Court Opinion

ID: 9900311
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-18 22:10:48.310366+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:21:04.112557
License: Public Domain

No. 592             November 15, 2023                   155

          IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE
                  STATE OF OREGON

                 STATE OF OREGON,
                  Plaintiff-Respondent,
                            v.
            TIMOTHY EDWARD GONZALES,
                 Defendant-Appellant.
               Polk County Circuit Court
                 19CR24018; A176611

  Norman R. Hill, Judge.
  Argued and submitted April 26, 2023.
   David L. Sherbo-Huggins, Deputy Public Defender,
argued the cause for appellant. Also on the brief was Ernest
G. Lannet, Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate Section,
Office of Public Defense Services.
   Peenesh Shah, Assistant Attorney General, argued
the cause for respondent. Also on the brief were Ellen F.
Rosenblum, Attorney General, and Benjamin Gutman,
Solicitor General.
  Before Shorr, Presiding Judge, and Mooney, Judge, and
Pagán, Judge.
  SHORR, P. J.
  Reversed and remanded.
156                                                      State v. Gonzales

           SHORR, P. J.
        Defendant appeals from a judgment of conviction
for one count of first-degree sexual abuse.1 ORS 163.427.
Defendant contends that the trial court erroneously admit-
ted a Child Protective Services (CPS) report under the
OEC 803(6) “business records exception” to the bar against
hearsay evidence. Defendant argues that the CPS report did
not meet all of the required elements under OEC 803(6). The
state concedes that the trial court erred under Arrowood
Indemnity Co. v. Fasching, 369 Or 214, 503 P3d 1233 (2022),
which requires the proponent of the business record to estab-
lish each of the OEC 803(6) required elements. The state
argues, however, that we should affirm because the error
was harmless. For the reasons discussed below, we accept
the state’s concession of error but conclude that the error
was not harmless. Accordingly, we reverse and remand for
further proceedings.
        As a preliminary matter, we accept the state’s
concession that the trial court erred in admitting the CPS
report under the business records exception in OEC 803(6).
The state offered into evidence a CPS caseworker’s report
that included a statement from S, the alleged victim, that
S’s mother (hereinafter “mother”) had previously encour-
aged S and her siblings to tell people that they were scared
in their current living situation with their father.2 The
report also noted that S was not, in fact, scared, suggesting
that mother had encouraged the children to lie to obtain
custody of the children during a dispute with father.3 Under
Arrowood Indemnity Co., a party seeking to offer evidence
under the business record exception must prove that the
record it is offering has each of the characteristics listed
in OEC 803(6). 369 Or at 224. OEC 803(6) provides, among
    1
      Defendant was charged with two counts of first-degree sexual abuse. A jury
found defendant guilty as charged. The trial court merged the verdicts into a
single conviction for first-degree sexual abuse.
    2
      As we discuss below, the father is not the defendant here. He is not other-
wise involved in this case.
    3
      As discussed in more detail below, the report was offered at trial to under-
mine mother’s credibility with respect to her denials that any abuse had occurred
and to bolster S’s credibility by offering an explanation for her prior denials of
abuse.
Cite as 329 Or App 155 (2023)                                             157

