelley, Assistant Attorney General, Salem, argued the
cause for petitioner on review.  With her on the briefs were
Hardy Myers, Attorney General, and Michael D. Reynolds, Solicitor
General.
	Louis R. Miles, Deputy Public Defender, Salem, argued the
cause for respondent on review.  With him on the brief was David
E. Groom, State Public Defender.
	Before Carson, Chief Justice, and Gillette, Van Hoomissen,
Durham, and Leeson Justices.**  
	LEESON, J.
	The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed.  The case
is remanded to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings.
	Durham, J., filed a concurring opinion.
	*Appeal from Multnomah County Circuit Court, Stephen S. Walker, Judge. 154 Or App 589, 963 P2d 65 (1998).
	**Kulongoski and Riggs, JJ., did not participate in the
consideration or decision of this case. 
		LEESON, J.
		The issue in this criminal proceeding is whether a jury
instruction advising the jury of the consequences of a finding
that defendant was guilty except for insanity violated
defendant's right to trial by an impartial jury under Article I,
section 11, of the Oregon Constitution.  The Court of Appeals
held that it did.  State v. Amini, 154 Or App 589, 963 P2d 65
(1998).  For the reasons that follow, we reverse the decision of
the Court of Appeals and remand the case to that court to
consider defendant's other assignments of error.
		Defendant was charged with two counts of aggravated
murder, one count of attempted aggravated murder, and one count
of second-degree assault with a firearm.  Those charges stemmed
from the deaths of defendant's wife and a foreign exchange
student who resided with defendant's wife, and gunshot injuries
to another student who was visiting at the residence.  At trial,
defendant raised the affirmative defense of mental disease or
defect constituting insanity.  ORS 161.295; ORS 161.305. (1)  ORS
161.313 provides that, when the issue of insanity under ORS
161.295 is submitted to the jury for determination, "the court
shall instruct the jury in accordance with ORS 161.327."  ORS
161.327, in turn, lists the circumstances under which a defendant
may be placed in the jurisdiction of the Psychiatric Security
Review Board (PSRB) for care and treatment after a verdict of
guilty except for insanity. 
		At defendant's trial, the state asked the trial court
to give Uniform Criminal Jury Instruction (UCrJI) 1122, which
closely parallels the wording of ORS 161.327. (2)  Defendant excepted, arguing that the mandate of ORS 161.313, combined with
the jury instruction required by ORS 161.327, unconstitutionally
suggested to the jury that it should and could consider the
consequences of a guilty-except-for-insanity verdict in its
deliberations.  The trial court overruled defendant's objection
and gave UCrJI 1122.  The court also instructed the jury not to
consider what sentence the court might impose if defendant were
found guilty.  The jury subsequently found defendant guilty.  		On appeal, defendant argued that the trial court erred
in giving UCrJI 1122.  He contended that the instruction violated
the guarantee of the right to trial by an impartial jury under
Article I, section 11, because the instruction could induce the
jury to believe that a finding of insanity would lead to
defendant's release.  
		A majority of the Court of Appeals, sitting en banc,
agreed.  The majority believed that, in State ex rel. Ricco v.
Biggs, 198 Or 413, 255 P2d 1055 (1953), this court had held that
the right to trial by an impartial jury included the right to a
trial that was evaluated for fairness under the same due process
standards as those used to evaluate a fair trial under the Sixth
and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. 
Amini, 154 Or App at 594. (3) The majority concluded that the
instruction was unfair, because
	"the sentence that a defendant will receive if
convicted, and the disposition that will be made of a
defendant who is found to have a mental disorder, are
not matters for the jury's consideration, and juries
should not be instructed regarding them." 
Id. at 595-96. 
