Opinion ID: 835810
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: pleading sentencing facts in the indictment

Text: The grand jury indicted defendant for committing aggravated murder. The indictment does not refer, however, to the facts that a jury must find in the penalty phase before it can decide whether to impose the death penalty. Defendant argues that, under Ring v. Arizona, 536 U.S. 584, 122 S.Ct. 2428, 153 L.Ed.2d 556 (2002), those facts must be pleaded in the indictment. Defendant did not raise this issue below but asks us to review it under the plain error doctrine. ORAP 5.45(6). Defendant acknowledges that the court has rejected similar unpreserved claims, see State v. Oatney, 335 Or. 276, 297, 66 P.3d 475 (2003), cert. den., ___ U.S. ___, 124 S.Ct. 1148, 157 L.Ed.2d 1045 (2004) (illustrating proposition), but contends that the United States Supreme Court's recent decision in Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. ___, 124 S.Ct. 2531, 159 L.Ed.2d 403 (2004), demonstrates that this court's earlier decisions are incorrect. As a matter of state procedural law, a state appellate court will reach an unpreserved issue only if the error is both apparent on the face of the record and if it is appropriate, in the exercise of the court's discretion, to reach the issue. See Ailes v. Portland Meadows, Inc., 312 Or. 376, 381-82, 823 P.2d 956 (1991) (explaining plain error doctrine). An error is apparent if it is obvious, not reasonably in dispute. Id. at 381, 823 P.2d 956. Having reconsidered defendant's argument in light of Blakely, we reaffirm that the error that defendant perceives is not apparent. We do not decide whether, if it were, we would exercise our discretion to reach it. In Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 476-78, 120 S.Ct. 2348, 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000), the Court held that a state criminal defendant has a Sixth Amendment right to have a jury decide certain facts that affect the defendant's sentence and a Fourteenth Amendment due process right to have the state prove those facts beyond a reasonable doubt. The Court was careful to limit its holding to those two rights. The Court noted: Apprendi has not here asserted a constitutional claim based on the omission of any reference to sentence enhancement or racial bias in the indictment. He relies entirely on the fact that the `due process of law' that the Fourteenth Amendment requires the States to provide to persons accused of crime encompasses the right to a trial by jury and the right to have every element of the offense proved beyond a reasonable doubt. That Amendment has not, however, been construed to include the Fifth Amendment right to `presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury' that was implicated in our recent decision in Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224, 118 S.Ct. 1219, 140 L.Ed.2d 350 (1998). We thus do not address the indictment question separately today. Id. at 477, 120 S.Ct. 2348 n. 3. In Ring, the Court again noted and reserved this issue. 536 U.S. at 597-98, 122 S.Ct. 2428 n. 4. The quoted passage from Apprendi implies that, if defendant has a federal constitutional right to have a fact pled in the indictment, that right derives solely from the Fifth Amendment. The decision in Blakely does nothing to change that suggestion. In Blakely, the Court stated that the question presented was whether the state had violated the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial. 124 S.Ct. at 2534. The defendant did not argue that the indictment should have pled the facts that enhanced his sentence, and the Court did not address whether the Fifth Amendment right to presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. See id. at 2539 (basing decision on Sixth Amendment). If the Court has not decided whether the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Fifth Amendment right upon which defendant's claim appears to depend, the federal constitutional error that defendant perceives cannot be described as apparent, obvious, or not reasonably in dispute. See Ailes, 312 Or. at 381-82, 823 P.2d 956 (describing apparent error). [15] As a matter of state procedural law, defendant's unpreserved federal constitutional claim is not properly before us.