other requirements, that the business record must have been
(1) “made at or near the time” of the acts, events, conditions,
opinions, or diagnoses and (2) made “by, or from information
transmitted by, a person with knowledge.”4
         The caseworker testified at trial that he recognized
the CPS report in question and remembered interviewing
S. However, the caseworker was not able to verify when he
made the report or even if he submitted the report by the
listed due date. The trial court ultimately admitted the
report over defendant’s objections that the caseworker did
not write the report “close in time” to the events described
therein, concluding that “since the person writing the report
was also the person who observed it, it doesn’t have to be
close in time.” The trial court misstated the law. The fact
that the caseworker had personal knowledge of the inter-
view with S did not obviate the state’s burden to establish
that the caseworker made the report “at or near the time”
of the interview. Arrowood Indemnity Co., 369 Or at 224. (“A
party seeking to utilize the exception must prove that the
record it is proffering has each of those characteristics, and
the party must do so through the testimony of the custodian
or other qualified witness.” (Internal quotation marks omit-
ted.)). We therefore accept the conceded error because there
was insufficient evidence at trial to show that the case-
worker wrote the report “at or near the time” of the events
in question, as required by statute.
        Before turning to our consideration of whether the
error was harmless, we address the state’s argument that
defendant’s choice in the trial court to reject a limiting
instruction should preclude our consideration of the harm
   4
     OEC 803(6) provides:
       “A memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, in any form, of acts,
   events, conditions, opinions, or diagnoses, made at or near the time by, or
   from information transmitted by, a person with knowledge, if kept in the
   course of a regularly conducted business activity, and if it was the regular
   practice of that business activity to make the memorandum, report, record,
   or data compilation, all as shown by the testimony of the custodian or other
   qualified witness, unless the source of information or the method of circum-
   stances of preparation indicate lack of trustworthiness. The term ‘business’
   as used in this subsection includes business, institution, association, pro-
   fession, occupation, and calling of every kind, whether or not conducted for
   profit.”
158                                                     State v. Gonzales

that defendant raises on appeal. After overruling defendant’s
objection to the hearsay evidence, the trial court offered to
instruct the jury that the statement in the CPS report should
not be considered for its truth, but only as “circumstantial
evidence of state of mind of the child.” Ultimately, defendant
decided not to accept that proposed limiting instruction. On
appeal, the state contends, without citing any authority, that
because defendant declined to accept that limiting instruc-
tion, defendant should be precluded on appeal from arguing
that the admission of the CPS report was not harmless. We
have rejected a similar argument in the past. See Deerfield
Commodities, Ltd. v. Nerco, Inc., 72 Or App 305, 325 n 15,
696 P2d 1096, rev den, 299 Or 314 (1985) (concluding that
a party’s failure to request a limiting instruction in a civil
trial did not waive that party’s right to appeal the admissi-
bility of the underlying evidence). Here, defendant argued
to the trial court that the CPS report was inadmissible in
its entirety. That defendant did not accept the more limited
relief offered by the trial court—a limiting instruction on a
particular statement within the report—does not preclude
defendant from contending that the trial court erred in the
first instance by admitting the report. It also does not pre-
clude defendant from arguing that the error was not harm-
less when considered by the jury.5 Furthermore, the state
has not identified any case law that would exempt us from
our duty to consider whether the error was harmless. See
State v. Davis, 336 Or 19, 27, 77 P3d 1111 (2003) (“ ‘[H]arm-
less error’ is a shorthand reference to a legal standard * * *
that the Oregon Constitution requires this court to apply
after determining in an appeal or on review that a trial
court has erred.”).
        We turn to whether the error was harmless, begin-
ning with the facts and procedural history of the case. When
determining whether the trial court’s erroneous admission
of evidence was harmless, “we describe and review all per-
tinent portions of the record, not just those portions most
favorable to the state.” State v. Cuffy, 322 Or App 642, 644,
521 P3d 516 (2022) (internal quotation marks omitted).
    5
      In appropriate circumstances, we may factor a party’s decision to reject a
limiting instruction into our harmless error analysis, but in this circumstance,
we decline to do so.
Cite as 329 Or App 155 (2023)                               159

