Court Opinion

ID: 9789406
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:35:59.092044+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:33:32.562886
License: Public Domain

ROSSMAN, J.,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The law of merger has been in a state of confusion for some time in Oregon and needs serious revision, or at least some meaningful clarification. Our struggle with this case is further evidence of this dilemma. The problem is that it is impossible to reconcile all of the many inconsistent cases which are regarded as having some precedential value.
Here, I am convinced that defendant should not be given a bonus by not being sentenced for robbery as well as aggravated murder. He was properly subjected to punishment for each crime that he committed, and he should not be rewarded for having committed multiple offenses.
State v. Kessler, 297 Or 460, 686 P2d 345 (1984), the Supreme Court’s most recent statement of the law of merger, supports the trial judge’s ruling. Kessler tells us that multiple statutory violations carry cumulative sentences, unless the acts were committed in the course of a single criminal episode joined in time, place and circumstances and directed toward a single criminal objective. The facts here present the plight of two separate victims, who were the objects of separate and identifiable criminal acts and objectives.
Defendant shot Kroder and fatally wounded him while in the process of committing a robbery. That was the completed criminal act for which defendant was charged with *62aggravated murder. Then, when Singer appeared, defendant threatened him, put him in fear for his life and took money from the cash register. This incident was a different and completed criminal act, i.e., robbery — independent from the aggravated murder of Kroder. Singer was a second victim. He was the object of a distinct criminal act and objective. Accordingly, defendant should be sentenced separately for the aggravated felony murder of Kroder and for the robbery of Singer.
Kessler requires that, when a defendant has multiple criminal objectives and there are multiple victims involved, the proper result is for the defendant to receive cumulative sentences.1 What is significant here is that one victim was murdered and a second victim was robbed. Whether it was defendant’s original objective to take money from the establishment, from Kroder or from Singer, is unimportant. In State v. Dillman, 34 Or App 937, 580 P2d 567 (1978), rev den 285 Or 195 (1979), the defendant was convicted of robbing a bank. He obtained money from a single source: the bank. However, he pointed a gun at and demanded money from four different tellers, thus committing four robberies. Because he committed four separate offenses, he was sentenced for each. In this case, defendant also took money from a single source; the donut establishment; but, as in Dillman, he threatened multiple victims in order to obtain money. The act against each victim resulted in two distinct offenses. Similarly, in State v. Kyles, 71 Or App 492, 692 P2d 706 (1984), rev den 298 Or 773 (1985), the defendant received cumulative sentences for convictions of burglary and two counts of robbery. There, the defendant broke into a home, stole money from a wallet, then proceeded to threaten and take property from two victims. Because the defendant achieved a separate criminal objective when he committed the robberies, the court concluded that cumulative sentences were appropriate.2
*63I get the impression that the majority believes that its result — as unreasonable as it may be — is somehow mandated because of the way in which the grand jury charged this defendant. The majority says that the multi-count indictment charges defendant with only one robbery. I suggest a different construction. The indictment contains multiple counts. The first charges defendant with aggravated murder by personally and intentionally killing Kroder during the course of a robbery. The second alleges that he committed robbery against Kroder and Singer.
I know of no requirement that, as the majority would suggest, the predicate offense for an aggravated murder must be charged in a separate count. Here, what I would interpret as being the first robbery, without any reference to Singer, is spelled out in the aggravated murder count involving Kroder. Count II, which I would regard as a separate robbery, refers to Kroder and Singer. “And” is used in the conjunctive; as such it identifies two separate victims. This reading is not inconsistent with the determination made by the court after it considered the jury’s verdict, which found defendant guilty of robbery; nor is it inconsistent with the sentence imposed by the trial court.
Even if defendant was charged with only one robbery, I believe that he would still be subject to separate judgments of conviction and sentences for aggravated murder and robbery. I recognize that separate sentences cannot be imposed for traditional felony murder and the underlying crime on which the felony murder is predicated. The rationale is that in felony *64murder, proof of the underlying felony is, in effect, a substitute for proving the intent to kill which would otherwise be a required element of murder; and it is unjust to impose separate sentences for felony murder and the underlying felony when the two are so closely interrelated. However, that rationale has no application to the aggravated murder with which defendant was charged. The aggravated murder statute, ORS 163.095(2), clearly requires that the murderer intentionally kill his victim in the course of the underlying felony. However, the presence in the killer’s mind of a discrete intent to kill the victim, over and above the intent to commit the separate felony, justifies the imposition of separate convictions and sentences for the separate, intentionally-committed offenses. See, e.g., State v. Garcia, 288 Or 413, 423, 605 P2d 671 (1980), involving separate intents to rape, sodomize, and kidnap.3
Because the two victims in this case were the objects of separate and identifiable criminal acts, and because the jury’s verdict clearly establishes that defendant intended to commit both homicide and robbery, the trial court should be affirmed.
Van Hoomissen, J., joins in this dissent.

The majority indicates that State v. Perkins, 45 Or App 91, 607 P2d 1202 (1980), prevents multiple sentences, even though there are multiple victims. In Perkins, we stated that there could be only one sentence if there is a single criminal episode or objective, even if there are multiple victims. However, that is not the situation here, where defendant had two separate criminal objectives. In any event, I believe that Perkins, like so many of the merger cases of yesteryear, is of dubious authority in the light of Kessler.

Although ORS 137.122 (effective September 9, 1985), was not in effect at the time of defendant’s actions, and therefore is not controlling here, it provides the current rule for consecutive sentences, including offenses involving multiple victims. *63That statute illustrates the legislature’s intent to impose consecutive sentences in cases like defendant’s. ORS 137.122(4) provides:
“The court has discretion to impose consecutive terms of imprisonment for separate convictions arising out of a continuous and uninterrupted course of conduct only if the court finds:
“(a) The criminal offense for which a consecutive sentence is contemplated was not merely an incidental violation of a separate statutory provision in the course of the commission of a more serious crime; or
“(b) The criminal offense for which a consecutive sentence is contemplated caused or created a substantial risk of causing greater or qualitatively different loss, injury or harm to the victim or caused or created a substantial risk of causing loss, injury or harm to a different victim than was caused or threatened by the other offense or offenses committed during a continuous uninterrupted course of conduct.”

Moreover, in shooting Kroder and subsequently compelling Singer to open the cash register at gunpoint, defendant used and threatened to use more force than was necessary to effect either the murder or the robbery alone.