	Judge Warren dissented.  He maintained that defendant's
appeal "raises no issue of jury impartiality pursuant to Article
I, section 11," and that the only issue was whether giving UCrJI
1122 violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
to the United States Constitution.  Amini, 154 Or App at 603
(Warren, J., dissenting).  Judge Warren analyzed whether giving
UCrJI 1122 deprived defendant of due process and concluded that
the trial court's instruction that the jury was not to consider
what sentence the court might impose if the jury found defendant
guilty made it unlikely that the jury had applied UCrJI 1122 in a
manner that was fundamentally unfair to defendant.  He therefore
would have affirmed the conviction.  Id. at 620 (Warren, J.,
dissenting).  This court allowed the state's petition for review.
	Although defendant asserted, and the Court of Appeals
agreed, that Article I, section 11, does not permit a jury
instruction like UCrJI 1122, we initially must determine whether
Article I, section 11, includes a broad fairness standard for
reviewing such an instruction.  We conclude that it does not. 
	In interpreting an original provision of the Oregon
Constitution, such as Article I, section 11, this court considers
the specific wording of the provision, the historical
circumstances that led to its creation, and the case law
surrounding it.  Priest v. Pearce, 314 Or 411, 415-16, 840 P2d 65
(1992).  The purpose of the inquiry is "to understand the wording
in the light of the way that wording would have been understood
and used by those who created the provision."  Vannatta v.
Keisling, 324 Or 514, 530, 931 P2d 770 (1997).  This court also
seeks to "apply faithfully the principles embodied in the Oregon
Constitution to modern circumstances as those circumstances
arise."  State v. Rogers, 330 Or 282, 297, 4 P3d 1261 (2000).
	The part of Article I, section 11, that is relevant to
this case provides that, "[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the
accused shall have the right to public trial by an impartial jury 
* * *."  The clause guarantees only a trial by an impartial jury;
it does not mention a fair trial.  The broader context of Article
I, section 11, provides no insight into whether the guarantee of
trial by an impartial jury means a "fair and impartial trial."
	We turn to the historical circumstances that led to the
inclusion of the guarantee of trial by an impartial jury in the
Oregon Constitution.  The framers of the Oregon Constitution
adopted Article I, section 11, verbatim from Article I, section
13, of the Indiana Constitution of 1851.  W.C. Palmer, The
Sources of the Oregon Constitution, 5 Or L Rev 200, 201 (1926). 
They did so without any record of debate.  See Charles Henry
Carey, ed., The Oregon Constitution and Proceedings and Debates
of the Constitutional Convention of 1857, 310 (1926) 
(demonstrating absence of debate).  However, such a guarantee was
a feature of all state constitutions, beginning with the Virginia
Declaration of Rights of 1776.  See Article 8, Virginia
Declaration of Rights ("That in all * * * criminal prosecutions a
man hath a right * * * to a speedy trial by an impartial jury   
* * *"), quoted in 1 Bernard Schwartz, The Bill of Rights:  A
Documentary History 235 (1971).  
	Impartiality had not always been the norm.  Before the
fifteenth century, witnesses and persons who had participated in
the indictment of an accused person were allowed to sit on the
jury.  Theodore F. T. Plucknett, A Concise History of the Common
Law, 124-29 (5th ed 1956).  By the mid-fifteenth century,
however, the jury had evolved into "a body of impartial men who
come into court with an open mind."  Id. at 129.  By the
seventeenth century, it was well established that a juror must
have "such freedom of mind that he stands indifferent as he
stands unsworne."  1 Edward Coke, Institutes of the Laws of
England; or a Commentary Upon Littleton, § 155(a) (Butler ed;
19th ed 1853); see also id. at § 155(b) (a juror "ought to be
least suspitious, that is, to be indifferent as he stands
unsworne").  "The jurors must be free and lawful, impartial and
disinterested, neither the enemies nor the too close friends of
either litigant."  2 Frederick Pollock & Frederic W. Maitland,
The History of English Law, 621 (2d ed 1968).  
