State v. Fry ( 2020 )

587
Argued and submitted February 28, reversed April 15, 2020
STATE OF OREGON,
Plaintiff-Respondent,
v.
JAMES ALLEN FRY,
Defendant-Appellant.
Coos County Circuit Court
18CR17130; A168363
464 P3d 521
Defendant is a sex offender and, as such, is required by ORS 163A.040 to
register every year within 10 days of his birth date. Defendant last registered
in 2014. On May 11, 2017, defendant was arrested and charged with failure to
register as a sex offender. He pleaded guilty to that charge and was convicted.
On July 27, 2017, defendant was arrested again and charged again with failure
to register as a sex offender. Before trial, he moved to dismiss on double-jeopardy
grounds, arguing that the state was prosecuting him twice for the same offense.
In response, the state argued that failure to register was an ongoing offense
but that defendant’s arrest on May 11 was an “intervening event” that allowed
him to be prosecuted twice. The state specifically argued that it was not limited
to one prosecution per birthday. The trial court accepted the state’s argument
and denied defendant’s motion. Defendant appeals. Held: The trial court erred
in denying defendant’s motion to dismiss. The state could have prosecuted defen-
dant for two separate offenses—failure to register within 10 days of his 2016
birthday, and failure to register within 10 days of his 2017 birthday—because
defendant’s birthday fell on May 8. However, because the state and the trial court
shared a misconception of the nature and timing of the offense, the state actu-
ally prosecuted defendant twice for failure to register within 10 days of his 2016
birthday, which violated double jeopardy.
Reversed.
Megan Jacquot, Judge.
Mark Kimbrell, 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.
Timothy A. Sylwester, Assistant Attorney General,
argued the cause for respondent. Also on the brief were Ellen
F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, and Benjamin Gutman,
Solicitor General.
588 State v. Fry
Before Armstrong, Presiding Judge, and Tookey, Judge,
and Aoyagi, Judge.
AOYAGI, J.
Reversed.
Cite as 303 Or App 587 (2020) 589
AOYAGI, J.
Defendant was convicted of failure to report as a sex
offender, ORS 163A.040. On appeal of the judgment of con-
viction, he asserts that the trial court erred when it denied
his motion to dismiss, because the prosecution violated his
right against double jeopardy. For the reasons that follow,
we reverse.
Defendant is a sex offender and therefore subject
to certain registration requirements. One of those require-
ments is that he must register “[o]nce each year within
10 days of [his] birth date.” ORS 163A.010(3)(a)(C). Defen-
dant’s birthday is May 8.
On May 11, 2017, Oregon State Trooper Evans con-
ducted a traffic stop of a vehicle in which defendant was a
passenger. During the traffic stop, a records check revealed
that defendant had last registered as a sex offender nearly
three years earlier in May 2014. Defendant was arrested
and charged by information with failure to register. The
information alleged that defendant, “on or about May 11,
2017, * * * did unlawfully fail to make an annual report, as
required, to an appropriate agency or official within 10 days
of his birth date.” Defendant pleaded guilty to that charge in
Coos County Case No. 17CR31682, resulting in a conviction
in that case.
On July 27, 2017, Evans conducted another records
check and learned that defendant had not registered since
his arrest, such that his last registration date remained May
2014. Defendant was again arrested and charged by infor-
mation with failure to register. The information alleged that
defendant, “on or about July 27, 2017, * * * did unlawfully
fail to make an annual report, as required, to an appropri-
ate agency or official within 10 days of his birth date.”
Before trial, defendant moved to dismiss on statu-
tory and constitutional double-jeopardy grounds, asserting
that the second charge was based on the same conduct as
the first charge for which he had already been convicted, i.e.,
ongoing failure to report. See ORS 131.515(1) (“No person
shall be prosecuted twice for the same offense.”); Or Const,
Art I, § 12 (similar); US Const, Amend V (similar); see also
590 State v. Fry
State v. Taylor, 62 Or App 220, 225, 660 P2d 690 (1983) (in
enacting ORS 131.515, the legislature intended to adopt
constitutional double-jeopardy standards).
The state responded that “the two separate charges
do not amount to the same uninterrupted conduct” because
defendant’s May 11 arrest by Evans “was an intervening
act that bars any challenge to former jeopardy.” Similarly,
the state asserted at the hearing that, if there had been a
trial on the first charge, “it would have proceeded under
failing to register at * * * his birthday within a three-year
statute of limitations period, most likely 2016,” but that the
May 11 arrest was an “intervening” event that allowed a
second prosecution. The state compared the situation to
stopping someone on two different days for driving with-
out a license. The defense protested that, under the state’s
theory, it could charge him anew anytime there was a new
police contact, even to the point of arresting him multiple
times in the same day. The state rejoined that “there has to
be an intervening act” and that, in this case, “months had
gone by, where the trooper clearly was an intervening act.”
