Court Opinion

ID: 9789241
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:31:22.123169+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:20.782730
License: Public Domain

ROSENBLUM, J.,
dissenting.
The majority concludes that there is no evidence to support the jury’s finding that defendant personally inflicted injury on the victim or engaged in conduct so extensively intertwined with the infliction of the injuries that his conduct effectively produced the injuries. I respectfully disagree. Viewed in the light most favorable to the state, with all reasonable inferences drawn in the state’s favor, the evidence shows that the victim was beaten by multiple assailants outside David Thayer’s home. The victim testified that he was initially struck by a person wielding a rock and that other people were “further off behind” the assailant. The victim did not testify about how many people ultimately assaulted him. That is perhaps unsurprising, given that, when he was struck with the rock, he fell to the ground, lost his glasses, and tried to cover his head; he may not have known how many assailants there were. However, after he fell, he was struck several times in the face and back and suffered fractures to his forearm and around his eye as well as bruising. The number and location of the victim’s injuries support the inference that other people joined in assaulting him after the first blow was struck with the rock.
The evidence also shows that, immediately after the victim was beaten, defendant, Kelcy Alford, and Calvin Sheahan forced their way into the house and beat Thayer and his brother. Thayer testified that, when the three men *382burst into the house, Alford ordered him to get on his bed and told him what had happened outside. Specifically, Thayer testified, “First they told me to — I need to get on my bed and that they just messed my friend up outside.”
As the majority acknowledges, it is reasonable to infer that what Alford said was, “We just messed your friend up outside.” The majority dismisses the significance of that inference, however, as leading only to speculation that defendant had participated in the assault on the victim outside. According to the majority, the word “we” was “insufficient to create a jury question as to whom [Alford] was referring other than himself.” 234 Or App at 380. In other words, in the majority’s view, because Alford could have been referring to only himself and Sheahan, it is speculative to infer that he meant all three men.
To be sure, it would have been permissible for the jury to infer that Alford meant that only he and Sheahan had beaten the victim. But that is not the only, or even the most likely, inference that can be drawn. When three men burst into a house and one of them tells the occupants, “We just messed your friend up outside,” the most natural understanding of that statement is that all three men “messed up” the friend outside — particularly when all three men then proceed to beat two other people in the house.
A jury does not engage in speculation when it chooses between two reasonable, competing inferences: If the evidence supports multiple reasonable inferences, “which inference to draw is for the jury to decide.” State v. Bivins, 191 Or App 460, 467, 83 P3d 379 (2004). “ Tf there is an experience of logical probability that an ultimate fact will follow a stated narrative or historical fact, then the jury is given the opportunity to draw a conclusion because there is a reasonable probability that the conclusion flows from the proven facts.’ ” Id. (quoting Tose v. First Pennsylvania Bank, N.A., 648 F2d 879, 895 (3rd Cir), cert den, 454 US 893 (1981)). There is a logical probability that, when Alford said, “We just messed your friend up outside,” he meant that he and the two men with him had assaulted the victim. It follows that there is sufficient evidence to support defendant’s conviction. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.