Case Title: Oregon v. Ciraulo

Citation: 

Docket Number: S067569

State: oregon

Court: Oregon Supreme Court

Date: 2020-12-24T00:00:00Z

Document:
350	
December 24, 2020	
No. 47
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE
STATE OF OREGON
STATE OF OREGON,
Respondent on Review,
v.
PETER ANTHONY CIRAULO,
Petitioner on Review.
(CC 17CR72865, 18CR39718)
(CA A168211 (Control), A168227)
(SC S067569)
En Banc
On review from the Court of Appeals.*
Argued and submitted August 18, 2020.
Joshua B. Crowther, Deputy Public Defender, Office of 
Public Defense Services, Salem, argued the cause and filed 
the briefs for petitioner on review. Also on the briefs was 
Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender.
Christopher A. Perdue, Assistant Attorney General, 
Salem, argued the cause and filed the brief for respondent on 
review. Also on the brief were Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney 
General, and Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General.
Scott Sell, Thomas, Coon, Newton & Frost, Portland, 
filed the brief for amicus curiae Street Roots.
Jonathan Zunkel-deCoursey, Schwabe, Williams & 
Wyatt, P.C., Portland, filed the brief for amicus curiae 
Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization. Also 
on the brief was Jeanice Chieng, Immigrant and Refugee 
Community Organization, Portland.
Cody Hoesly, Larkins Vacura Kayser LLP, Portland, 
filed the brief for amici curiae NAACP Corvallis Branch 
#1118, NAACP Eugene-Springfield Branch, #1119, NAACP 
______________
	
*  On appeal from Douglas County Circuit Court, Kathleen E. Johnson, 
Judge. 301 Or App 849, 459 P3d 960 (2020).
Cite as 367 Or 350 (2020)	
351
Portland Chapter 1120B, and NAACP Salem-Keizer Branch 
#1166.
Timothy Wright, Tonkon Torp LLP, Portland, filed the 
brief for amicus curiae Don’t Shoot Portland. Also on the 
brief was J. Ashlee Albies, Albies & Stark, Portland.
Nathan R. Morales, Perkins Coie LLP, Portland, filed the 
brief for amici curiae The Coalition of Communities of Color 
and Latino Network. Also on the brief was Misha Isaak.
Aliza B. Kaplan filed the brief on behalf of amicus cur­
iae Criminal Justice Reform Clinic at Lewis & Clark Law 
School. Also on the brief was Sarah Laidlaw.
DUNCAN, J.
The decision of the Court of Appeals and the judgment of 
the circuit court are affirmed.
Case Summary: At defendant’s trial, and over his objection, the jury was 
instructed that it could return nonunanimous guilty verdicts. The jury returned 
guilty verdicts on three counts, and a poll of the jury indicated that all three 
verdicts were unanimous. The Court of Appeals affirmed defendant’s convictions. 
Held: (1) The record establishes that all of the jury’s verdicts were unanimous; 
(2) under State v. Flores Ramos, 367 Or 292, ___ P3d ___ (2020), the instructional 
error is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt as to the convictions based on unan­
imous verdicts.
The decision of the Court of Appeals and the judgment of the circuit court 
are affirmed.
352	
State v. Ciraulo
	
DUNCAN, J.
	
In this case, we again address the application of 
the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Ramos v. 
Louisiana, 590 US ___, 140 S Ct 1390, 206 L Ed 2d 583 
(2020), which held that the Sixth Amendment requires a 
jury to be unanimous in order to convict a criminal defen­
dant of a serious offense.
	
Defendant was charged with first-degree forgery, 
possession of a forged instrument, and third-degree theft. 
Defendant was tried before a twelve-person jury, in a trial 
that occurred before the Supreme Court’s decision in Ramos. 
Before trial, defendant requested that the jury be instructed 
that it needed to be unanimous in order to return a con­
viction. The trial court denied defendant’s request, stating: 

“[U]ntil the Court of Appeals tells me otherwise, I’ll continue 
to comply with the law that requires the ten-person verdict 
in felony cases.” The jury was instructed that ten votes were 
sufficient for a guilty verdict. After deliberation, the jury 
found defendant guilty of all three counts. The jury’s ver­
dict form listed each count, with the words “Not Guilty” and 
“Guilty” on the lines below each count. Below each of the 
three counts, a juror had written the number “0” next to the 
words “Not Guilty” and the number “12” next to the word 
“Guilty.” After receiving the verdict form, the trial court 
asked the presiding juror whether the jury’s decision had 
been unanimous, and the presiding juror confirmed that it 
had been. The trial court asked defendant whether there 
was any need to poll the jury further, and defense counsel 
responded that there was not.
	
