State v. Chemxananou ( 2022 )

636
Argued and submitted February 11, affirmed May 18, petition for review denied
October 6, 2022 (370 Or 303)
STATE OF OREGON,
Plaintiff-Respondent,
v.
ETHAN CHEMXANANOU,
Defendant-Appellant.
Multnomah County Circuit Court
19CR20299; A173966
510 P3d 954
Defendant appeals his conviction for four counts of criminal mistreatment in
the first degree, ORS 163.205, challenging the court’s refusal to give a witness-
false-in-part jury instruction and asserting that the court plainly erred by
omitting a culpable mental state with respect to the element of causing physical
injury. Held: As to the witness-false-in-part instruction, the error was harmless
because the jury’s verdict revealed that it necessarily believed that the witness
testimony was not false in part. As to the culpable mental state, the Oregon Court
of Appeals declined to exercise its discretion to correct any error because, once
again, the jury’s verdict indicated that any error was harmless. Instructing the
jury that defendant must have acted with criminal negligence that his conduct
would cause injury would not have impacted the verdict because it is implausible
that the jury, having found that defendant knowingly strangled, kicked, hit with
a plate, and punched his children, would then find that he was not at least negli-
gent with respect to the fact that they would be injured as a result.
Affirmed.
Kelly Skye, Judge.
Mark Kimbrell, Deputy Public Defender, argued the
cause for appellant. Also on the brief was Ernest G. Lannet,
Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate Section, Office of Public
Defense Services.
Michael A. Casper, Assistant Attorney General, argued
the cause for respondent. Also on the brief were Ellen F.
Rosenblum, Attorney General, and Benjamin Gutman,
Solicitor General.
Before James, Presiding Judge, and Egan, Judge, and
Kamins, Judge.
KAMINS, J.
Affirmed.
Cite as 319 Or App 636 (2022) 637
KAMINS, J.
Defendant appeals his conviction for four counts
of criminal mistreatment in the first degree, ORS 163.205.
Defendant challenges the court’s refusal to give a witness-
false-in-part jury instruction and asserts that the court
plainly erred by omitting a culpable mental state with
respect to the element of resulting physical injury.1 We
affirm.
Defendant and his wife, Applegate, lived with their
three children in Gresham for several years. A few years
after defendant moved out and began a new relationship, he
was charged in relation to four different instances of child
abuse. The first two concerned defendant’s then-13-year-old
son, K, and included kicking the child and squeezing his
throat until he lost consciousness. The other two incidents
involved his then-15-year-old daughter, N. In one, he hit N
with a dinner plate and in the other, he punched her in the
nose, causing a deviated septum.
Defendant altogether denied that he had kicked or
strangled K, or that he had hit N with a dinner plate. He did
not deny that he had hit N in the nose but claimed that it
was accidental. At the time of that incident, the police were
summoned, and defendant told them that he “smacked” N
but did not intend to hurt her. The defense theory of the case
was that the family—and particularly defendant’s ex-wife—
had manufactured the allegations in retaliation for his leav-
ing the family.
At trial, Applegate, N, and K, all testified. As to
the punching incident, N testified that it occurred after she
intervened to protect K, whom defendant had pushed to the
ground. After she intervened, defendant “came at [her] and
swung at her face” with a closed fist punch, breaking her
glasses and causing a deviated septum. N and Applegate tes-
tified that defendant punched N intentionally, but acknowl-
edged that on the day of the incident they told the police
otherwise. At trial, they explained that they were afraid
1
Defendant also assigns error to the jury instruction regarding jury una-
nimity, but, as defendant acknowledges, that challenge is foreclosed by State v.
Flores Ramos, 367 Or 292, 478 P3d 515 (2020).
638 State v. Chemxananou
that the police would take defendant and Applegate away
and put the children in foster care, so they told police it was
an accident. Due to that inconsistency, defendant requested
a witness-false-in-part instruction, which the court denied.
Defendant assigns error to that denial.
The “witness false in part” instruction provides “[t]hat
a witness false in one part of the testimony of the witness
may be distrusted in others[.]” ORS 10.095(3). That instruc-
tion is appropriate when “sufficient evidence exists for the
jury to decide that at least one witness consciously testi-
fied falsely and that the false testimony concerns a material
issue.” State v. Payne, 366 Or 588, 600, 468 P3d 445 (2020).
Given that there was evidence that the witnesses made
statements to police that directly contradicted their trial
testimony on a material issue, we agree with defendant that
the trial court erred in declining to give a witness-false-in-
part instruction.
