Court Opinion

ID: 9960948
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-17 16:11:10.491768+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:20:05.237153
License: Public Domain

56                     April 17, 2024              No. 235

          IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE
                  STATE OF OREGON

                  STATE OF OREGON,
                  Plaintiff-Respondent,
                            v.
             NORBETO NESTOR MUNIZ, JR.,
                  Defendant-Appellant.
             Washington County Circuit Court
                  19CR30276; A178335

     Andrew Erwin, Judge.
     Argued and submitted March 14, 2024.
   David Sherbo-Huggins, 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.
   Colm Moore, Assistant Attorney General, argued the cause
for respondent. Also on the brief were Ellen F. Rosenblum,
Attorney General, and Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General.
  Before Tookey, Presiding Judge, Egan, Judge, and Kamins,
Judge.
     EGAN, J.
     Reversed and remanded.
Cite as 332 Or App 56 (2024)                                                   57

           EGAN, J.
          Defendant appeals a judgment of conviction for one
count of second-degree murder, ORS 163.115, and one count
of first-degree abuse of a corpse, ORS 166.087. In his sixth
assignment of error, defendant contends that “the cumula-
tive effect of the state’s improper arguments deprived defen-
dant of the right to a fair trial.” Applying the principles
articulated in State v. Chitwood, 370 Or 305, 518 P3d 903
(2022), we reverse and remand. That conclusion obviates the
need to address defendant’s other assignments of error.
        The charges in this case stem from the murder of L,
whose body was found partially burned in the backyard of
the home in which she lived with defendant and her former
boyfriend, Niswonger. Defendant’s theory of the case was
that Niswonger, not defendant, murdered L.
         On appeal, defendant points to four aspects of the
prosecutor’s closing argument which, in his view, “encour-
age[d] the jury to decide the case based on an improper
emotional basis, gravely distort[ed] the burden of proof and
presumption of innocence, and inject[ed the prosecutor’s]
own personal, emotional reaction into the case.” Below, we
describe three aspects of the prosecutor’s argument and
the context in which they arose, and we conclude that those
three aspects of the prosecutor’s closing argument are suffi-
cient to require reversal under Chitwood.1
       First, toward the beginning of the state’s closing
argument, regarding the abuse of a corpse charge—which was
premised on the burning of L’s body—the prosecutor argued:
    1
      The fourth aspect of the prosecutor’s closing argument that defendant
argues was improper was the prosecutor framing the case as requiring the jury
to decide whether either Niswonger or defendant had murdered L and abused her
corpse. That line of argument was potentially but not necessarily problematic.
See State v. Purrier, 265 Or App 618, 621, 336 P3d 574 (2014) (explaining that the
state “permissibly may attempt to persuade the jury that it should believe one
version of events and not another,” however, “in making that kind of argument,
the state must not inappropriately characterize the jury’s fact-finding function in
a manner that raises some realistic possibility of confusing the jurors about the
ultimate standard or burden of proof”).
    We need not reach the issue of whether the prosecutor’s “either/or” argu-
ment was problematic or permissible in this case, however, because, as explained
below, other aspects of the prosecutor’s closing argument, taken together, require
reversal under Chitwood.
58                                                  State v. Muniz

         “I don’t need to convince anyone in this room of the mer-
     its of the charge of abuse of corpse. Whoever did this, abso-
     lutely abused [L’s] corpse. And if you think about on top of
     the indignity of doing this to another human being, think
     about what this does to a mother who is waiting for the iden-
     tification of her daughter.”
(Emphasis added.)
         Defendant objected to that line of argument, and
the trial court properly sustained the objection, instructing
the jury that “consideration of mom’s feelings does not really
have any relevance” and that “sympathy has no basis in
your deliberations.”
         Second, during his closing argument, defendant
argued that law enforcement had “tunnel vision,” selected
defendant as a suspect, and then focused all of their inves-
tigative resources on him. He noted, for example, that the
state had not conducted DNA testing on a pair of FILA
shoes that had blood splatter on them, or on a shotgun that
was in the home. He also argued that there were “simply too
many gaps” and “too much unexplored evidence” to convict.
Additionally, defendant explained to the jury that he had
not put on any evidence and was relying “solely upon the
evidence the state presents and fails to present,” as was his
“absolute constitutional right.”
        In response to that argument from defendant, the
prosecutor began his rebuttal by arguing:
        “I think at the outset it’s important to understand
     that—and this is kind of a truism, but the absence of evi-
     dence is not evidence. Evidence is evidence. The absence of
     evidence doesn’t acquit the defendant of a crime any more
     than it convicts him of a crime.
        “So when you have the absence of evidence like the test-
     ing of the FILA shoes, let me ask you this: What benefit,
     what question would that answer that you don’t already
     have?”
(Emphasis added.)
       Third, evidence was presented at trial that defen-
dant had moved a partially nude photo of the victim from
Niswonger’s bedroom into defendant’s bedroom. Defendant
Cite as 332 Or App 56 (2024)                                        59

