Title: State v. McGinnis

State: oregon

Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court

Document:

Filed: March 6, 2003
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON

STATE OF OREGON,
	Respondent on Review,
	v.
ANTHONY WAYNE McGINNIS,
	Petitioner on Review.
(CC 93CR0202; CA A90256; SC S48767)

	On review from the Court of Appeals.*
	Argued and submitted October 31, 2002.
	Peter Gartlan, Chief Public Defender, Salem, argued the
cause for petitioner on review.  With him on the brief was David
E. Groom, Acting Executive Director.
	Tim Sylwester, Assistant Attorney General, Salem, argued the
cause for respondent on review.  With him on the brief were Hardy
Myers, Attorney General, and Mary H. Williams, Solicitor General.
	Before Carson, Chief Justice, and Gillette, Durham, Riggs,
De Muniz, and Balmer, Justices.**
	DE MUNIZ, J.
	The decision of the Court of Appeals and the judgment of the
circuit court are affirmed.
	*On appeal from Crook County Circuit Court, A. R. McMullen, Judge. 175 Or App 276, 28 P3d 635 (2001).
	**Leeson, J., resigned January 31, 2003, and did not
participate in the decision of this case.
		DE MUNIZ, J.
		Defendant was charged with selling marijuana to an
undercover informant.  During the transaction, a police officer
recorded the conversation from a remote location.  At trial, the
jury heard testimony from the state witnesses about the
transaction, the recorded conversation, and defendant's testimony
about the transaction.  The jury convicted defendant of delivery
of a controlled substance for consideration, and defendant
appealed.  The Court of Appeals affirmed, and defendant sought
review in this court.  This court allowed review and remanded the
case to the Court of Appeals so that that court could address
whether the recording of the transaction was legally obtained. 
The Court of Appeals affirmed again, this time holding that the
error was harmless, because, "[g]iven defendant's admissions,
which established 'delivery for consideration,'" the evidence at
issue was "merely cumulative."  State v. McGinnis, 175 Or App
276, 277, 28 P3d 635 (2001) (footnote omitted).  Defendant again
sought review in this court.  We allowed review and affirm the
decision of the Court of Appeals.
		The facts of this case involved a police informant's
purchase of drugs (a "controlled buy") from defendant.  Police
informant Diemer acted under the control and direction of a
Prineville Police Officer, Calhoun.  Diemer arranged a
transaction for the sale of marijuana with defendant.  During the
controlled buy, Diemer wore a listening device known as a body-wire so that Calhoun could listen from a remote location and
record the dialog that occurred during the transaction.  Diemer
and defendant met at defendant's house to conclude the sale. 
Defendant retrieved some marijuana, weighed it on a scale, and
sold one-eighth of an ounce to Diemer for $40.  Subsequently,
defendant was charged with delivery of a controlled substance.
		Before trial, defendant unsuccessfully moved to
suppress the body-wire recording.  At trial, Diemer testified
about the transaction.  Calhoun testified about the preparation
for the controlled buy and his post-transaction inspection and
discussion with Diemer.  As part of its case-in-chief, the
prosecution also introduced and played the tape of the
transaction that Calhoun had recorded.
		Defendant attempted to impeach Diemer's testimony by
pointing out, inter alia, that Diemer had consumed illegal drugs
while acting as a confidential informant and that he had failed
to pay taxes on his informant's fees.  In addition, defendant
took the stand to testify in his own defense.  Although defendant
conceded that he had engaged in a drug transaction with Diemer,
defendant attempted to portray Diemer as the seller.  Defendant
testified that Diemer had wanted to buy back some marijuana that
he previously had sold to defendant and that defendant had
complied with Diemer's request.
		The jury convicted defendant of unlawful delivery of a 
controlled substance for consideration in violation of ORS
475.992.  The court sentenced defendant to a period of
incarceration in the county jail and two years' probation.
		On appeal, defendant continued to maintain that the 
the body-wire recording should have been suppressed.  The Court
of Appeals affirmed the judgment without written opinion.  151 Or
App 137, 953 P2d 432 (1997).  While defendant's petition for
review was pending, this court decided State v. Fleetwood, 331 Or
511, 16 P3d 503 (2000), and its companion case, State v.
Cleveland, 331 Or 531, 16 P3d 514 (2000), holding that police
must obtain an ex parte court order under former ORS 133.724
before using a bodywire and that failure to do so renders the
evidence subject to suppression.  This court then allowed
defendant's petition, vacated the Court of Appeals' decision, and
remanded the matter to the Court of Appeals for reconsideration
in light of Fleetwood.
		The Court of Appeals once again affirmed the judgment. 
175 Or App at 277.  That court held that, because defendant had
testified that he had engaged in an illegal drug transaction, the
body-wire evidence was cumulative, rendering the error, if any,
harmless.  Id.
		On review, defendant contends that the Court of Appeals
erred in relying on his testimony to conclude that he had not
been harmed by the erroneously admitted body-wire recording. (1)  In
support of that assertion, defendant offers two arguments. 
First, defendant argues that the nonwaiver rule that this court
