Court Opinion

ID: 9797584
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:24:49.409826+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:57:17.445647
License: Public Domain

*514BREWER, C. J.,
dissenting.
The lead opinion holds that the trial court’s failure to give the jury a specific concurrence instruction was not plainly erroneous:
“Although the court did not expressly instruct the jury that a requisite number of the jurors must agree on the same set of underlying facts in order to return a conviction on any particular count, the information that the court gave to the jury adequately explained the requirement and left no room for doubt about precisely what the jury was required to do.”
210 Or App at 497 (emphasis in original). I respectfully dis-e and, in addition, unlike the lead opinion, believe that this court should exercise its discretion to review and correct the error.
In closing argument, the prosecutor explained to the jury each of the charges in the indictment, using overhead slides. She stated:
“The things that [the victim] told you concern two separate events. She told you — well, three. She told you about one time, after playing a Mexican card game, that the defendant fondled her in the hallway. That act does not constitute any of the charges.
“The scenarios that you’re concerned with in this case are the time that [the victim] told you the defendant’s wife went to Salem. That day she was touched, and that night she was touched, and those resulted in these charges down here in the bottom.
“[The victim] also told you about another time that she was on the couch watching television and the defendant fondled her, and those acts resulted in Counts 1 through 11,[1] and I’ve called that on here, ‘The night the defendant dragged [the victim] to the kitchen.’
‡ ‡ ‡ ‡
“Then you have three counts here of Sex Abuse in the First Degree — I’m sorry, four counts of Sex Abuse in the First Degree. How do we divide this up? Touching the *515breasts is sex abuse, and touching the vagina is sex abuse. Sex abuse in the First Degree can happen when a child is forced or when the child is under 14 years of age.
“So there’s a count for the night when [the victim] was watching TV and she told you that the defendant touched her breasts, he touched her vagina, and then he inserted his finger or his hands inside her vagina.
«H< * Hi Hi
“The second set of charges, Count 7 through 10, all deal with the day that defendant’s wife went to Salem, and [the victim] told you that the day that the defendant’s wife went to Salem was the day that they were playing this game of locking each other outside of the house. And on that day, after she got back inside the house, her brother, Jose, went to take a shower, and the defendant followed her into her room and they fell onto the bed. She told Detective Lane he actually pushed her on the bed, but the end result was that she was laying on her back, and the defendant was on top of her and she couldn’t get away, and he touched her breasts.
“Later that night she was watching television with the defendant before her brother and her father came home, although her younger brother, David, was there, and the defendant, at that time, touched her on her vagina. So there’s a count of Sex Abuse in the First Degree — two counts of Sex Abuse in the First Degree for touching her breasts by force, and because she was under 14 years of age, and two counts of Sex Abuse in the First Degree for touching her vagina.”
After closing arguments, the trial court instructed the jury, in part, as follows:
“This being a criminal case, ten or more jurors must agree upon your verdict. When you’ve arrived at a verdict, presiding juror will sign the appropriate verdict form. Then at least ten of you that concur in that verdict will also sign * * *
“* * * There are 11 verdict forms and you need to sign and return each of them.
«Hi ❖ * * *
“And just for your benefit, when you get back in there and you look at [the verdict forms], it’ll have Count 4, and in *516parens it’ll have her vagina. Count 5 will have — Count 5, and then in parens, her breasts. They’re distinguished between the different counts by the act.”
The verdict forms for Counts 4 and 7 were identical, each noting in parentheses that the count referred to “(touching her vagina and under age 14.)”
The court also instructed the jury as to the elements of each count. With respect to Count 7, the court stated:
“Count 7, Oregon law provides a person commits the crime of Sexual Abuse in the First Degree when the person intentionally subjects another person to sexual contact and the victim is less than 14 years of age. In this case, to establish the crime of Sexual Abuse in the First Degree, the State must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, the following elements: One, that the act occurred in Lincoln County, Oregon. Two, the act occurred on or between December 1, 2001 and August 31, 2002. Three, [defendant] intentionally subjected [the victim] to sexual contact, and four, that [the victim] was less than 14 years of age.”
The court gave an identical instruction with respect to Count 4. As the lead opinion observes, defendant took no exceptions to the instructions given, nor did he ask that the jurors be instructed that 10 or more of them must agree on the same set of underlying facts in order to convict defendant of any given count. The jury found defendant guilty on Count 7 and acquitted him of the remaining charges.