(Emphasis added.)
The trial court denied defendant’s motion to dis-
miss. It explained that there were “two separate incidents,”
one occurring in May 2017 and the other in July 2017.
Echoing the state’s written argument, the trial court stated
that the second incident was “separate and distinct” from
the first incident because it occurred on a different date, at
a different location, and under different circumstances. It
was “not a continuous and uninterrupted course of conduct,”
because defendant had contact with Evans “in May, had the
opportunity to become compliant, and, as of July, still was
not compliant.” In sum, the court explained, “clearly the
charges are the same, but they’re different dates, different
contacts, different circumstances,” and so two prosecutions
were permitted.
Defendant proceeded to a bench trial and was con-
victed. During sentencing, the parties revisited the double-
jeopardy issue in discussing merger. In that context, the
state commented on defendant’s argument about the state
being able to prosecute him “again and again and again.”
Cite as 303 Or App 587 (2020) 591
The state argued that it could not be correct that defen-
dant could only be prosecuted once per year, given the pub-
lic policy behind the law, which is public safety. The state
argued that the better view is that multiple prosecutions
are allowed as long as there are “intervening acts of officers
getting involved.”1 The trial court agreed with the state, rea-
soning that merger did not apply because “having the advice
from the officer that he needs to register and having him be
reminded that that needs to happen is sufficient pause for
him to be able to think about * * * his conduct and whether
he needs to get re-registered.” The court also agreed that
the state was not limited to prosecuting defendant once per
year, because that “would lead to an absurd result of not
being able to prosecute him again until his birthday, even if
he stayed out of compliance.”
On appeal, defendant challenges the trial court’s
denial of his motion to dismiss. Notably, on appeal, both
defendant and the state take a much different view of the
offense of failure to register than they did in the trial court.
In particular, both parties now recognize and agree that
failure to register is not a continuing offense but, rather,
an offense that occurs, as relevant here, at a single point
in time—on the 11th day after a sex offender’s birthday—
one time each year. See State v. Depeche, 242 Or App 155,
162-63, 255 P3d 502 (2011) (rejecting the state’s argument
that failure to register is an ongoing offense and stating that
the crime “occurred literally at midnight on the tenth day
after the defendant changed his residence”); see also State v.
Thompson, 251 Or App 595, 600, 284 P3d 559 (2012) (“[T]he
crime of failure to report as a sex offender is not an ongoing
crime[.]”). The state thus implicitly concedes that the con-
trary position that it took in the trial court was wrong—and
we agree.
1
The prosecutor continued, “And also, Your Honor, the State obviously would
not be prosecuting the Defendant every day. It would more along the lines be
when an officer makes contact with the Defendant * * *. If after speaking with
him, a significant amount of time goes by, and [the officer] reinitiates contact and
[defendant] still hasn’t registered at that time, the State believes that that is an
intervening act that does not make this the same contact and the same criminal
episode.” The state concluded by saying that it “just doesn’t seem to be what the
legislature intended of this crime” to make the state wait a year to prosecute him
again.
592 State v. Fry
The difficult question is whether the state’s and
the trial court’s shared misunderstanding of the failure-to-
register offense as a continuing offense that could be pros-
ecuted repeatedly as long as there were intervening police
contacts (as opposed to intervening birthdays) had the effect
of violating double jeopardy. With respect to defendant’s
conviction in Coos County Case No. 17CR31682, the parties
agree at this point that that prosecution was for failure to
register within 10 days of defendant’s 2016 birthday, given
that the charged date of the offense (May 12, 2017) was
prior to when his 2017 registration came due. The question
is what the second prosecution was for.
Defendant expressly recognizes that, if the second
prosecution was for defendant’s failure to register within 10
days of his 2017 birthday, there would be no double-jeopardy
issue. (The first prosecution would pertain to failure to regis-
ter within 10 days of his 2016 birthday, and the second pros-
ecution would pertain to failure to register within 10 days
of his 2017 birthday.) But defendant argues that, because
the state misunderstood the nature of the offense, the state
chose not to prosecute him on that theory and instead prose-
cuted him on the theory “that defendant could be prosecuted
twice for failing to report in 2016, so long as he was arrested
before finally reporting.” Thus, in defendant’s view, the state
took a single crime—failure to report within 10 days of his
2016 birthday—“divided it using Evans’ arrest of defendant,
and prosecuted defendant twice.”
