Opinion ID: 835779
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Defendant's Entitlement to a New Penalty Trial Under ORS 19.420(3)

Text: Having concluded that the trial court had authority to supplement the record in the manner that it did, we now consider defendant's argument that this court nevertheless should grant defendant a new penalty trial under ORS 19.420(3). That statute provides: Whenever it appears that an appeal cannot be prosecuted, by reason of the loss or destruction, through no fault of the appellant, of the reporter's notes or audio records, or of the exhibits or other matter necessary to the prosecution of the appeal, the judgment appealed from may be reversed and a new trial ordered as justice may require. In Smith v. Custom Micro, Inc., 311 Or. 375, 811 P.2d 1371 (1991), this court construed that same statute, then numbered as former ORS 19.130(3), [27] to determine the circumstances under which an appellate court should exercise its discretion to grant an appellant a new trial under that provision. As an initial matter, the court observed that the statute provides an appellate court with discretionary authority to grant a new trial only when a record or exhibit necessary to the prosecution of an appeal is destroyed and that destruction occurred through no fault of the appellant. Id. at 378, 811 P.2d 1371. In this case, there is no dispute that both those statutory prerequisites are met. The question, instead, is whether this court should exercise its discretion to grant defendant a new penalty trial in light of the 90 minutes erased from the audio record of defendant's penalty trial. In Smith, this court identified the considerations that guide an appellate court's discretion in deciding whether to grant a new trial under ORS 19.420(3). Specifically, this court instructed that, to be entitled to a new trial under ORS 19.420(3), [t]he appellant (1) must show due diligence in attempting to find and supply a record for the purposes of appeal; and (2) must make `at least a prima facie showing of error, or unfairness in the trial, or that there had been a miscarriage of justice.' Id. at 379, 811 P.2d 1371 (quoting Ethyl Corp. v. Jalbert, 270 Or. 651, 655, 529 P.2d 368 (1974)). In this case, defendant contends that he has satisfied both those criteria. He first argues that defense counsel attempted to reconstruct the record for purposes of appeal, but lacked sufficient recall of the erased trial events to do so. Defendant also points to inconsistencies between the prosecutor's affidavit and the trial court reporter's log of trial events, and asserts that, as a result of the missing 90 minutes, appellate counsel and this court are precluded from identifying possible errors that occurred during defendant's penalty trial, including instances of prosecutorial misconduct, instances of inadequate assistance of counsel, and instances of trial court error. After considering defendant's arguments, we are unpersuaded that this is an instance in which we should exercise our discretion under ORS 19.420(3) to grant a new trial. The 90 minutes of erased audiotapes represented only a very short part of defendant's penalty trial, and the trial court was able to reconstruct a record of the lost trial events with considerable detail. Other than pointing to inconsistencies between the prosecutor's affidavit and the trial court reporter's log, defendant does not allege that the supplemental record that the trial court added is not an accurate representation of the trial events that the erased tape had recorded. In addition, despite his many suggestions of possible error, defendant fails to make a persuasive argument that the missing transcript will prevent review by this court of any error or miscarriage of justice that actually occurred. In sum, even assuming that defendant showed due diligence in attempting to supply a record for purposes of appeal, defendant is not entitled to a new penalty trial because he has failed to make a prima facie showing of error, or unfairness in the trial, or that there had been a miscarriage of justice. Smith, 311 Or. at 379, 811 P.2d 1371 (internal citations and quotation marks omitted).