applies in civil cases -- that a party may counter its opponent's
evidence, whether correctly admitted or not, without waiving its
evidentiary objection on appeal -- is not, but similarly should
be applied by this court in criminal cases.  Second, defendant
argues that this court should adopt a rule that precludes
consideration of a defendant's trial testimony in a harmless
error review when the defendant's testimony was compelled to
rebut illegally admitted evidence.  We examine each of
defendant's arguments in detail, beginning with the so-called
nonwaiver rule.
		This court first discussed the nonwaiver rule almost 80
years ago in Wallace v. American Life Ins. Co., 111 Or 510, 225 P
192 (1924).  In Wallace, the plaintiff argued that the defendant
had waived its objection to the admission of expert "opinion
evidence" offered by the plaintiff because the defendant had
cross-examined the plaintiff's witnesses regarding that evidence
and had offered expert "opinion evidence" of its own in response. 
This court concluded that the party objecting to evidence may,
once the evidence is admitted over the party's objection, attack
that evidence without waving an objection to its admissibility:
		"'A party does not waive his objection and
exception to the admission of incompetent evidence by
attempting to disprove the matters testified to or to
prove facts inconsistent with them.  A party excepting
to the admission of testimony is not bound to concede
its truth, or to refrain from combating it in order to
retain his exception.'  Baylie's Trial Practice (2
ed.), p. 292." 
Id. at 536.
		Recently, in McCathern v. Toyota Motor Corp., 332 Or
59, 23 P3d 320 (2001), this court addressed a question similar to
that addressed in Wallace, namely, whether a party waived an
objection to the admission of expert evidence for purposes of
appellate review by attempting to rebut that evidence.  This
court rejected the argument, holding that "[a] party has the
right to meet its opponent's evidence admitted under the trial
court's rulings.  After making the proper objections, a party may
counter its opponent's evidence, whether correctly admitted or
not, without waving its evidentiary objection on appeal."  Id. at
70.  
		According to defendant, this court's nonwaiver rule, as
explained in Wallace and McCathern, is not similarly applied in
criminal cases.  In support of that assertion, defendant cites a
number of cases, spanning over 100 years of this court's criminal
jurisprudence, which he contends hold "that a criminal defendant
who introduces evidence similar to the objectionable evidence
foregoes or 'waives' the right to challenge the initial ruling on
appeal."  We now examine the cases upon which defendant relies to
support that contention.
		In State v. Hatcher, 29 Or 309, 44 P 584 (1896), the
defendant argued that the trial court had erred in admitting a
written statement that the defendant had made in a preliminary
hearing.  The court agreed that the statement should not have
been admitted because the defendant had not been advised that his
failure to make a written statement at the preliminary hearing
could not be used against him.  Nevertheless, the court reasoned
that
	"the defendant could not have been prejudiced by the
admission of the statement complained of, for he
testified to the same state of facts on the trial, and
was corroborated by witnesses for the state with whom
he had conversed concerning the matter.  There being no
dispute about the facts detailed in the statement, the
error was harmless and could not have injured the
defendant."  
Id. at 313.  
		In State v. Unsworth, 240 Or 453, 402 P2d 507 (1965),
the defendant was convicted of second-degree murder.  On appeal,
the defendant argued that a statement that he had made in
response to an interrogation by an assistant district attorney
should not have been admitted in evidence.  The court held that
the defendant had waived his right to object to the statement on
appeal because
		"[d]efendant was represented by counsel, and when
he took the witness stand and repeated in substance the
same admissions contained in his statement, he waived
any right to object to the admission of the statement
on the ground that he was not advised before the
statement was given of his right to counsel or of his
right to remain silent.  State v. Dotson, 239 Or 140,
396 P2d 777 (1964).  Under the circumstances of this
case it is not necessary to consider the adequacy of
the warning which was given defendant before he was
interrogated."
Id. at 460.  
		Similarly, in State v. Frazier, 245 Or 4, 418 P2d 841
(1966), the defendant argued on appeal that his pretrial
confession had been obtained illegally and should not have been
admitted.  The court refused to consider the merits of the
defendant's argument, holding that
	"it is unnecessary to consider the effectiveness of the
police warning since the defendant could hardly claim
prejudicial error in the face of the record.  The
defendant was ably represented by counsel.  He took the
witness stand and stated that the statements in his
written confession were all true except as to one minor
detail.  He thus waived the constitutional right he is
now claiming."
Id. at 9.  
		More recently, in State ex rel Juv. Dept. v. Cook, 325
Or 1, 932 P2d 547 (1997), the child had made statements to
police, some voluntary and some arguably coerced, that implicated
him in a murder.  He then sought to suppress all his statements,