Defendant argues that the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury that 10 of its members were required to agree on the same set of facts as the basis for convicting defendant of any particular count. Defendant notes that the state produced evidence that he committed sexual abuse against the victim in three different incidents — after the card game, on the night when the victim and defendant were watching television and family members were asleep in the next room, and on the day when the victim and defendant were watching television and defendant’s wife and children were in Salem. Because the trial court failed to properly instruct the jury, he argues, the jury was “impermissibly allowed to base its verdict on alternative factual occurrences, each of which itself would constitute a separate crime.” *517According to defendant, the omission violated the jury consensus requirement embodied in Article I, section 11, of the Oregon Constitution.2 Defendant concedes that the error was unpreserved at trial but argues that we should exercise our discretion to review it as error apparent on the face of the record.
This court has discretion to consider an error of law that is “apparent on the face of the record,” even if that error was not raised at trial. ORAP 5.45(1); State v. Pervish, 202 Or App 442, 452, 123 P3d 285 (2005), rev den, 340 Or 308 (2006) (unpreserved instructional error not reviewable on appeal unless error is plain, that is, apparent on the face of the record). An error is “apparent on the face of the record” if (1) the error is one of law (2) the point of law is obvious, that is, not reasonably in dispute; and (3) the error is not one in which the court is required to go outside the record or select among competing inferences to find it. State v. Brown, 310 Or 347, 355, 800 P2d 259 (1990). We determine as a matter of law whether each of those prerequisites is satisfied. Ailes v. Portland Meadows, Inc., 312 Or 376, 381-82, 823 P2d 956 (1991). At issue is the second element, that is, whether the point of law is obvious. I would conclude that it is.
The governing legal principle was first articulated by the Oregon Supreme Court in State v. Boots, 308 Or 371, 780 P2d 725 (1989). In Boots, the defendant was charged with aggravated murder based on two different aggravating factors: (1) that the homicide was committed in furtherance *518of a robbery and (2) that the homicide was committed to conceal the identity of the perpetrators of the robbery. Id. at 374. The trial court instructed the jury that it did not need to agree on the manner in which the murder was committed, that is, which of the alternative circumstances constituted the aggravating factor. Id. at 374-75. Analyzing the case under the jury unanimity requirements of the version of ORS 136.450 then in effect and Article I, section 11, the Supreme Court found error, concluding that each aggravating factor was an essential element of aggravated murder on which the jury must concur. The court in Boots found United States v. Gipson, 553 F2d 453 (5th Cir 1977), a case premised on the Sixth Amendment, to be persuasive, and stated:
“Like the ‘reasonable doubt’ standard, which was found to be an indispensable element in all criminal trials in In re Winship, 1970, 397 US 358, 90 S Ct 1068, 25 L Ed 2d 368, the unanimous jury requirement impresses on the trier of fact the necessity of reaching a subjective state of certitude on the facts in issue. The unanimity rule thus requires jurors to be in substantial agreement as to just what a defendant did as a step preliminary to determining whether the defendant is guilty of the crime charged.”
Boots, 308 Or at 380 (footnotes and internal quotation marks omitted). To convict, the court concluded, the jury must unanimously agree on the facts required by the statute that sets out the elements of the crime. Id. at 377. As the court observed, it is not “factual details, such as whether a gun was a revolver or a pistol and whether it was held in the right or the left hand,” id. at 379, that the jury must agree on, but the “facts that the law (or the indictment) has made essential to a crime.” Id.
Our later decision in State v. Houston, 147 Or App 285, 935 P2d 1242 (1997), illustrates how the Boots principle operates under facts more akin to those before us here. In Houston, the defendant was charged with one count of unlawful delivery of a controlled substance alleged to have been committed sometime during an eight-month period. At trial, the state presented evidence that the crime could have occurred at any of six different times. The trial court denied the defendant’s motion to require the state to elect a specific date or event as the basis for the charge and also declined to *519instruct the jurors that they must agree, by the same number as required for conviction, on a particular delivery as the basis for their verdict. Id. at 288.
We reversed, concluding that the trial court had erred, under Boots, in not giving the requested instructions or, alternatively, requiring the state to elect a specific basis for the charge. Houston, 147 Or App at 292. We distinguished State v. King, 316 Or 437, 853 P2d 190 (1993), a case in which the state, to support a charge of driving under the influence of intoxicants under ORS 813.010,3 presented evidence that the defendant was driving with a blood alcohol content exceeding .08 percent under ORS 813.010(1)(a), and that the defendant was driving while under the influence of alcohol under paragraph (b) of the same statute. The court in King held that a concurrence instruction4 was not required under those circumstances. The court reasoned that, as a matter of statutory construction, the individual paragraphs of ORS 813.010(1) did not set out essential elements of separate offenses as was the case in Boots but, instead, merely listed alternative methods of proving a single offense. Id. at 446. Those were not the circumstances in Houston. Rather, the problem in that case was that “the jury was allowed to base its verdict on alternative factual occurrences, each of which itself would be a separate crime.” Houston, 147 Or App at 292 (emphasis added). It was not, as it was in King, merely a matter of the state adducing alternative evidence of a single factual occurrence. Id.