The state responds on appeal that, because a new
reporting deadline had passed between the two arrests, we
should treat the second prosecution as being for failure to
register within 10 days of defendant’s 2017 birthday, even
though neither the prosecutor nor the trial court said any-
thing to suggest that they considered defendant’s 2017 birth-
day relevant to the double-jeopardy issue.2
We understand the state to essentially be arguing
that the trial court was right for the wrong reason when it
2
Indeed, in the trial court, when defendant expressly asserted that the state
was “clearly not making a strategic decision to try to charge for each consecutive
birthday,” the state did not disagree but reiterated its position that failure to
report was an ongoing course of conduct that, in this case, was divided into two
offenses by the intervening act of defendant’s arrest on May 11.
Cite as 303 Or App 587 (2020) 593
allowed the second prosecution to go forward. The substance
of the state’s argument is that, even if the trial court denied
the motion to dismiss based on a misunderstanding as to
when the offense of failure to register occurs, the trial court
was nonetheless correct to deny the motion, because the
charging information was phrased so as to leave open the
possibility of prosecuting defendant for failing to register
within 10 days of his 2017 birthday, and such a prosecution
would not violate double jeopardy.3
We may affirm a trial court ruling on an alterna-
tive basis that was not raised in the trial court when certain
conditions are met. Outdoor Media Dimensions Inc. v. State
of Oregon, 331 Or 634, 659-60, 20 P3d 180 (2001). However,
even when those conditions are met, affirming on an alter-
native basis that was not raised in the trial court “is a mat-
ter of prudential discretion and not compulsion.” Biggerstaff
v. Board of County Commissioners, 240 Or App 46, 56, 245
P3d 688 (2010).
In this case, upon review of the record, we agree
with defendant that the state’s sole prosecution theory was
that defendant could be tried twice for ongoing noncom-
pliance with his reporting obligation, because defendant’s
May 11 arrest constituted an “intervening event” that
allowed multiple prosecutions for what otherwise would
have been an ongoing course of conduct. As argued by the
state, the first offense began in 2016 or earlier and con-
tinued until May 11, 2017, and the second offense began
around May 12, 2017 and continued until the second arrest
on July 27, 2017. That is significant because defendant had
until May 18, 2017, to fulfill his obligation to report within
10 days of his 2017 birthday—which means that the second
prosecution necessarily encompassed defendant’s failure to
report in 2016. It was essentially a hybrid of failing to report
in 2016 and failing to report in 2017, joined together in a
single charge due to the state’s misconception of the nature
and timing of the offense.
3
In its briefing and at oral argument, the state characterizes its position
on appeal as somewhat akin to a “right for the wrong reason” argument but
as not quite fitting within that doctrine. In our view, that doctrine is the cor-
rect way to understand the state’s argument, even if it is a somewhat unusual
application.
594 State v. Fry
Had the state realized the error of its legal position
between the time of the motion-to-dismiss proceedings and
the time of trial and actually tried defendant on the theory
that he had failed to register within 10 days of his 2017 birth-
day, we would be more open to the state’s argument to affirm
on the alternative basis. Upon review of the trial transcript,
however, it is apparent that the prosecution theory did not
change at trial. In other words, defendant was actually tried
on the same mistaken theory that the state presented and
that the trial court adopted in the motion-to-dismiss pro-
ceedings. As such, even assuming that the Outdoor Media
Dimensions prerequisites to consider an alternative basis
to affirm are met, we would not exercise our discretion to
affirm the denial of the motion to dismiss on the alternative
basis posited by the state. Cf. State v. Burgess, 352 Or 499,
501, 506, 287 P3d 1093 (2012) (concluding that it would be
fundamentally unfair to the defendant to affirm his convic-
tion for first-degree assault based on there being sufficient
evidence to support a different theory of guilt than the one
on which he was actually tried, even if the indictment and
jury instructions did not necessarily preclude that alterna-
tive theory).
Accordingly, we conclude that the trial court erred
in denying defendant’s motion to dismiss. Although the
state could have prosecuted defendant for failing to regis-
ter within 10 days of his 2017 birthday—thus avoiding dou-
ble jeopardy—the state did not in fact do so, due to its mis-
conception of the nature and timing of the offense. Under
the unique circumstances of this case, the result was a
double-jeopardy violation. We therefore reverse defendant’s
conviction.
Reversed.