but the trial court suppressed them only in part.  At an
adjudicatory hearing, a number of witnesses offered evidence that
was unfavorable to the child.  325 Or at 4.  Perhaps in response
to the "considerable evidence" against him, the child took the
stand and testified.  In his testimony, the child made several
statements that were just as incriminating as the statements that
he unsuccessfully had sought to suppress.  This court concluded:
		"Child's choice to testify at the hearing about
the substance of the statements that he previously had
sought to have suppressed defeats his argument. 
Whatever label is used -- unpreserved error, harmless
error, or waiver -- child's own testimony in this case
eliminated the possibility that the court's earlier
ruling on the motion to suppress harmed him.  See,
e.g., State v. Walton, 311 Or 223, 231, 809 P2d 81
(1991) (defendant could not successfully claim
reversible error in certain statements, because same
information was contained in other statements whose
admissibility defendant did not challenge)."
Id. at 5.
		Defendant reads Cook and the cases preceding it, as
waiver cases and, in so doing, argues that Cook should be
overruled in favor of the nonwaiver rule stated in McCathern.  We
do not read Cook as narrowly as does defendant.  As Cook points
out, perhaps imprecisely, the appellate review question is
whether, in light of the defendant's trial testimony, the
defendant was harmed by the challenged statements.
  		Admittedly, this court has used different words in
criminal cases throughout the years to conclude that, as a result
of a defendant's testimony at trial, the defendant could not have
been harmed by the challenged evidence.  The difference, though
perhaps unspoken, underlying the rule applied in McCathern and
the rule applied in criminal cases such as Cook, is found in the
basic difference between criminal and civil cases and the nature
of the evidence that is offered in response to the challenged
evidence.  
		In criminal cases, the state must prove its case beyond
a reasonable doubt, but may not compel a defendant's testimony at
trial to establish its case.  Our system of criminal justice
affords a criminal defendant a variety of ways to counter
challenged evidence (such as pretrial statements) without
testifying in court about the challenged evidence.  When a
defendant testifies, however, and admits the substance or
truthfulness of the matters contained in the erroneously admitted
evidence, the facts established by the in-court admissions may
eliminate any harm associated with the erroneously admitted
evidence.  That is the rule initiated in Hatcher and followed in
Cook.
		The situation is different in civil cases, such as
McCathern and Wallace.  In those cases, the party challenging the
evidence generally does not concede the "truthfulness" of the
challenged evidence, but offers evidence to rebut or discredit
the challenged evidence.
		To eliminate any confusion that may exist from the
wording used in Cook and the cases that preceded it, we now hold
that the nonwaiver rule, as applied in McCathern, similarly shall
be applied in criminal cases.  Furthermore, Cook should not be
read to hold that a criminal defendant who testifies at trial
waives automatically the right to challenge the admission of any
properly challenged pretrial statements.  The question that
remains in those cases is whether, in light of the defendant's
testimony, the challenged statements harmed the defendant.
		Next, defendant urges that we adopt a rule providing
that, when a criminal defendant testifies at trial in response to
evidence that the state erroneously has introduced, the
defendant's testimony cannot be used in a harmless error review,
unless the state can show that the defendant would have testified
regardless of the trial court's alleged error in admitting the
state's evidence.  In support of that proposed rule, defendant
relies on Harrison v. United States, 392 US 219, 88 S Ct 2008, 20
L Ed 2d 1047 (1968).  However, defendant seeks more from the
Supreme Court's holding in Harrison than it can provide.
		Harrison concerned the retrial of a defendant on the
charge of felony murder.  At the defendant's first trial, the
trial court had admitted, during the prosecution's case-in-chief,
three confessions that the appellate court subsequently
determined had been obtained illegally.  On retrial, the
prosecution did not offer the illegally obtained confessions, but
instead, offered the defendant's previous testimony.  The trial
court admitted that testimony over the defendant's objection and
the jury again convicted the defendant.  
		On appeal, the defendant argued that his previous
testimony should have been suppressed because it was "the
inadmissible fruit of the illegally procured confessions."  Id.
at 221.  The Supreme Court agreed and reversed the defendant's
conviction.  Quoting from an opinion written by Justice Tobriner
of the California Supreme Court, the Court stated that, "'[i]f
the improper use of [a] defendant's extrajudicial confession
impelled his testimonial admission of guilt, * * * we could not,
in order to shield the resulting conviction from reversal,
separate what he told the jury on the witness stand from what he
confessed to the police during the interrogation.'"  Id. at 223-24, quoting People v. Spencer, 66 Cal 2d 158, 164, 424 P2d 715
(1967).
		As the foregoing summary demonstrates, the "poisonous
tree" at issue in Harrison was the improper use of the
defendant's illegally obtained confessions.  In our view,