*520This case presents substantially the same problem that existed in Houston. The state charged defendant with four counts of first-degree sexual abuse relating to touching the victim’s vagina. Although defendant was convicted of only one count, there was evidence of three different incidents in which defendant committed conduct constituting that crime. The jurors were not instructed that they had to agree as to which incident constituted which count. Thus, in convicting defendant on Count 7, various jurors may have concluded that defendant committed that crime either (1) when defendant and the victim were playing the card game; (2) when defendant and the victim were watching television and the family was asleep; or (3) when defendant and the victim were watching television while defendant’s wife was in Salem. Without an appropriate concurrence instruction, the jury was impermissibly allowed to convict defendant without a requisite number agreeing on the specific act that was the basis for Count 7.5
Contrary to the state’s and the lead opinion’s views, later Supreme Court decisions reinforce that conclusion. I begin a review of those decisions with State v. Lotches, 331 Or 455, 17 P3d 1045 (2000), cert den, 534 US 833 (2001), where the defendant was charged with three counts of aggravated murder of a single victim, based on the murder having been committed during the course of an attempted robbery, during the course of attempted second-degree kidnapping, and in an effort to conceal the defendant’s identity as the perpetrator of an attempted murder. The evidence presented at trial would have supported more than one charge of each of the underlying crimes because each act involved more than one victim. The jury instructions did not identify the particular victim or circumstances pertaining to any of the underlying crimes, and the court did not instruct the jury that it was required to agree on the same set of facts to convict the defendant of each count of aggravated murder. As a result, the jury was not *521required to agree unanimously on all of the facts required by a particular subsection of the aggravated murder statute— that is, the material elements of the crime — as required under Boots.6 Lotches, 331 Or at 468-69. In analyzing the issue for plain error, the court concluded that the factual differences between the two cases were not so significant “that a court reasonably could doubt what its duties respecting jury instructions would be.” Id. at 472.
The court next addressed this issue in State v. Hale, 335 Or 612, 75 P3d 448 (2003), cert den, 541 US 942 (2004). In Hale, the defendant was convicted of 13 counts of aggravated murder relating to his and an accomplice’s murders of three victims. Six of the counts alleged that the defendant had committed aggravated murder in an effort to conceal the commission of, or the identity of the perpetrator of, the underlying crime of third-degree sexual abuse; four were based on the underlying crime of murder. Id. at 624. The defendant argued that the trial court erred in failing to identify for the jury a particular incident of sexual abuse involving a particular victim and perpetrator or a particular incident of murder involving a particular victim, or to instruct the jury that it must agree unanimously on the same incident, as to each count. Id. The court agreed that the trial court had plainly erred in failing to instruct the jury that it must unanimously agree, from among the possible “alternative scenarios,” regarding the factual circumstances of the underlying crime supporting each count. Id. at 627.
Most recently, in State v. Sparks, 336 Or 298, 83 P3d 304, cert den, 543 US 893 (2004), the defendant was charged with 15 counts of aggravated murder relating to the murder of a single victim. Fourteen of the counts were based on the defendant’s alleged commission of underlying crimes: three were based on first-degree sexual abuse, three were based on first-degree kidnapping, three were based on second-degree kidnapping, three were based on attempted first-degree rape, and two were based on second-degree attempted rape. Id. at *522312-13. The defendant was convicted of all counts. On appeal, he argued that there was evidence establishing that each of the underlying crimes could have occurred at either or both of two distinct locations. It followed, the defendant argued, that the trial court was required, under Article I, section 11, of the Oregon Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, to instruct the jury that it must unanimously agree on the factual circumstances comprising each charged count.