argued that that was a “red herring,” noting that the house
in which defendant, Niswonger, and the victim lived, had
“stacks of girlie magazines [and] pinups on the walls.” In
response, the prosecutor argued at the end of his closing:
      “[Niswonger] had an intimate picture, a topless picture
  of somebody he cared about behind his door, and [defen-
  dant] took that picture after [L] had been murdered and
  mutilated in that house and put it above the bed where he
  was sleeping.
      “So I agree with [defense counsel] on one thing, and that
  is, you know, boys will be boys. * * * I think this is pretty
  much a paraphrase of what Detective Brown had to say
  about it when [defense counsel] asked her, she says, ‘Here’s
  the deal, [counsel]. There’s a big difference between models
  who are posing for centerfold pinups in the house and using
  those for sexual gratification, but taking the topless picture
  and using that for sexual gratification of a woman who has
  just been murdered and burned in the house, I find highly
  disturbing.’ And I’ll take it a step further, it’s disgusting.
  Okay?
      “And whether it’s for sexual gratification or it’s his tro-
  phy for somebody that he has killed and he wants to remind
  himself of that above where he’s sleeping, it doesn’t matter.
  It’s disgusting either way, and it shows a twisted mind, the
  mind of somebody who had murdered and killed [L].
      “One of these two[, Niswonger,] was in his bedroom and
  heard a scream, and the other[, defendant,] was in the—in
  the garage beating a hundred-pound girl to death. So when
  you go back to the jury room, ask yourself who one of these
  person was for each of these questions, and who the other
  was, and I think you will all arrive at the same answer, and
  that is that the last person that [L] saw as she’s screaming
  for her life, as she’s on the floor getting beaten to death is
  [defendant].”
(Emphases added.)
        In Chitwood, the Supreme Court set out three steps
for determining whether a prosecutor’s closing argument
amounts to reversible plain error. 370 Or 305. First, the
reviewing court considers the prosecutor’s closing argument
to determine whether the argument was improper. Id. at 314.
Second, the court considers whether the statements were so
60                                                  State v. Muniz

prejudicial that they deprived the defendant of a fair trial;
that is, whether it would have been an abuse of discretion for
the trial court to deny a motion for a mistrial had a motion
for mistrial been made. Id. at 317; State v. Montgomery, 327
Or App 655, 661, 536 P3d 627 (2023), rev den, 371 Or 825
(2024). Third, the court considers whether to exercise discre-
tion to correct the error. Chitwood, 370 Or at 322.
         We have explained that the right to a fair trial
“guarantees that a defendant shall be tried by a jury that
will decide guilt based on evidence—not emotion or preju-
dice,” and that “prosecutorial statements are improper if
they infringe on the defendant’s right to a fair trial.” State v.
Durant, 327 Or App 363, 368, 535 P3d 808 (2023) (internal
quotation marks omitted). More specifically, our case law
has defined prosecutorial misconduct as:
     “any activity by the prosecutor which tends to divert the
     jury from making its determination of guilt or innocence
     by weighing the legally admitted evidence in the manner
     prescribed by law. It commonly involves an appeal to the
     jurors’ prejudices, fears, or notions of popular sentiment by
     presenting to them inadmissible evidence; or urging them
     to make inferences not based on the evidence; or to disre-
     gard the evidence altogether and base their determination
     on wholly irrelevant factors.”
State v. Brunnemer, 287 Or App 182, 187-88, 401 P3d 1226
(2017) (internal quotation marks omitted).
         We agree with defendant that aspects of the prose-
cutor’s closing argument in this case were improper. As the
trial court recognized, it was improper for the prosecutor
to ask the jury to think about what L’s mother experienced
while she was “waiting for the identification of her daugh-
ter.” See State v. Lundbom, 96 Or App 458, 461, 773 P2d 11,
rev den, 308 Or 382 (1989) (improper for prosecutor to make
arguments “calculated to elicit an emotional response from
the jury”). That line of argument was similar to an improper
“golden rule” appeal. See United States v. Roman, 492 F3d
803, 806 (7th Cir 2007) (explaining a “ ‘Golden Rule’ appeal
in which the jury is asked to put itself in [a party’s] position
is universally recognized as improper because it encourages
the jury to depart from the neutrality and to decide the case
Cite as 332 Or App 56 (2024)                                61