therefore, the rule of Harrison concerns the consequences of
using a defendant's compelled statements at trial, not the
consequences of using any other illegally obtained evidence. 
Because compelled statements implicate a defendant's testimonial
rights, it follows logically that the taint from the admission of
those statements affects that defendant's in-court testimony. 
Thus, suppression of the former requires suppression of the
latter, absent the requisite showing by the prosecution. (2)   
		We acknowledge that the foregoing interpretation of
Harrison is not required by any explicit statement by the Supreme
Court in that case.  However, the question whether that
interpretation is correct was laid to rest by the United States
Supreme Court's decision in Oregon v. Elstad, 470 US 298, 105 S
Ct 1285, 84 L Ed 2d 222 (1985).  In Elstad, the defendant argued
that statements that the police had obtained in violation of the
requirements of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 US 436, 86 S Ct 1602, 16
L Ed 2d 694 (1966), "tainted" the statements that he had made
after he had been fully advised of, and had waived, his Miranda
rights.  The Court rejected the defendant's argument that the
rule of Harrison required the suppression of the statements that
he had made after the appropriate Miranda waiver.  It explained:
		"This Court has never embraced the theory that a
defendant's ignorance of the full consequences of his
decisions vitiates their voluntariness.  If the
prosecution has actually violated the defendant's Fifth
Amendment rights by introducing an inadmissible
confession at trial, compelling the defendant to
testify in rebuttal, the rule announced in Harrison v.
United States precludes the use of that testimony on
retrial. * * * But the Court has refused to find that a
defendant who confesses, after being falsely told that
his codefendant has turned State's evidence, does so
involuntarily. * * * The Court has also rejected the
argument that a defendant's ignorance that a prior
coerced confession could not be admitted in evidence
compromised the voluntariness of his guilty plea. 
Likewise, in California v. Beheler, * * * the Court
declined to accept defendant's contention that, because
he was unaware of the potential adverse consequences of
statements he made to the police, his participation in
the interview was involuntary.  Thus we have not held
that the sine qua non for a knowing and voluntary
waiver of the right to remain silent is a full and
complete appreciation of all the consequences flowing
from the nature and quality of the evidence in the
case."
470 US at 316-17 (citations omitted).  Thus, Elstad makes clear
that the rule of Harrison is limited to those circumstances in
which a defendant is compelled to testify at trial as a result of
the Fifth Amendment violation that occurs when an illegally
obtained confession is used against that defendant at trial. 
Stated otherwise, a defendant cannot invoke the protection of the
Harrison rule unless the evidence that the defendant sought to
rebut by taking the stand was an inadmissible confession, not
evidence of some other kind, even if that evidence was obtained
illegally.  
		Turning to the case before us, even if we assume,
arguendo, that defendant was compelled to testify in his own
behalf because the trial court admitted body-wire evidence that
had been obtained in violation of ORS 133.724, those statements
were not analogous to an illegal confession.  The statements were
not the product of compulsion by law enforcement, even if they
were captured in violation of a statute.  Defendant made those
statements voluntarily.  For that reason, defendant's reliance on
Harrison is misplaced.
		That said, the United States Supreme Court's rule in
Harrison does not preclude this court from fashioning a different
rule under Oregon constitutional or statutory law.  However, we
are persuaded by the logic of that Court's rule.  Because the
statements at issue here were not compelled in any way, their
admission into evidence did not vitiate the voluntariness of
defendant's subsequent decision to testify in his own behalf. 
Fully aware of the advantages and disadvantages of testifying, 
defendant chose to take the stand and to meet the state's
evidence.  Under such circumstances, there is no reason to
exclude defendant's testimony from a review of the record for
harmless error. 
		Finally, defendant argues that, even if his trial
testimony is considered in a review of the record, the error in
admitting the body-wire recording was not harmless.  We disagree
for the reasons that the Court of Appeals expressed in its
decision.
		The decision of the Court of Appeals and the judgment
of the circuit court are affirmed.


1. 	We emphasize at the outset that the body-wire evidence
was suppressed on statutory grounds only.  We note that, after
defendant's conviction, the 1997 Legislature enacted ORS 136.432,
which limits the ability of courts to suppress evidence obtained
in violation of a statute.  Neither party argues that ORS 136.432
has any bearing on our decision in this case, and we make no
decision regarding the effect of that statute, if any, on ORS
133.735, which allows suppression of illegally obtained body-wire
evidence.  See Fleetwood, 331 Or at 530 (applying ORS 133.735).

2. 	Harrison places the burden on the prosecution to show
that its use of the defendant's unlawfully obtained confession
did not induce the defendant's testimony.  392 US at 225.