The Supreme Court distinguished Lotches and Hale and declined to find plain error. The court agreed with the defendant that it is not reasonably in dispute that jury unanimity is required in aggravated murder cases. However, the court did not agree that the multiple factual theories presented in Sparks were analogous to those at issue in Lotches and Hale. The court noted that, in the latter cases, there were multiple possible victims and perpetrators of the alleged underlying crimes. In Sparks, however, there was only one victim, and the precise location at which the defendant committed the various underlying crimes was not a “material element” of any of those crimes. Accordingly, the court concluded that it was not “obvious” for plain error purposes whether the jury was required unanimously to agree as to such locations. Sparks, 336 Or at 317.
In summary, the facts in Lotches involved one perpetrator and one aggravated murder victim but multiple underlying crimes against multiple victims. Hale involved multiple perpetrators and multiple aggravated murder victims, as well as multiple underlying crimes against those victims. Sparks involved one victim, one perpetrator, and multiple underlying crimes against that victim. Nevertheless, the relevant distinction is not the number of perpetrators, victims, or crimes. Rather, the relevant distinction between Lotches and Hale, on the one hand, and Sparks, on the other, is that, in the former cases, the jury may have failed to agree on the particular incident underlying a particular count, including such material elements as the identity of the victim or perpetrator of that incident; whereas in Sparks, the jury, while agreeing as to the victim, the perpetrator, and the crime charged in a particular count, may have failed merely to agree about the location of that crime.
*523In relevant respects, this case is more like Lotches and Hale than Sparks. Here, although there was only one defendant and only one victim, defendant was alleged to have committed the relevant crime, first-degree sexual abuse, on separate occasions. Specifically, defendant was charged with four counts of sexual abuse relating to touching the victim’s vagina, two of which were alleged to have occurred on one occasion and two of which were alleged to have occurred on a separate occasion. The jury convicted him of only one count. However, the evidence showed that there were at least three incidents of touching on which the jury could have based its verdict.
Thus, even though there was no possibility of confusion as to the perpetrator or victim of those crimes (as occurred in relation to the underlying crimes in Lotches and Hale), and even assuming that (as in Sparks) the locations at which the incidents took place were not material elements of the crimes, the jury may not have agreed unanimously as to which incident constituted which count. In other words, the problem in this case is that the jury might have failed to agree about which one of several alleged incidents — albeit differentiated, in part, by their locations — defendant committed. I would conclude that it is obvious that, under the latter circumstance, defendant was entitled to a jury concurrence instruction.
The state remonstrates that the assumption underlying Boots, Hale, and Lotches — “that when proof of multiple incidents, victims, or theories is funneled into a single charge or element, the jury assumes that that proof is fungible in determining whether the defendant is guilty” — is not applicable “in cases where each count corresponds to a different incident, and that is made clear to the jury,” and, because of that, a concurrence instruction is not required. According to the state, because the prosecutor explained to the jury during closing argument the facts underlying each count, including that Count 7 pertained to defendant’s conduct on the day his wife was in Salem, the trial court’s instruction that 10 jurors must find defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt with respect to each individual count was sufficient. It follows, the state argues, that the jurors were in agreement on the facts in convicting defendant of Count 7.
*524The most immediate problem with the state’s argument is that, without an appropriate concurrence instruction, it was not made clear to the jury that each count corresponded to a different factual incident and that a requisite number of them must actually agree on the same factual incident to return a conviction on any particular count. Nothing in the jury instructions or the verdict forms distinguished the various factual incidents by offense so that, in convicting defendant on Count 7, the jurors would understand the need for “ ‘substantial agreement as to just what a defendant did’ ” to be guilty of that particular offense. Boots, 308 Or at 380 (quoting Gipson, 553 F2d at 457-58).
Moreover, the Supreme Court has previously rejected the state’s proposition that this shortcoming can be remedied by the prosecutor’s explanation to the jury. Brown, 310 Or at 356; Lotches, 331 Or at 469. In Lotches, the state argued that any error that may have been committed with respect to the jury instructions was harmless, in part because the prosecutor clarified for the jury which counts were based on which factual occurrences, including the identity of the particular victims. The court disagreed, concluding that the “prosecutor’s arguments were not a legally sufficient substitute for necessary jury instructions.” 331 Or at 469. The court noted, as happened here, that “ ‘[a]s is usually the case, the trial court cautioned the jury that what the lawyers argue is not evidence and that it is the court’s function to instruct the jury as to the law.’ ”Id. (quoting Brown, 310 Or at 356). Thus, the state’s argument is unavailing.
