Court Opinion

ID: 9788774
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:18:04.173117+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:16.501375
License: Public Domain

BREWER, J.,
dissenting.
The majority allows defendant’s petition for reconsideration and withdraws our former opinion because, in its view, the trial court’s exclusion of hearsay evidence proffered by defendant was reversible error. The majority concludes that the evidence should have been admitted because it was sufficiently corroborated, and that, contrary to our previous opinion, its exclusion was not harmless error. Because I believe that the evidence would not have changed the outcome of the case if it had been admitted, I dissent.
In our previous opinion, we concluded that “we need not address the issue of whether the trial court erred in excluding the evidence because, even if it did, there is little likelihood that the error affected the court’s verdict.” State v. Lytsell, 184 Or App 75, 83, 55 P3d 503 (2002). The majority addresses the issue on reconsideration and concludes that the trial court erred in excluding the evidence because it was sufficiently corroborated. The majority identifies several facts that, it asserts, corroborate the hearsay statements. I do not necessarily disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the statements were sufficiently corroborated to be admissible. However, in considering whether the trial court’s error, if any, in excluding the evidence was harmless, I take issue *186with the majority’s characterization of the evidence that it deems most important to its admissibility analysis.
In that regard, the majority asserts:
“Finally and most importantly, the police found physical evidence that corroborates defendant’s position that Sandbom, rather than he, was the gunman. Defendant’s pager was seized from underneath the window of a different bedroom from the one where Fornataro surprised the burglars. It was not found near the deck where the gunman took Fornataro. That fact supports defendant’s testimony that he fled through that window, which would mean that he was not the gunman.”
187 Or App at 180. Defendant made no such argument to the trial court. That is unsurprising because defendant testified that he checked several doors and windows outside the house while scouting for an access point. He could have easily dropped the pager in the process of trying to gain entry. Defendant also testified that he entered the house through a window, and the record does not show that he entered through a different window from the one through which he claims he left the house. Because defendant could have dropped the pager while scouting for access or entering the house, the pager’s location did not corroborate the hearsay declarations of Sandborn or, for that matter, in any way undermine Fornataro’s identification of defendant as the gunman.
However, regardless of whether the hearsay statements were sufficiently corroborated to be admissible, I submit that their exclusion was harmless on the record before us, especially given the trial court’s stated reasoning for its verdict.
As we observed in our previous opinion:
“Evidentiary error is not presumed to be prejudicial, OEC 103(1), and it is considered harmless if there is little likelihood that it affected the verdicts reached. State v. Johnson, 313 Or 189, 201, 832 P2d 443 (1992). It is permissible to divide that test into two separate inquiries. First, what was the relative strength of the parties’ evidence? And, second, in the totality of the parties’ evidence, how significant was the excluded evidence?”
*187Lytsell, 184 Or App at 83 (citing State v. Cunningham, 179 Or App 359, 382, 40 P3d 1065, adh’d to on recons, 184 Or App 292, 57 P3d 149 (2002)). Although the majority acknowledges that there is “substantial evidence” in the record to support a finding that defendant was the gunman, it asserts that, in our previous opinion, “we did not adequately evaluate the evidence as a whole” and that, in light of Sandborn’s statements, the questions surrounding Fornataro’s identification of defendant as the gunman “could have changed the evaluation of the evidence.” 187 Or App at 182.1 respectfully disagree.
Each of the facts in the record on which the majority relies in support of its harmless error analysis was familiar to the trial court. First, in our previous opinion, we acknowledged that Fornataro had identified another person as the gunman in one of the throw-downs. The trial court heard that testimony, and the court obviously believed Fornataro’s explanation concerning it. Second, I do not agree that the resemblance of the composite sketch to defendant is subject to reasonable debate. I submit that it does resemble defendant, down to the moustache and goatee, and it was also in evidence before the trial court. Third, any discrepancy between defendant’s height and Fornataro’s height also was in evidence before the trial court. Fourth, the gunman’s use of a phrase that Sandborn allegedly used but defendant did not was also before the trial court. One of defendant’s witnesses, Stickley, testified to that effect.1 In the trial court’s view, the *188foregoing evidence obviously had little effect on the strength of the state’s case. In my view, there is little likelihood that Sandborn’s alleged statements would have tipped the credibility scales in the trial court’s mind toward reasonable doubt as to defendant’s guilt.
In so concluding, I will not repeat everything we said in our previous opinion about the relative strength of the parties’ evidence. But certain facts bear emphasis. Although Fornataro’s identification of defendant was imperfect, the fact remains that he positively and convincingly identified defendant as the gunman both in court and in a throw-down. Moreover, the trial was a swearing match between defendant and the victim. Both took the stand and the trial court had the opportunity to assess their credibility, something that is a challenge for us to do on the appellate record. The evidence showed that defendant lied to police about his involvement in the burglary. When he was first brought in for questioning, he denied any involvement at all. He persisted in that lie even after police told him that they had found his pager at the crime scene. When all was said and done, defendant had no credibility with the trial court. The case against defendant was strong.
