Court Opinion

ID: 9945850
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-28 17:11:06.308757+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:22:15.885941
License: Public Domain

84                                  February 22, 2024       No. 113
113
331 Orv.App
State
2024     Tayborne                                                     February 22, 2024

                          IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE
                                  STATE OF OREGON

                                  STATE OF OREGON,
                                  Plaintiff-Respondent,
                                            v.
                              ANDREW SHAE TAYBORNE,
                                  Defendant-Appellant.
                               Lane County Circuit Court
                                 21CR13861, 21CR14101
                               A176643 (Control), A176644

                    Bradley A. Cascagnette, Judge.
                    Argued and submitted April 24, 2023.
   Rond Chananudech, Deputy Public Defender, argued the
cause for appellant. Also on the briefs was Ernest G. Lannet,
Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate Section, Office of Public
Defense Services.
   Patrick M. Ebbett, Assistant Attorney General, argued
the cause for respondent. Also on the brief were Ellen F.
Rosenblum, Attorney General, and Benjamin Gutman,
Solicitor General.
  Before Ortega, Presiding Judge, and Powers, Judge, and
Hellman, Judge.
                    POWERS, J.
  In Case No. 21CR13861, conviction on Count 1 reversed;
remanded for sentencing; otherwise affirmed. In Case No.
21CR14101, affirmed.
Cite as 331 Or App 84 (2024)   85
86                                                       State v. Tayborne

           POWERS, J.
         In this consolidated criminal case, defendant chal-
lenges his conviction for burglary in the first degree (Count
1), ORS 164.225, following an incident where he entered a
motel room and assaulted and robbed the victim.1 In a single
assignment of error, defendant challenges the denial of his
motion for judgment of acquittal (MJOA), arguing that the
state failed to prove that he “enter[ed] or remain[ed] unlaw-
fully” in a dwelling. Defendant does not dispute that he
entered the room with the intent to commit a crime; rather,
he argues that the state failed to produce sufficient evidence
that the person who invited him to the room lacked actual
authority to invite him and that he knew or believed that she
lacked authority. As explained below, we agree with defen-
dant’s argument that the state failed to adduce sufficient
evidence to prove that he knew or believed that the person
who invited him into the motel room lacked authority to do
so. Accordingly, because the trial court erred in denying the
MJOA, we reverse Count 1 and remand for resentencing.
         We review the denial of an MJOA by examining the
evidence in the light most favorable to the state to deter-
mine whether a rational trier of fact—accepting reasonable
inferences and reasonable credibility choices—could have
found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reason-
able doubt. State v. Cunningham, 320 Or 47, 63, 880 P2d 431
(1994), cert den, 514 US 1005 (1995). We set out the facts in
accordance with that standard.
         Around midnight on a late-March evening, the vic-
tim’s friend, Best, told him that she was fighting with her
boyfriend and needed a place to stay. The victim rented a
room at the Valley River Inn in Eugene. The victim paid for
the room, and Best was not listed as a guest on the motel
register. Best and the victim hung out in the room, and the
victim fell asleep within an hour. At that time, the victim
had not given anyone else permission to be in the room, and
he testified that defendant, who was an acquaintance, did
not have permission to be in the room.
    1
      Defendant challenges only Count 1 in Case No. 21CR13861. He does not
challenge his other convictions in that case, nor does he challenge his conviction
in Case No. 21CR14101.
Cite as 331 Or App 84 (2024)                                 87

         While in the room, Best texted defendant letting
him know that, if he came to the motel, she would meet him
in the parking lot and give him the room key. The specific
contents of the text messages were not admitted into evi-
dence; rather, a detective testified that he reviewed the text
messages and concluded that they could be interpreted to
be the planning stages of the crimes in this case. The detec-
tive also testified that the texts included photos that Best
had taken of the inside of the motel room and of the victim.
Around 3:45 a.m., Best was no longer in the motel room, and
the victim woke up to defendant, who was wearing a head
covering and black gloves, spraying him with bear mace.
The victim chased defendant out of the room and got the
attention of a security guard in the parking lot who wrote
down defendant’s license plate number. The police eventu-
ally arrested defendant and retrieved some of the victim’s
stolen property from defendant’s car.
         Defendant was charged with multiple crimes aris-
ing from the incident, including first-degree burglary, which
is the only count at issue in this appeal. He pleaded guilty
to seven other charges, Counts 2 through 8, arising from
the same incident: robbery in the third degree, theft in the
first degree, felon in possession of a firearm, unlawful use of
an electrical stun gun/tear gas/mace in the second degree,
assault in the fourth degree, interfering with peace/parole
and probation officer, and resisting arrest. On the first-
degree burglary charge, defendant waived his right to a jury
trial and proceeded to a trial before the court. At the close of
the state’s case-in-chief, defendant moved for a judgment of
acquittal, arguing that the state failed to prove that he was
not licensed to enter the motel room. The trial court denied
the motion and ultimately found him guilty of first-degree
burglary. This timely appeal follows.
         The central issue before us involves whether the
state adduced sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reason-
able doubt that defendant entered the motel room unlaw-
fully. Before turning to the parties’ arguments on appeal,
we briefly set out the statutory framework in which those
arguments arise. The first-degree burglary statute pro-
vides, in part:
88                                              State v. Tayborne