The lead opinion charts a course that parallels the state’s tack. The lead opinion asserts that the concurrence requirement was satisfied in this case by the totality of information that the trial court provided to the jury. It is true, as the lead opinion points out, that “the trial court informed the jurors that Count 7 in the indictment alleged ‘an act of similar nature’ involving ‘sexual contact by touching [the victim’s] vagina’ on an ‘occasion separate and distinct’ from the acts alleged in Counts 1 through 6.” 210 Or App at 497. It is also true that, in instructing the jury on Count 7 the court referred to the alleged crime as the “act.” However, that information did nothing to ensure that the jury understood that *525the requisite number of them was required to have the same singular, particular event in mind when they convicted defendant of a specific count. Similarly, I do not see how providing the jury with separate verdict forms for each count, when the forms for Count 4 and Count 7 were indistinguishable, makes it any more certain that the jury understood the concurrence requirement.
Because it is unclear whether the jury concurred on the factual basis for defendant’s conviction, the trial court’s failure to instruct the jury that it must agree, by the requisite number, on the specific act that constituted a statutorily defined element of the crime at issue — in this case, the sexual contact — violated the jury concurrence requirement of Article I, section 11. The error is therefore apparent on the face of the record.
The concurrence, like the lead opinion, focuses on the trial court’s instructions to the jury, relying in particular on the following admonitions: (1) the jury must follow the court’s instructions, 210 Or App at 507 (Edmonds, J., concurring); (2) “at least 10 of its number had to agree on each verdict form that was signed,” 210 Or App at 508 (Edmonds, J., concurring); and (3) “Count 7 referred to an ‘act’ on an ‘occasion separate and distinct from the acts alleged in Counts 1 through 6,’ ” 210 Or App at 508 (Edmonds, J., concurring). Because the jury is presumed to have followed the court’s instructions, the concurrence opines that “the required number of jurors agreed on what defendant did to bring himself within the purview of [Count 7].” 210 Or App at 508 (Edmonds, J., concurring). I respectfully disagree. Each juror could have followed each of the cited instructions and, yet, the requisite number of jurors might not have consciously concurred on the same incident in convicting defendant of Count 7. That is so because none of the cited instructions actually required them to so concur. The error defendant complains of is not, as the concurrence asserts, “the lack of an instruction telling the jury that Counts 1 through 6 referred to the kitchen’ incident and that Count 7 referred to the ‘day defendant’s wife went to Salem’ incident.” 210 Or App at 509 (Edmonds, J., concurring). Rather, the error is that the jury *526was not told that 10 of them had to agree on the same particular incident of sexual contact, from among evidence of several such incidents, as the basis for their verdict on each count. See Houston, 147 Or App at 293.
The “10 or more must agree” instruction is commonly given in criminal cases and does not cure the error. See UCrJI 1013; Pervish, 202 Or App at 451 n 6. Although the Supreme Court saw no need to mention it, the equivalent of that instruction was given in Boots, and it did not make a difference.7 That is so because the touted instruction merely tells a jury how many must vote for a verdict, not whether that number must agree on a particular act. An analogous shortfall inheres in the “separate and distinct” occasion instruction on which the concurrence, like the lead opinion, relies.
The concurrence also attempts to distinguish Houston; it cites three differences between the circumstances of that case and the present case. The first two differences, that defendant made no motion to elect nor did he seek a specific concurrence instruction, merely show that, unlike in Houston, the error in this case was not preserved. Although those procedural differences exist, there is nothing inappropriate about relying on cases in which a pertinent legal principle was articulated, and the issue was properly preserved, to show that plain error of a similar kind occurred in another case in which the error was unpreserved. Indeed, it is, in part, precisely because the pertinent legal principle was articulated in Houston that the point of law is not reasonably in dispute in this case and thus a finding of plain error is appropriate. See Lotches, 331 Or at 472 (holding that the factual differences from Boots were not so significant “that a court reasonably could doubt what its duties respecting jury instructions would be”). As discussed, the third cited difference, that the prosecutor here “told the jury which counts applied to which incidents,” is not material to the analysis. 210 Or App at 509-10 (Edmonds, J., concurring). The issue is *527not whether the prosecutor’s statements “supplanted” the trial court’s instructions. Rather, they simply did not fulfill the function — either substitutionary or complementary — of qualifying instructions to the jury. See Lotches, 331 Or at 469.8
I next consider whether it is appropriate for this court to exercise its discretion to address the error. Ailes, 312 Or at 382. Among the nonexclusive factors that may guide our determination are