	Blackstone, writing in the eighteenth century, observed
that the jury system worked to prevent the partiality that might
occur if a single judge rendered judgment in a criminal
prosecution.  He explained that, when the duty of finding facts
is 
	"intrusted to any single magistrate, partiality and
injustice have an ample field to range in; either by
boldly asserting that to be proved which is not so, or
by more artfully suppressing some circumstances,
stretching and warping others, and distinguishing away
the remainder.  Here, therefore, a competent number of
sensible and upright jurymen; chosen by lot from among
those of the middle rank, will be found the best
investigators of truth, and the surest guardians of
public justice.  For the most powerful individual in
the state will be cautious of committing any flagrant
invasion of another's right, when he knows that the
fact of his oppression must be examined and decided by
twelve indifferent men[.]"
3 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 379-80
(Cooley 4th ed 1899).  
	The foregoing history of trial by jury reveals that, by
the eighteenth century, the requirement of an impartial jury
reflected several related concerns, including that jurors be
honest, that they not be interested in the outcome of the case,
and that they be free from influence by the parties, particularly
by the state.  The guarantee of trial by an impartial jury thus
appears to have been intended to prevent an individual who
already has formed an opinion or is interested in the outcome of
the case from sitting as a juror.  We conclude that the guarantee
of trial by an "impartial jury" means trial by a jury that is not
biased in favor of or against either party, but is influenced in
making its decision only by evidence produced at trial and legal
standards provided by the trial court.  
	Consistent with the foregoing history, this court's
cases reveal two broad purposes of the guarantee of trial by an
impartial jury.  The first purpose is to prevent an individual
from serving on a jury who is biased or interested in the outcome
of the proceedings.  See, e.g., State v. Nefstad, 309 Or 523,
527, 789 P2d 1326 (1990) (trial court properly excluded "for
cause" prospective juror who expressed biases that "substantially
would impair his ability to try the issues in the case
impartially and to follow the law").  The second purpose is to
establish the right to a change of venue if pretrial publicity
prevents an impartial jury from being drawn from the citizens of
the county in which the crime was committed.  See, e.g., Ricco,
198 Or at 433 (under Article I, section 11, accused person
"entitled to move for and obtain a change of venue whenever it
appears to the satisfaction of the court that a fair and
impartial trial cannot be had in the county where the crime was
committed").  
	It is true that, in a few cases in which parties have
challenged either the impartiality of particular members of a
venire, or the appropriate venue in light of pretrial publicity,
this court has used the phrases "fair and impartial jury" or
"fair and impartial trial."  The court's use of the word "fair"
in those situations was merely as a synonym for a jury that was
not biased or prejudiced, not a holding that Article I, section
11, guarantees that every aspect of the trial will be fair.  In
State v. Rogers, 313 Or 356, 367, 836 P2d 1308 (1992), for
example, the defendant contended that he had not been tried by an
impartial jury as guaranteed by Article I, section 11, because
some of the jurors had been aware of his previous conviction for
aggravated murder.  This court rejected the argument, holding
that, "because defendant has not asserted that any of the three
jurors was actually biased or incapable of being an impartial
juror, there can be no successful contention that defendant's
state or federal constitutional rights to a fair and impartial
jury were violated."  Id. at 372 (emphasis omitted).  Similarly,
this court has used the word "fair" in referring to the right to
be tried by a jury that is impartial because it is free from the
influence of prejudicial pretrial publicity.  See, e.g., State v.
Pratt, 316 Or 561, 570, 853 P2d 827 (1993) (rejecting argument
that "it was impossible for [defendant] to obtain a fair and
impartial trial in that county").
	In summary, our review of this court's cases reveals
that, when this court has held that a jury trial must be fair and
impartial, it has meant that the jury must not be prejudiced or
biased.  The word "fair" has been used as a synonym for
impartial, not to expand the guarantee of trial by an impartial
jury into an unqualified guarantee of a fair trial.    
	The state asks us to hold that the guarantee of trial
by an impartial jury under Article I, section 11, controls only
the composition of the jury panel at the time that it is
impaneled.  Once a jury is selected, the state contends, the
constitutional guarantee of trial by an impartial jury has no
further effect.  We disagree.  It is true that the task of
selecting an impartial jury takes place before the jury is sworn. 
