State v. J. R. S. ( 2022 )

494
This is a nonprecedential memorandum opinion
pursuant to ORAP 10.30 and may not be cited
except as provided in ORAP 10.30(1).
Submitted December 5, affirmed December 29, 2022
In the Matter of J. R. S.,
a Person Alleged to have Mental Illness.
STATE OF OREGON,
Respondent,
v.
J. R. S.,
Appellant.
Lane County Circuit Court
21CC07277; A177745
Charles M. Zennaché, Judge.
Joseph R. DeBin and Multnomah Defenders, Inc., filed
the brief for appellant.
Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman,
Solicitor General, and Shannon T. Reel, Assistant Attorney
General, filed the brief for respondent.
Before Tookey, Presiding Judge, and Egan, Judge, and
Kamins, Judge.
TOOKEY, P. J.
Affirmed.
Nonprecedential Memo Op: 323 Or App 494 (2022) 495
TOOKEY, P. J.
Appellant seeks reversal of a judgment committing
her involuntarily to Oregon Health Authority for up to 180
days. The trial court entered that judgment after it deter-
mined that appellant has a mental disorder that makes her
dangerous to others. On appeal, appellant does not chal-
lenge the trial court’s determination that she has a mental
disorder; rather, in a single assignment of error, appellant
argues that the evidence in the record is legally insufficient
to show that her mental disorder makes her dangerous to
others. We affirm.
Neither party has requested that we review this
matter de novo, nor do we conclude that this is an “excep-
tional” case that warrants doing so; therefore, we review the
trial court’s determination for legal error, and we “view the
evidence, as supplemented and buttressed by permissible
derivative inferences, in the light most favorable to the trial
court’s disposition and assess whether, when so viewed, the
record was legally sufficient to permit that outcome.” State
v. D. L., 317 Or App 763, 764, 505 P3d 1101 (2022).
Reviewing under that standard, we conclude that
the evidence is legally sufficient to establish that appellant
is dangerous to others. “To establish that a person is dan-
gerous to others, for purposes of civil commitment, the evi-
dence must be sufficient to establish by clear and convincing
evidence that actual future violence is highly likely.” State
v. S. R. J., 281 Or App 741, 754, 386 P3d 99 (2016) (inter-
nal quotation marks omitted); see also State v. S. E., 313
Or App 678, 682, 496 P3d 1140 (2021) (“[A] person is dan-
gerous to others if her mental disorder makes her highly
likely to engage in future violence toward others, absent
commitment.” (Brackets and internal quotation marks omit-
ted.)). “Frequently, we have found that multiple violent acts
or a violent act coupled with additional threats will demon-
strate that a person is highly likely to engage in future vio-
lence,” D. L., 317 Or App at 766; however, a trial court is
“not required to wait until appellant actually harm[s] some-
one before finding her to be dangerous to others,” S. E., 313
Or App at 683-84 (brackets and internal quotation marks
omitted).
496 State v. J. R. S.
Here, the evidence adduced in the trial court
shows that, over the course of a roughly two-and-one-half-
week period preceding the commitment hearing, appel-
lant attempted to physically assault her boyfriend, a police
officer, a crisis intervention worker, and two doctors; suc-
ceeded in physically assaulting her mother, a grocery store
employee, and a hospital staffer; and verbally threatened to
assault several nurses and hospital technicians. Appellant
was physically assaultive toward hospital staff six or seven
days before the hearing and was verbally assaultive toward
hospital staff two days before the hearing. Further, a psy-
chiatrist testified that appellant has refused to take some of
the psychiatric medicines prescribed to her; that appellant’s
refusal to take those medicines is detrimental to appel-
lant’s treatment; that the symptoms of appellant’s mental
disorder—including disorganized speech, behavior, and
thought processes—have not resolved yet; and that, due
to appellant’s “impulsivity” and how quickly appellant
becomes “agitated and threatening,” she is concerned about
“how things are going to go if [appellant] is outside of the
hospital with people that are not trained to handle * * * that
level of agitation.” We conclude that, in sum, that evidence is
legally sufficient to support the trial court’s determination
that appellant was a danger to others.
Affirmed.