“[t]he competing interests of the parties; the nature of the case; the gravity of the error; the ends of justice in the particular case; how the error came to the court’s attention; and whether the policies behind the general rule requiring preservation of error have been served in the case in another way[.]”
Id. at 382 n 6. In this case, the gravity of the error is profound. Without the proper instruction, the jury was not required to “seriously [confront] the question whether they agree [d] that any factual requirement of [the offense had] been proved beyond a reasonable doubt” as required by the Oregon Constitution. Boots, 308 Or at 375. The outcome might very well have been different if they had.
The lead opinion’s reasons for refusing to exercise discretion to review the error, if plain, are unpersuasive to me. First, the fact that a competent defense lawyer should, after all these years, have sought a Boofe-type instruction is beyond dispute; where the error is plain, that goes without saying. However, in my view, that observation furnishes no excuse for refusing to exercise our discretion to review plain error.8
9 It is equally, if not more, appropriate, to say that, after *528all these years, trial courts should instinctively recognize that it is plain error to fail to give an appropriate concurrence instruction in circumstances such as existed in this case. Because the lead opinion declines to review plain error in this case, it leaves little room for any plain error review under Boots. Moreover, neither party has suggested that defense counsel might have had any tactical reason for not requesting a Boots-type instruction, and I cannot imagine one. We should not speculate that such a motive existed.10
In short, I would exercise discretion to address the error and, accordingly, would reverse defendant’s conviction and remand the case for a new trial. As a result, I would not reach defendant’s first assignment of error challenging the admissibility of Lane’s testimony recounting what Perez told him the victim said during the December 9 interview. However, I note disagreement with the lead opinion’s analysis of that issue in one significant respect. Like the lead opinion, I would find that the residual hearsay exception stated in OEC 803(28) governs in this case; unlike the lead opinion, however, I do not think that the requirements of the rule were met in this case. Specifically, I disagree with the lead opinion’s conclusion that the “trustworthiness of Perez’s interpretation was sufficiently guaranteed” to qualify for admission under the rule. 210 Or App at 494.11
The lead opinion finds that there was “ample circumstantial evidence indicating that [Perez’s] interpreting abilities were sufficient to make his statements reliable.” 210 Or App at 494. To the extent that the “ample circumstantial evidence” relied on by the lead opinion includes evidence of Perez’s bilingual abilities, I find it unpersuasive. Although Perez testified that he spoke Spanish and that he had been speaking both Spanish and English since he was a young *529child, proficiency in speaking two languages does not necessarily correspond with interpreting ability. Nor does Perez’s experience as a bilingual tutor necessarily shed any light on his interpreting abilities. Interpreting requires a special set of cognitive skills:
“An interpreter must listen to what is being said, comprehend the message, abstract the entire message from the words and the word order, store the idea, search his or her memory for the conceptual and semantic matches, and reconstruct the message (keeping the same register or level of difficulty as in the source language). While doing this, the interpreter is speaking and listening for the next utterance of the language to process, while monitoring his or her own output.”
Cathy Rhodes, Court Certification, 1 Access to Justice Journal 1, 2 (Summer 1999). For the purposes of providing interpreters to non-English-speaking persons in the courts, ORS 45.275(9)(c) defines “qualified interpreter,” in part, as someone who can “orally transfer the meaning of statements” and interpret “in a manner that conserves the meaning, tone, level, style, and register of the original statement, without additions or omissions.”12
In this case, there was no evidence of Perez’s competence in performing such functions. He did not indicate that he had any training or experience in that area, or even that he understood what was expected of him in the role of interpreter. The record also does not disclose the method that was used by Perez to interpret the victim’s statements.
Professional interpreters commonly use one of two interpretative methods: simultaneous or consecutive. In simultaneous interpretation, the speaker does not stop or *530pause, but continues to talk without interruption. The interpreter therefore conveys a virtually simultaneous interpretation of the words while the speaker is still talking. See Oregon Judges Criminal Benchbook 1014 (2005). In consecutive interpretation, the interpreter transfers the questions asked of the non-English-speaking person from English into the person’s primary language after each question is asked and, then, interprets the person’s response into English after the person responds.13 Id. There is nothing in the record to indicate that Perez used either of these methods. It is possible that he summarized or paraphrased the victim’s statements instead. When asked whether he had accurately translated the conversation, Perez responded only, “I think so. I think it’s — yeah, as far as I — as far as I know.” I simply would not set the bar so low.
I respectfully dissent.
Landau and Armstrong, JJ., join in this dissent.