On the other hand, defendant’s theory of defense— that Fornataro misidentified him as the gunman — was weak. It depended on the trial court finding reasonable doubt based on an inference that Fornataro misidentified defendant as the gunman but correctly — and luckily — recognized him as one of the burglars.
In his petition for reconsideration, defendant argues that the record does not support an inference that Fornataro had no opportunity to identify him at the crime scene, a fact that we emphasized in our previous opinion and that the trial court found to be true. However, under defendant’s version of events, that is the only reasonable reading of the record. Fornataro testified that, when he entered the master bedroom, he encountered two men, one standing about seven feet away holding his handgun and the other rifling through *189drawers. According to Fornataro, the drawers blocked his view of the second burglar’s upper torso. Fornataro stated that he focused on the gunman’s face until the gunman told him to turn around. He was then forced out of the house onto the deck by the gunman and the second burglar, who both subsequently fled over the backyard fence. Fornataro then saw a third burglar flee through a basement window.
Defendant, on the other hand, testified that all three burglars were in the master bedroom when Fornataro entered:
“I was on my knees with my head underneath the bed and my arms stretched out in front of me trying to see what I could find underneath the bed. And I heard a voice, Hey, what are you guys doing? Or, Hey, what are you doing?
“And I pulled my head out of the bed, and right about the time my head came out from underneath the bed, I turned to the left and I seen — I seen the guy in the doorway, obviously Mr. Fornataro, in the doorway. And [Sandborn] was, like, behind me, in between both of us. And he was facing the wall behind me, and he turned and pulled a gun, which I thought to be the 9 millimeter that was taken from the home, and put it in Mr. Fornataro’s face.
* * * *
“[Clippinger] was on the other side of the bed.against— I think going through the drawers in the headboard, or whatever it would be called. I’m not sure.”
(Emphasis added.) According to defendant, Clippinger then left the house through the master bedroom window, and defendant himself jumped out of the window of another bedroom while Sandborn forced Fornataro outside at gunpoint. According to defendant’s testimony, he and Sandborn then fled through the backyard and over a fence.
Under defendant’s version of events, Fornataro could have seen his face only when he was crouching behind the bed — with Sandborn standing between him and Fornataro — before Sandborn forced Fornataro to turn around and leave the room. Defendant’s story was highly implausible in view of the fact that Fornataro testified that *190he saw only two people in the room, neither of whom, according to the defense theory, was defendant. In order to believe that Fornataro misidentified defendant as the gunman under those circumstances, the trial court would have had to find either that Fornataro forgot that a third burglar was in the bedroom but nonetheless confused the face of a crouching and hidden defendant with the face of the actual gunman, Sandborn, or, alternatively, that Fornataro lied when he identified defendant as the gunman. That is not what the court believed. It found:
“When Mr. Fornataro first testified, I did with him what I did with every witness, I made an initial evaluation whether I thought he was credible or not credible. Having made that initial determination, I weighed that testimony against every other witness’s testimony, and, I think, reevaluated whether I thought he was credible or not credible. That’s not true just of Mr. Fornataro, it’s true of every witness who testified.
“I’m troubled by one thing. There are a number of things that cause me to reach my decision. I found Mr. Fornataro initially to be a credible witness. And in finding him to be a credible witness, I found his initial account to be credible. When the defendant testified, the defendant put himself in a position that his head was under the bed, that Mr. Fornataro could not, should not have been able to see him, and there’s nothing the defendant said that changed that.”
(Emphasis added.)
According to the majority, the excluded hearsay “raises questions about [Fornataro’s] identification of the gunman,” 187 Or App at 184, because “Sandborn’s testimony is consistent with the physical evidence concerning the location of defendant’s pager.” Id. As explained above, the location at which the pager was found is nothing more than a neutral fact. It is not significant evidence for the defense that the trial court or we, in our previous opinion, failed to adequately appreciate.
Given the relative strength of the parties’ evidence in its totality, it is highly unlikely that the trial court would have given any weight to the hearsay statements had they *191been admitted. The evidence of the statements, of course, did not come from Sandborn’s own lips or from a neutral source. It came from defendant’s close friends and a relative, who first surfaced with it shortly before trial. Under the circumstances, the trial court almost certainly would have dismissed the hearsay as the sort of fabrication that not infrequently surfaces when an accused person is confronted with overwhelming evidence of his or her guilt. But most importantly, whether or not the witnesses truthfully testified to statements actually made by Sandborn, those statements do not explain why, in light of defendant’s own testimony regarding the physical facts, Fornataro was able credibly to identify defendant as the gunman or, for that matter, why he steadfastly asserted that Sandborn was not the gunman.
I adhere to the conclusion we reached in our previous opinion:
“The trial court found Fornataro credible and did not believe defendant’s version of events. The excluded evidence would not have obviated the inherent implausibility of the defense theory that had, in the court’s mind, tilted the balance in favor of guilt.”
Lytsell, 184 Or App at 86. As a consequence, I remain convinced that the court’s verdict would have been the same even if the hearsay evidence had been admitted.
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.