on the basis of personal interest and bias rather than on the
evidence” (some internal quotation marks omitted)).
           We also agree that it was improper for the prose-
cutor to interject his personal opinion regarding defen-
dant’s conduct of taking the partially nude photo of L from
Niswonger’s room, and it was improper to characterize that
conduct as demonstrating the “twisted mind” of the per-
son who “murdered and killed” L. Highway Commission v.
Callahan, 242 Or 551, 558, 410 P2d 818 (1966) (inflammatory
arguments encourage jury to decide case on improper basis
and are impermissible). The line of argument employed by
the prosecutor—that taking the photo of L from Niswonger’s
room means defendant has a “twisted mind” and is more
likely to be the person who killed L—sounds in impermis-
sible character-based reasoning rather than a focus on the
elements of the charged crimes. State v. Skillicorn, 367 Or
464, 478, 479 P3d 254 (2021) (noting propensity evidence
can cause factfinders to “convict for crimes other than
those charged” or “give more weight to the evidence than it
deserves in assessing the guilt of crime charged”); see also
Michelson v. United States, 335 US 469, 475-76, 69 S Ct 213,
93 L Ed 168 (1948) (“The State may not show defendant’s
* * * ill name among his neighbors, even though such facts
might logically be persuasive that he is by propensity a prob-
able perpetrator of the crime. The inquiry is not rejected
because character is irrelevant; on the contrary, it is said to
weigh too much with the jury and to so overpersuade them
as to prejudge one with a bad general record and deny him
a fair opportunity to defend against a particular charge.”
(Footnotes omitted.)).
         Additionally, we agree with defendant that the
prosecutor’s statement that “the absence of evidence doesn’t
acquit the defendant of a crime any more than it convicts
him of a crime” misstated the burden of proof. And in doing
so, it ran the risk of undermining the presumption of inno-
cence—a “cornerstone of our judicial system”—under which
“the law presumes every defendant upon trial charged with
crime to be innocent” and the state bears the burden to
“prove by evidence to the satisfaction of the trial jury beyond
a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crime
62                                             State v. Muniz

charged in the indictment.” State v. Schneider, 328 Or App
697, 701, 538 P3d 1233 (2023) (internal quotation marks and
brackets omitted).
        On appeal, the state argues that the jury would
have understood the prosecutor’s comment to merely be a
rebuttal to defendant’s suggestion that the state’s failure to
take certain investigative steps created reasonable doubt;
to be sure, it was a rebuttal to defendant’s argument, but it
was also an improper statement of the law.
          Taken together, we conclude that the prosecutor’s
improper statements during closing argument in this case
rose to the level of “legal error”; that is, they were so prej-
udicial that they denied defendant a fair trial and it would
have been an abuse of discretion for the trial court to deny
a motion for a mistrial had a motion for mistrial been
made. Montgomery, 327 Or App at 661 (noting that, under
Chitwood, “we are required to consider the totality of the
record in determining whether defendant was denied a fair
trial”). The prosecutor’s argument during his rebuttal both
misstated the burden of proof and encouraged the jury to
decide the case with reference to impermissible character-
based reasoning that directed the jury “away from the facts
[and] toward emotion.” Chitwood, 370 Or at 317-21 (prosecu-
tor’s arguments were so prejudicial that they deprived defen-
dant of a fair trial where prosecutor misstated the state’s
burden of proof during rebuttal argument, “compounded
the error by referring to other irrelevant matters that were
not in evidence,” and the case was a “close” one); cf. Durant,
327 Or App at 371 (noting prosecutor’s statements were “not
egregious” where prosecutor “did not misstate the law, den-
igrate anyone, improperly shift the burden of persuasion to
defendant, or invite an adverse inference from defendant’s
exercise of a constitutional right”). And the prosecutor’s
encouragement of the jury to decide the case with reference
to impermissible character-based reasoning was one of the
last things the jury heard before deliberating. Chitwood, 370
Or at 317-18 (comment that came at the end of prosecutor’s
rebuttal closing argument more likely to be prejudicial). We
also think it significant that the prosecutor’s statements
during rebuttal came on the heels of the prosecutor’s prior
Cite as 332 Or App 56 (2024)                                63

appeal to the juror’s emotions when he asked them to con-
sider “what [burning a corpse] does to a mother who is wait-
ing for the identification of her daughter.” And that argu-
ment was perhaps particularly emotionally impactful on the
jury in this case, because L’s mother had testified during
defendant’s trial, and the prosecutor had used her testimony
to introduce a picture of L taken while L was alive.
         Although we are mindful that, as a general rule, “a
proper jury instruction is adequate to cure any presumed
prejudice from a prosecutor’s misconduct,” we are also aware
that some “prosecutorial statements may be so prejudicial
that, as a practical matter, the bell once rung, cannot be
unrung by such an admonishment.” Id. at 317 (internal quo-
tation marks omitted). We think the prosecutor’s arguments
at the end of his rebuttal, when viewed in the context of the
record as whole in this emotionally fraught case, including
his earlier appeal to the jurors’ emotions, constitute such
statements.
         Further, having determined that the prosecutor’s
remarks denied defendant a fair trial, and considering the
nature of the case, the gravity of the error, and the ends of
justice, we exercise our discretion to correct the plain error.
       Consequently, we reverse defendant’s convictions
and remand.
        Reversed and remanded.