 It seems likely that the prosecutor meant to refer to Counts 1 through 6 here because she followed this with a statement that Counts 7 through 10 related to the day that defendant’s wife was in Salem.

 Although defendant cites the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution as the source of law for his argument, the primary authorities on which he relies were decided based on Article I, section 11, of the Oregon Constitution, and he gives no indication that a different analysis would apply under the United States Constitution. Accordingly, I understand defendant’s argument to be premised on Article I, section 11, which states, in part, that “in the circuit court ten members of the jury may render a verdict of guilty or not guilty, save and except a verdict of guilty of first degree murder, which shall be found only by a unanimous verdict, and not otherwise!.]” Cf. State v. Hitz, 307 Or 183, 188, 766 P2d 373 (1988) (in determining whether error was preserved for appeal, raising an issue at trial is essential, identifying the source is less so, and making a particular argument, the third least); State v. Kennedy, 295 Or 260, 262, 666 P2d 1316 (1983) (questions of state law should be considered and disposed of before reaching federal constitutional claim); State v. Phillips, 138 Or App 468, 471 n 2, 909 P2d 882, rev den, 323 Or 114 (1996) (court’s analysis was limited to federal law where, although defendant alleged a violation of the Oregon Constitution, both he and the state based their arguments on the federal constitution).