Nonetheless, this court has recognized that it is possible that a
juror, who had been impartial at the outset, might be subjected
to improper influences or might act during trial in a manner that
would compromise his or her impartiality.  If that were to occur,
an accused would be deprived of the guarantee of trial by an
impartial jury under Article I, section 11.  The guarantee of
trial by an impartial jury therefore is the source of law for
assessing alleged juror impartiality throughout the course of a
criminal jury trial.  See Pratt, 316 Or at 575 (trial court did
not abuse discretion in denying motion for mistrial after
alternate juror made statements to bailiff during trial).
	As noted, the Court of Appeals believed that this
court's decision in Ricco stood for the proposition that the
guarantee of trial by an impartial jury includes the right to a
trial that is equivalent to a "fair trial" under the Sixth and
Fourteenth Amendments to the federal constitution.  For the
reasons that follow, we conclude that the Court of Appeals was
mistaken. 
	In Ricco, a mandamus proceeding, the issue was whether
the trial court had erred in failing to rule on the relator's
motion for a change of venue.  The relator had argued that
adverse pretrial publicity in the underlying misdemeanor
proceeding made it impossible for her to receive a trial by an
impartial jury in that county.  Ricco, 198 Or at 418.  The trial
court had refused to rule on the motion, believing that it lacked
jurisdiction to change the venue when the charge was only a
misdemeanor.  Id.
	This court disagreed.  It held that the relator was
entitled to a writ of mandamus directing the trial court to rule
on her motion, because Article I, section 11, guarantees all
persons who are accused of a crime, be it a felony or a
misdemeanor, the same rights to a fair and impartial trial under
Article I, section 11.  Id. at 433.  The court reiterated that
the guarantee to trial by an impartial jury in Article I, section
11, encompasses the right to a fair trial, which is one that
occurs in a community that is not biased and prejudiced against
the accused.  Id. at 429.  
	The Ricco court did not use the term "fair trial" in
the expansive manner urged by defendant and assumed by the Court
of Appeals.  Rather, the Ricco court emphasized that a fair and
impartial trial is one in which
	"the legal rights of such accused person are
safeguarded, protected and respected; that is, a trial
on the facts, in accordance with the law and the
evidence * * * before an unbiased tribunal * * * free
from harmful error, and from any extraneous influence
that might be to his prejudice." 
Id. at 429 (quoting 23 CJS 274, Criminal Law, § 961) (emphasis
omitted).  That explanation of the guarantee of Article I,
section 11, is consistent with the court's earlier observation in
State v. Leland, 190 Or 598, 608, 227 P2d 785 (1951), that the
term "fair trial" means "a trial before an impartial judge, an
honest jury, and in an atmosphere of judicial calm."  (Internal
quotation marks and citations omitted.)  
	The significance of Ricco for purposes of construing
the guarantee of trial by an impartial jury under Article I,
section 11, is its holding that the guarantee applies to
misdemeanor as well as felony trials.  198 Or at 430.  Ricco did
not expand on this court's previous holdings that the right to
trial by an impartial jury means trial by a jury that is not
biased or prejudiced against the accused.  Id. at 429.  Indeed,
the Ricco court itself noted that "fairness" under the Fourteenth
Amendment is a broader concept, that is, one that requires a fair
and impartial trial or hearing according to the due and orderly
course of the law.  Id. at 431-32.  
	The Court of Appeals majority erred in reading Ricco as
having committed this court to an interpretation of Article I,
section 11, that is synonymous with the fairness standards
embodied in the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the federal
constitution.  The guarantee of the right to trial by an
impartial jury encompasses trial in a venue that is not biased or
prejudiced against the defendant, not a trial that is fair in all
respects.
	The foregoing discussion demonstrates that defendant
was not denied his right to a trial by an impartial jury under
Article I, section 11, when the trial court, in response to
defendant's affirmative defense of mental disease or defect
constituting insanity, gave UCrJI 1122, outlining the
circumstances under which a criminal defendant may be placed
under the jurisdiction of PSRB.  That instruction had no tendency
to deny defendant a trial by a jury that is free of
preconceptions about defendant's guilt, that is not subject to
improper outside influences, and that evaluates the evidence that
is introduced at trial based on the jury instructions that the
trial court provides.