We further conclude, however, that the trial court’s
error was harmless. See State v. Owen, 369 Or 288, 323, 505
P3d 953 (2022) (observing that an error is harmless if there
was “little likelihood that the error affected the verdict”
(citation omitted)). The witness-false-in-part instruction
informs jurors that, if they conclude that one part of a wit-
ness’s testimony is false, they may disbelieve the remainder
of that witness’s testimony. To trigger the second part of the
instruction, the jury necessarily must have concluded that a
witness was false in the first place. The jury’s verdict in this
case, however, reveals that it believed N and Applegate and
disbelieved defendant as it relates to the potentially false
testimony.
Specifically, N and Applegate testified that defen-
dant intentionally punched N, whereas defendant testified
that it was an accident—according to defendant, his hand
inadvertently swung into N’s face when he was trying to pull
away from Applegate. The jury resolved the dispute against
defendant when it found him guilty of criminal mistreat-
ment as to that event, determining that he “was aware of the
assaultive nature of his conduct.” To reach that conclusion,
the jury must have disregarded the inconsistent statements
to police—that the hit was accidental—and believed N and
Cite as 319 Or App 636 (2022) 639
Applegate’s trial testimony—that the hit was intentional. In
other words, the jury necessarily concluded that the witness
testimony was not false in part. Because the witness-false-
in-part instruction has no effect if the factfinder does not
first conclude that a witness testified falsely, the failure to
give the instruction was harmless. See State v. Labossiere,
307 Or App 560, 569, 477 P3d 1 (2020) (so concluding when
the jury’s verdict demonstrated that it did not find the wit-
ness to have testified falsely).
Defendant next assigns as plain error the jury
instruction describing the applicable culpable mental state.
As relevant here, a person commits first-degree criminal
mistreatment when they, “in violation of a legal duty to pro-
vide care for a dependent person[,] * * * knowingly: [c]ause[ ]
physical injury or injuries to the dependent person.” ORS
163.205(1)(b)(A). In accordance with then-binding case law,
the court instructed the jury that “when used in the phrase,
‘knowingly caused physical injury,’ ‘knowingly’ means that
the defendant acted with an awareness that his conduct
was assaultive in nature.” See State v. Barnes, 329 Or 327,
338, 986 P2d 1160 (1999) (analyzing the phrase “knowingly
causes serious physical injury” in the crime of second-degree
assault, ORS 163.175(1)(a)); State v. English, 269 Or App 395,
400, 343 P3d 1286 (2015) (applying the Barnes description of
knowingly to first-degree criminal mistreatment).
After the trial, the Oregon Supreme Court over-
ruled Barnes and held that the result element in the crime
of assault carries a culpable mental state of at least crimi-
nal negligence, such that it is error not to instruct the jury
that a defendant must act with a culpable mental state as
to the element of causing physical injury. Owen, 369 Or at
322. The same day, the Supreme Court also reversed as
plain error two assault cases in which the trial courts had
used the Barnes description of “knowingly causes physi-
cal injury.” State v. McKinney/Shiffer, 369 Or 325, 505 P3d
946 (2022). Defendant argues that the same logic applies to
criminal mistreatment, such that the jury should also have
been instructed to consider whether defendant was crimi-
nally negligent with respect to his actions resulting in phys-
ical injury.
640 State v. Chemxananou
Assuming that the trial court committed plain
error, we must determine whether to exercise our discre-
tion to correct it. See Ailes v. Portland Meadows, Inc., 312
Or 376, 382 n 6, 823 P2d 956 (1991) (discussing factors to
consider in deciding to exercise discretion). We decline to
exercise our discretion to correct any error here because,
once again, the jury’s verdict indicates that any error was
harmless. See State v. Ross, 271 Or App 1, 7, 349 P3d 620
(2015) (declining to exercise Ailes discretion because error
was likely harmless).
Instructing the jury that defendant must have acted
with criminal negligence that his conduct would cause injury
would not have impacted the verdict. Criminal negligence
requires that defendant “fail[ed] to be aware of a substantial
and unjustifiable risk” such that the “failure to be aware of
it constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care
that a reasonable person would observe in the situation.”
ORS 161.085(10). The jury found that defendant, with an
awareness that his conduct was assaultive in nature, stran-
gled and kicked K, hit the back of N’s head with a plate, and
punched N in the face. It is implausible that the jury, having
found that defendant knowingly took those actions, would
then find that he was not at least negligent with respect
to the fact that the children could be injured as a result.
Because there is little likelihood that the jury could find
otherwise, we decline to exercise our discretion. See Owen,
369 Or at 324 (concluding that the error was harmless when
the jury found that defendant was aware that his conduct
was assaultive and that the weapons that he used were
readily capable of causing serious physical injury); see also
State v. Longjaw, 318 Or App 487, 497, 508 P3d 27 (2022)
(declining to exercise discretion to correct plain error when
there was “no plausible way that the jury’s guilty verdict
was influenced by” the error).
Affirmed.