Defendant appealed, assigning error to the 
nonunanimous jury instruction, along with some other 
issues not relevant on review. In a decision issued before the 
Supreme Court’s decision in Ramos, the Court of Appeals 
affirmed defendant’s convictions. State v. Ciraulo, 301 Or 
App 849, 459 P3d 960 (2020).
	
Defendant filed a petition for review which, after 
the Supreme Court decided Ramos, we allowed. Defendant 
argues that Ramos requires that all of his convictions be 
reversed. He first contends that the nonunanimous jury 
instruction was a structural error, which always requires 
Cite as 367 Or 350 (2020)	
353
reversal. In the alternative, he argues that, even if the error 
is subject to a harmlessness analysis, the poll of the jury is 
insufficient to establish that the jury instruction was harm­
less beyond a reasonable doubt. See Chapman v. California, 
386 US 18, 24, 87 S Ct 824, 17 L Ed 2d 705 (1967) (estab­
lishing the “harmless beyond a reasonable doubt” harmless 
error standard for federal constitutional violations).
	
The state argues that the instructional error is 
harmless with respect to all of defendant’s convictions, 
because each of those convictions is based on a unanimous 
verdict.1
	
Our decision in State v. Flores Ramos, 367 Or 292, 
___ P3d ___ (2020), also issued today, resolves nearly all of 
the questions in this case. In Flores Ramos, the defendant 
made identical arguments that the jury instruction permit­
ting nonunanimous verdicts was structural error, that it 
could not be held harmless even if it were subject to a harm­
lessness analysis, and that the jury poll was insufficient to 
demonstrate that any of the jury’s verdicts were, in fact, 
unanimous. In Flores Ramos, we held that instructing the 
jury that it could return a nonunanimous guilty verdict was 
not a structural error. 367 Or at ___. We also held that, where 
the jury poll revealed that the jury unanimously found the 
defendant guilty of the charged offense, the nonunanimous 
jury instruction could be held harmless beyond a reasonable 
doubt. Id. at ___. We also rejected the defendant’s argument 
that a jury poll could not reliably show that the jury’s ver­
dict was unanimous. Id. at ___.
	
For the same reasons as in Flores Ramos, we reject 
defendant’s identical arguments. However, defendant does, 
albeit cursorily, offer one additional argument: that the 
record does not demonstrate that the jury’s verdict was 
	
1  One of defendant’s convictions is for third-degree theft, a class C mis­
demeanor punishable by a maximum of 30 days in jail. ORS 164.043(2); ORS 
161.615(3). Neither party has addressed whether third-degree theft is a petty 
offense or whether any constitutional provision requires a jury verdict finding 
the defendant guilty of a petty offense to be unanimous. See Lewis v. United 
States, 518 US 322, 325-26, 116 S Ct 2163, 135 L Ed 2d 590 (1996) (holding that 
the Sixth Amendment’s jury trial right does not apply to petty offenses). Because 
we would affirm defendant’s third-degree theft conviction even if it were not a 
petty offense, we do not address those questions either.
354	
State v. Ciraulo
unanimous, arguing that, “[a]t most, it shows that one juror 
thought that they were” and suggesting that the presid­
ing juror may not have known what the word “unanimous” 
meant. We rejected a similar argument in Flores Ramos, 
stating that
“we are skeptical that jurors would not understand the 
word ‘unanimous’ or that jurors, however polled, would 
not respond honestly. See United States v. Poole, 545 F3d 
916, 921 (10th Cir 2008) (rejecting an argument that jurors 
would not have understood the trial court’s use of the word 
‘nullity’).”
367 Or at ___. This record contains multiple indications 
that the jury’s verdicts were unanimous—including writ­
ten notations that the jury reached 12-0 verdicts—and any 
other conclusion would be entirely speculative.
	
As a result, we conclude that, although the jury 
instruction permitting nonunanimous verdicts was errone­
ous, the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt as to 
all of the verdicts in this case.
	
The decision of the Court of Appeals and the judg­
ment of the circuit court are affirmed.