	Although defendant's trial was not constitutionally
infirm under Article I, section 11, of the Oregon Constitution,
that holding does not end the matter.  As noted, defendant's
argument is that UCrJI 1122 deprived him of his right to a fair
trial.  The Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States
Constitution guarantee a criminal defendant the right to a fair
trial.  Accordingly, we remand the case to the Court of Appeals
to consider defendant's challenge to UCrJI 1122 under the Sixth
and Fourteenth Amendments. 
	The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed.  The
case is remanded to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings.
	DURHAM, J.
	I concur in the majority's analysis of Article I,
section 11, of the Oregon Constitution.  I write separately to
explain why I join in the court's decision to remand the case to
the Court of Appeals for further consideration.
	The Court of Appeals' majority decided that the
confusion engendered by the trial court's conflicting
instructions about the consequences of a verdict of guilty except
for insanity deprived defendant of a fair trial under Article I,
section 11.  As a result, the Court of Appeals' majority had no
reason to decide whether the court's instructions also deprived
defendant of his fair trial and due process rights under the
Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States
Constitution.  State v. Amini, 154 Or App 589, 594-95, 963 P2d 65
(1998).
	The dissenting opinion in the Court of Appeals assumed
that a defendant has a fundamental due process right that
requires that the court not permit a jury to consider the
consequences of a verdict of guilty except for insanity in
deciding guilt or innocence.  State v. Amini, 154 Or App at 605
(Warren, J., dissenting).  Given that assumption, the dissent
focused on whether there was any reasonable likelihood that the
jury in this case actually had interpreted the trial court's
instructions in a manner that violated the asserted due process
right, and concluded that no such reasonable likelihood existed. 
For that conclusion, the dissent relied in part on the trial
court's jury instruction that the jury should "not consider what
sentence might be imposed by the Court if this defendant is found
guilty," and in part on the judicial assumption that juries
follow the court's instructions.  Id. at 607.
	If the legal analysis offered by the Court of Appeals'
dissent were correct, then this court's proper disposition simply
would be to reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals.  A
remand would be unnecessary if the record affirmatively
demonstrated that the jury only learned about, but probably did
not consider the consequences of a verdict of guilty except for
insanity when it decided defendant's guilt or innocence.  In my
view, however, the record does not support that analysis. 
	The trial court's instruction about the consequences of
a verdict of guilty except for insanity began with the following
statement:  "If the defendant is found guilty except for
insanity, the defendant is subject to the following dispositions:
* * *."  The parties appear to agree that the court's instruction
under ORS 161.313 accurately described the dispositions that
apply to a person found guilty except for insanity under ORS
161.327.  Despite the specificity of the court's instruction
under ORS 161.313, the court's other instruction, quoted above,
that directed the jury not to consider the potential sentence
that the court would impose after a verdict of guilty, might have
eliminated any reasonable likelihood that the jury nevertheless
did consider the potential sentence in its deliberations.  But
the record contains other information that bears on that issue.
	After delivering the instructions discussed above, the
trial court made the following additional statement to the jury:
		"We went through this to check for mistakes and
already there is one.  Where I said do not consider
what sentence might be imposed by the Court if the
defendant is found guilty, that's only partially true. 
The Aggravated Murder charge is -- if there is a guilty
finding, you're the one that makes the decision on
those."
	That statement qualified the earlier instruction that
the jury should not consider the consequences of a verdict of
guilty except for insanity.  The court's statement informed the
jury that the court's earlier admonition about not considering
the potential sentence did not apply to the charge of aggravated
murder.
	The combination of the instruction under ORS 161.313,
the admonition not to consider the consequences of a guilty
verdict, and the qualifying statement quoted above created a
reasonable likelihood that the jury took into account the
potential sentence when it considered the charge of aggravated
murder.  Defendant argued, both at trial and in the Court of
Appeals, that that combination of instructions deprived him of a
fair trial.  Defendant thus raises a colorable argument that the
trial court's instructions violated his rights under the Sixth
and Fourteenth Amendments.  The record in this case requires a
remand to allow the Court of Appeals to address defendant's
federal claims.