         S was an 11-year-old girl at the time of trial. S testi-
fied that in 2013, when she was around four years old, defen-
dant, her uncle, would come into her room at night, carry
her to her parents’ bedroom, and touch her “private parts.”
During these encounters with defendant, S stated that she
would pretend to be asleep. On one occasion, S recalled
screaming for mother when defendant placed his genitals
on S’s face. S told a caseworker that mother saw defendant
committing the sexual act, threatened to call the police,
and forbade defendant from returning to the house. Mother,
however, contradicted S, testifying that she never walked in
on a sexual act happening between defendant (her brother)
and S.
        In the following years, CPS caseworkers interviewed
S several times in unrelated matters. In 2015, following up
on allegations of neglect, a CPS caseworker asked S whether
she had been sexually abused. S denied any sexual abuse.
In July 2017, following up on more unrelated allegations,
another CPS caseworker asked S whether she had been
sexually abused. S again denied any sexual abuse. Only in
August 2017, during another CPS interview, did S disclose
to CPS that she had been sexually abused by defendant.
In the ensuing investigation, defendant made inconsistent
and plainly untrue statements during police interrogations.
Notably, at the beginning of the investigation, defendant
denied even knowing S, his niece.
         Despite challenges to defendant’s credibility, S’s
credibility remained the central issue in the case. Mother
undermined S’s credibility when she contradicted S and
expressly denied ever walking in on defendant performing
sexual acts with S. S’s credibility was also potentially called
into question by S’s delayed or inconsistent reporting of the
sexual abuse. To bolster S’s credibility, and diminish trust
in mother, the state introduced the business record at issue
in this case—the report from the July 2017 CPS interview.
At the time of the July 2017 CPS interview, mother was
engaged in a custody dispute with the father of her chil-
dren, including S. According to the report, S stated to the
caseworker that mother instructed her and her siblings “to
tell people that [they were] scared because Mom [wanted
160                                                    State v. Gonzales

them] to stay with her.” S told the caseworker that she was
not scared in her current living situation.
         An error is harmless if there is “little likelihood
that the particular error affected the verdict.” Davis, 336
Or at 32. We have held that when the credibility of a wit-
ness is at issue, and improperly admitted evidence may have
“colored the jury’s consideration” of that issue, “we cannot
conclude that there is little likelihood that the admission
of the improper * * * evidence affected the verdict.” State
v. Ferguson, 247 Or App 747, 755, 271 P3d 150 (2012) (con-
cluding impermissible vouching for sexual abuse victim not
harmless when credibility of victim was in question). This
is especially true when the credibility of the witness is the
central issue in the case. State v. Marrington, 335 Or 555,
566, 73 P3d 911 (2003) (concluding that when “swearing con-
test” was the central issue in sexual abuse case, erroneously
admitted expert testimony related to delayed reporting was
not harmless).
         During the trial, defendant argued that S’s incon-
sistent reporting and prior denials of any sexual abuse by
defendant undermined her credibility. Much like the tes-
timony in Ferguson, the statement from the erroneously
admitted CPS report was probative of that issue. It provided
a logical explanation for S’s inconsistency in reporting:
mother may have instructed her to lie to CPS caseworkers
about the abuse. Furthermore, S’s statements from the CPS
report undermined mother’s credibility because those state-
ments suggest that mother may have been willing to lie to
authorities. As in Marrington, the lack of physical evidence
in this case reduced the jury trial to a “swearing contest”
between S and defendant. But here, mother “stood in” for
defendant by testifying to his version of events and reject-
ing S’s version. Therefore, a challenge to mother’s credibil-
ity—such as S’s statements from the CPS report—neces-
sarily weighed on the jury’s consideration of the “swearing
contest” between S and defendant.6 For those reasons, the
    6
      We acknowledge that both Ferguson (vouching testimony) and Marrington
(expert evidence) involved particularly damaging evidence that had been improp-
erly admitted and was clearly not harmless. However, the same harmless-error
principles apply here when the improperly admitted evidence at issue goes to a
significant credibility issue in the case.
Cite as 329 Or App 155 (2023)                            161

statements from the CPS report likely colored the jury’s con-
sideration of S’s credibility—the central issue in this case.
Accordingly, we cannot conclude that there is little likeli-
hood that the erroneously admitted CPS report affected the
verdict.
        Reversed and remanded.