 ORS 813.010 (1993) provided, in part:
“(1) A person commits the offense of driving while under the influence of intoxicants if the person drives a vehicle while the person:
“(a) Has .08 percent or more by weight of alcohol in the blood of the person as shown by chemical analysis of the breath or blood of the person made under ORS 813.100,813.140 or 813.150;
“(b) Is under the influence of intoxicating liquor or a controlled substance; or
“(c) Is under the influence of intoxicating liquor and a controlled substance.”

 The Boots principle is not limited in application to aggravated murder cases, but is equally applicable where, as here, a less than unanimous verdict is required under ORS 136.450 and Article I, section 11, of the Oregon Constitution. See, e.g., Pervish, 202 Or App at 462. In such cases, the issue is one of concurrence of the required number of jurors, rather than unanimity. Id. at 449 n 3.

 The state attempts to distinguish Houston on the basis that it involved a single count proved by numerous instances, whereas this case involved multiple counts, with each count corresponding to a different incident. As elaborated below, that is not a legally significant distinction. See Pervish, 202 Or App at 462 (“The risk of confusion * * * applies equally to any crime that is pleaded in multiple counts where a jury is inadequately instructed as to which factual theories and evidence apply to which counts.”).

 As the court explained, the jury could not properly have convicted defendant of aggravated murder based on attempting to conceal his identity as the perpetrator of attempted murder “if half the jurors thought that [the] defendant had attempted to murder [one victim] and half thought that he had attempted to murder [another]." Lotches, 331 Or at 468.

 In its brief before the Court of Appeals in the Boots case, the state noted that the trial court had instructed the jury that its “verdict on the charge of Aggravated Murder, or the lesser-included offense of Murder, must be a unanimous verdict. In other words, each and every one of you must agree on your verdict on either of those charges.”

 For good reason, the state does not contend that the prosecutor’s statement constituted an election. To be effective, an election must be confirmed to the jury by the court. See, e.g., State v. Bauer, 183 Or 481, 482-83, 193 P2d 999 (1948) (holding that trial court erred in failing to instruct jury in accordance with state’s election); State v. Randolph, 123 Or App 566, 568, 860 P2d 873(1993), rev den, 318 Or 382 (1994) (providing an example of how an election is confirmed by the court); State v. Kibler, 1 Or App 208, 211-12, 461 P2d 72 (1969) (“The court at the appropriate time correctly instructed the jury that the state was required to prove that the crime of concealment, if any, was committed on [the elected] date.”). Because the prosecutor’s statement was not the equivalent of an instruction by the court, the jury was free to disregard that statement.

 In Pervish, 202 Or App at 465, we specifically rejected the argument that, because the defendant failed to request an instruction or object to the instructions given, we should not exercise our discretion to correct the error.

 For example, it would be a groundless insult to speculate that trial counsel intentionally failed to request a concurrence instruction in order to set up a claim for post-conviction relief based on inadequacy of counsel should defendant be convicted of one or more of the charged offenses.

 My disagreement with the lead opinion’s conclusion would not necessarily lead me to decide that the error in admitting Lane’s testimony was reversible error. The state alternatively argues that, even if the admission of that testimony was erroneous, the error was harmless. The state may be right about that. In any event, because I would reverse on defendant’s second assignment of error, I do not find it necessary to address the harmless error issue.

 Interpreters appointed by the court must be at least qualified. ORS 45.288. If one is available, the court generally must appoint an interpreter who is both qualified and certified. Id. Certification in Oregon requires, among other things, taking and passing a written English proficiency exam; a translation test for general vocabulary; an oral interpreting exam that includes a simultaneous interpreting component, a consecutive interpreting component, and a sight-interpreting component; and a written ethics exam. Oregon Judicial Department, Office of the State Court Administrator, Certified Court Interpreter Information.

 Even in consecutive interpretation, “[t]he interpretation is complete and accurate, but not verbatim. For example, ‘red herring’ translated into Spanish verbatim is ‘red fish’ and does not have the same meaning as ‘red herring.’ One correct interpretation [of the term] is ‘false lead.’ ” Oregon Judges Criminal Benchbook at 1014.