	I concur.



1. 	ORS 161.295 provides:
		"(1)  A person is guilty except for insanity if,
as a result of mental disease or defect at the time of
engaging in criminal conduct, the person lacks
substantial capacity either to appreciate the
criminality of the conduct or to conform the conduct to
the requirements of law.
		"(2)  As used in chapter 743, Oregon Laws 1971,
the terms 'mental disease or defect' do not include an
abnormality manifested only by repeated criminal or
otherwise antisocial conduct, nor do they include any
abnormality constituting solely a personality
disorder."
		ORS 161.305 provides:
		"Mental disease or defect constituting insanity
under ORS 161.295 is an affirmative defense."

2. 	UCrJI 1122 provides:
		"If the defendant is found guilty except for
insanity, the defendant is subject to the following
dispositions:
		"(1)  By the court.
		"(a)  If the court determines that the defendant
is presently affected by a mental disease or defect and
presents a substantial danger to others requiring
commitment to a state mental hospital, the court will
order the defendant placed under the jurisdiction of
the Psychiatric Security Review Board, and order the
defendant committed to a state mental hospital pending
further disposition by the Psychiatric Security Review
Board.
		"(b)  If the court finds that the defendant is
affected by mental disease or defect but either that it
is in remission or that the defendant is not presently
a substantial danger to others requiring commitment to
a state mental hospital, the court will order the
defendant placed under the jurisdiction of the
Psychiatric Security Review Board and may order that
the defendant be conditionally released.  A defendant
who is conditionally released is subject to such
supervisory orders of the court as are in the best
interests of justice, the protection of society, and
the welfare of the defendant.
		"(2)  By the Psychiatric Security Review Board. 
The Psychiatric Security Review Board is a state agency
that by statute has as its primary concern the
protection of society.  After the court places the
defendant under the jurisdiction of the Psychiatric
Security Review Board, the board will have jurisdiction
over the defendant for a length of time equal to the
maximum period of incarceration to which the defendant
could have been sentenced had the defendant been found
guilty of the charged crime.
		"(a)  If the board determines that the defendant
continues to be affected by a mental disease or defect
and presents a substantial danger to others and is not
a proper subject for conditional release, the board
will order the defendant committed to a state mental
hospital for custody, care, and treatment.
		"(b)  The Psychiatric Security Review Board will
order that the defendant be discharged from its
jurisdiction if at its first hearing or at some later
date the board determines that either
		"(i)  the defendant is no longer affected by
mental disease or defect, or
		"(ii)  the defendant is still affected by mental
disease or defect but no longer presents a substantial
danger to others.
		"(c)  If the board, either at its first hearing or
at some later date, determines that the defendant is
still affected by a mental disease or defect and is a
substantial danger to others, but can be controlled
adequately if conditionally released with treatment as
a condition of release, the board will order the
defendant to be conditionally released.  A defendant
who is conditionally release is subject to such
supervisory orders of the board as are in the best
interest of justice, the protection of society, and the
welfare of the person.
		"A person is considered to have a mental disease
or defect requiring supervision even when that disease
or defect is in a state of remission when the disease
may, with reasonable medical probability, occasionally
become active and render the person a danger to
others."

3. 	The majority also appears to have relied, in part, on
State v. Daley, 54 Or 514, 522-23, 103 P 502, on reh'g 104 P 1
(1909), which held that a trial court did not err in refusing to
give a defendant's requested instruction that would have stated
the consequences of a finding of insanity.  Daley raised issues
under Article I, section 16, of the Oregon Constitution, which
provides, in part, that, in criminal cases, "the jury shall have
the right to determine the law, and the facts under the direction
of the Court as to the law[.]"  Daley did not address impartial
jury issues under Article I, section 11.