         “(1) A person commits the crime of burglary in the
     first degree if the person violates ORS 164.215 [the second-
     degree burglary statute] and the building is a dwelling, or
     if in effecting entry or while in a building or in immediate
     flight therefrom the person:
        “* * * * *
        “(b) Causes or attempts to cause physical injury to any
     person[.]”
ORS 164.225. ORS 164.215(1) provides that a person
commits second-degree burglary if “the person enters or
remains unlawfully in a building with intent to commit a
crime therein.” ORS 164.205(3)(a) defines the phrase “[e]nter
or remain unlawfully” to include “enter[ing] or remain[ing]
in or upon premises when the premises, at the time of such
entry or remaining, are not open to the public and when
the entrant is not otherwise licensed or privileged to do so.”
Importantly, entering a building to commit a crime is not
burglary if the person has permission to be in the building.
See State v. McLaughlin, 317 Or App 596, 607, 505 P3d 1088
(2022) (so stating).
         To establish that a defendant is not licensed or
privileged to enter premises not open to the public when the
defendant has been permitted or invited to enter, the state
must prove two elements: (1) The person extending the per-
mission or invitation lacked actual authority to do so, and
(2) the defendant knew or believed that the person lacked
such authority. State v. Hartfield, 290 Or 583, 595, 624 P2d
588 (1981).
         On appeal, defendant’s challenge is narrow: He
asserts that the trial court erred by denying his MJOA
because there was insufficient evidence that Best lacked
actual authority to invite defendant into the motel room and
insufficient evidence to prove that he knew that she lacked
authority. More specifically, he argues that, because the text
messages between Best and defendant included pictures
of the room and because Best gave defendant a key to the
room, those circumstances indicated to defendant that Best
had access to the room and, thus, had authority to invite
him into the room.
Cite as 331 Or App 84 (2024)                                89

         The state remonstrates that the circumstances
of defendant’s entry support a reasonable inference that
defendant was aware that Best did not have authority to
invite him into the room. According to the state, evidence
that the text messages contained a plan to commit a crime,
that defendant entered the motel room in the middle of the
night while wearing a head covering and gloves, and that
Best gave defendant the key outside the motel and was not
present in the room when defendant entered all provide suf-
ficient evidence for the trial court to deny the MJOA. As
explained below, because we ultimately conclude that there
was insufficient evidence in the record to prove beyond a
reasonable doubt that defendant knew or believed that Best
lacked authority to invite him into the motel room, we need
not address whether Best lacked actual authority to extend
the invitation.
         After reviewing the record, we conclude that the state
did not adduce sufficient evidence to prove that defendant
knew or believed that Best lacked authority. Although the
record contains evidence that Best and defendant exchanged
text messages leading up to defendant entering the motel,
the specific contents of those texts were not entered into evi-
dence. Without details of those texts, it is purely speculative
to suggest that the texts provide any foundation on which
defendant could have known or formed a belief that Best
lacked authority to invite him into the motel. To be sure,
the text messages demonstrated that they were planning to
commit crimes together, which could have included burglary
or robbery or both. Without more detail, however, on what
crimes or what those texts may have revealed about defen-
dant’s knowledge, the mere fact of a plan to commit crimes
is not sufficient evidence to prove what defendant knew or
believed about Best’s authority to invite him into the motel
room. Thus, although there is sufficient evidence to conclude
that the purpose of the entry into the room was to commit
crimes, we have previously explained that the intent to com-
mit a crime, on its own, does not render an entry unlawful.
See McLaughlin, 317 Or App at 607 (explaining that “enter-
ing a building to commit a crime is not burglary if the per-
son has permission to be there” (emphasis omitted)).
90                                          State v. Tayborne

         Additionally, although Best told defendant that she
would meet him in the parking lot to give him a key to the
room, the location of that meeting and the passing of the key
does not give the factfinder sufficient evidence to infer defen-
dant’s belief about Best’s authority at that point. A meeting
in the parking lot does suggest that they wanted to meet
away from the victim, but it does not provide any foundation
on which to make a reasonable inference about defendant’s
knowledge of Best’s authority or lack thereof. Importantly,
the record does not demonstrate whether Best had her own
key or took the victim’s key, nor does the evidence illuminate
whether defendant knew which key Best gave him. Further,
although defendant knew that the victim was in the motel
room, there is no evidence in the record that defendant knew
who rented or paid for the room or whose name was on the
guest register. Accordingly, we reject the state’s arguments
about the inferences that can be made about defendant’s
knowledge or beliefs because the inferences are too specula-
tive given the record developed at trial.
        In short, there is insufficient evidence in the record
for a rational factfinder to have concluded that defendant
knew or believed that Best lacked actual authority to
invite him into the motel room. Therefore, the state failed
to prove that defendant was not licensed or privileged to
enter the motel room and, thus, failed to prove that defen-
dant “enter[ed] or remain[ed] unlawfully” in a dwelling.
Accordingly, we conclude that the trial court erred in deny-
ing defendant’s MJOA on the burglary charge.
        In Case No. 21CR13861, conviction on Count 1
reversed; remanded for sentencing; otherwise affirmed. In
Case No. 21CR14101, affirmed.