State v. Arriaga-Mendoza ( 2021 )

667
Submitted November 24, 2020, affirmed December 29, 2021, petition for review
denied May 19, 2022 (369 Or 733)
STATE OF OREGON,
Plaintiff-Respondent,
v.
FELIPE ARRIAGA-MENDOZA,
Defendant-Appellant.
Multnomah County Circuit Court
17CR09184; A171056
504 P3d 703
Defendant seeks reversal of his conviction for misdemeanor driving while
suspended (DWS), ORS 811.182. Defendant asserts two assignments of error.
First, that the trial court erred in denying his motion for judgment of acquittal
because the specific date of driving is a material element of DWS, and the state
alleged he drove while suspended on January 24, 2017, in the information, but
proved at trial that he drove on a date one month earlier. Second, he argues that
the trial court erred in admitting into evidence a prior unredacted judgment of
conviction that was mostly irrelevant and prejudicial. Held: The second assign-
ment of error was unpreserved as defendant did not raise issues of prior bad acts
or prejudice to the trial court, so the Court of Appeals rejected that assignment.
As to the first assignment, the specific date of the offense is not a material ele-
ment in DWS because the statute defines the relevant point in time as a period of
time during which the defendant’s license is suspended or revoked. Both the date
alleged in the information and the date at trial were during the relevant time
period in which defendant’s license was revoked.
Affirmed.
Leslie M. Roberts, Judge.
Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate
Section, and Brett J. Allin, Deputy Public Defender, Office
of Public Defense Services, filed the brief for appellant.
Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman,
Solicitor General, and Colm Moore, Assistant Attorney
General, filed the brief for respondent.
Before DeVore, Presiding Judge, and DeHoog, Judge, and
Mooney, Judge.
MOONEY, J.
Affirmed.
668 State v. Arriaga-Mendoza
MOONEY, J.
In this criminal appeal, defendant seeks reversal
of his conviction for misdemeanor driving while suspended
(DWS), ORS 811.182. For the reasons that follow, we
affirm.
We begin with defendant’s second assignment, which
we reject with this brief explanation. Defendant assigns
error to the trial court’s admission into evidence of a prior
unredacted judgment of conviction. Specifically, defendant
argues that the judgment contained only one relevant piece
of information—the imposition of a license suspension—
and that the remainder of the judgment was irrelevant
and “unfairly portrayed him as a bad person.” The state
contends that that assignment is not preserved because
defendant did not raise it in the trial court. According to
the state, defendant objected to the judgment of conviction
solely on relevance grounds, arguing that it was not proba-
tive of whether he was driving while suspended as alleged
in the information. We agree that defendant did not raise
the issues of prior bad acts or prejudice in the trial court.
The issues are unpreserved, and defendant does not request
plain error review. We, thus, reject defendant’s second assign-
ment of error.
Turning next to defendant’s first assignment, which
he did preserve, defendant assigns error to the trial court’s
denial of his motion for judgment of acquittal (MJOA). He
argues that the specific date of driving is a material element
of DWS and that, because the state alleged that defendant
drove while suspended on one date but proved at trial that he
drove on a date one month earlier than alleged, it constituted
a “material variance” requiring acquittal. The state count-
ers that the date of driving is not a material element of DWS
because the DWS statute makes it a crime “to drive when
driving privileges are suspended or revoked[.]”1 According
to the state, it is the “time period of the suspension” that is
1
ORS 811.182 provides, as pertinent here:
“(1) A person commits the offense of criminal driving while suspended or
revoked if the person violates ORS 811.175 and the suspension or revocation
is one described in this section[.]
“* * * * *
Cite as 316 Or App 667 (2021) 669
relevant to whether defendant committed the crime of DWS
rather than the “specific date during the period of suspen-
sion” when defendant drove.
We review the denial of an MJOA to determine
“whether, after viewing the facts in the light most favor-
able to the state, a rational trier of fact could have found the
essential elements of the crime proved beyond a reasonable
doubt.” State v. Rennells, 213 Or App 423, 425, 162 P3d 1006
(2007). Whether an element is material is a legal question.
See State v. Newman, 179 Or App 1, 9-11, 39 P3d 874 (2002)
(applying standard). Whether a variance between the state’s
pleading and proof is permissible is also a legal question.
State v. Samuel, 289 Or App 618, 626-27, 410 P3d 275 (2017).
The state’s charging instrument alleged that
“[d]efendant, * * * on or about January 24, 2017, * * * did
unlawfully and criminally drive a motor vehicle upon a
highway and premises open to the public, during a period
when defendant’s driving privileges * * * were suspended
and revoked in this state by a court and by the Department
of Transportation[.]”
The case was tried to the court. The state offered evidence
that defendant drove on December 22, 2016, while his license
was suspended, rather than on January 24, 2017, as alleged
in the information. Defendant moved for judgment of acquit-
tal, arguing that the state had failed to meet its burden to
prove that he drove while suspended on January 24, 2017.
The court denied his motion and found him guilty of DWS.
“(4) The offense described in this section, criminal driving while sus-
pended or revoked, is a Class A misdemeanor if the suspension or revocation
is any of the following:
“* * * * *
“(g) A suspension resulting from any crime punishable as a felony with
proof of a material element involving the operation of a motor vehicle, other
than a crime described in subsection (3) of this section.”
ORS 811.175 provides, as pertinent here:
“(1) A person commits the offense of violation driving while suspended or
revoked if the person does any of the following:
“(a) Drives a motor vehicle upon a highway during a period when the
person’s driving privileges or right to apply for driving privileges have
been suspended or revoked in this state by a court or by the Department of
Transportation.”
670 State v. Arriaga-Mendoza
A charging instrument need not include the precise
time that a crime was committed unless “time is a mate-
rial element of the offense.” ORS 135.717.2 When time is a
material element of the charged crime, then ORS 135.717
requires the state to plead the time of commission which
must, in turn, be proved at the time of trial, along with all
other material elements. Whether the date of the offense
is a material element of the offense generally depends on
whether the act charged is a crime if committed on the date
alleged but not a crime if committed on another date. State v.
Tidyman, 54 Or App 640, 651, 635 P2d 1355 (1981), rev den,
292 Or 722 (1982).
The key statutory prohibition here applies to driv-
ing “during a period when the person’s driving privileges or
right to apply for driving privileges have been suspended
or revoked[.]” ORS 811.182(1); ORS 811.175(1)(a). There is
no question that timing is key to whether defendant vio-
lated the DWS statutes. But the statute defines the relevant
point in time as a period of time during which the defen-
dant’s license is suspended or revoked. ORS 811.175(1)(a).
To be sure, the act charged would be a crime if commit-
ted on a date within the period of suspension or revocation
and it would not be a crime if committed on a date outside
that period. But the statute does not make the specific
date of the offense a material element of the crime. Here,
the state alleged that defendant drove while suspended on
January 24, 2017. It offered evidence that he drove while
suspended on December 22, 2016. Both dates fell within the
period of suspension.
Defendant argues further that the variance between
what was alleged and what was proved requires reversal
because it deprived him of the notice needed to prepare
a defense. A variance is impermissible if it (1) concerns a
material element or (2) prejudices the defendant. Samuel,
289 Or App at 627. Whether a variance is material depends
2
ORS 135.717 provides that
“[t]he precise time at which the offense was committed need not be stated
in the accusatory instrument, but it may be alleged to have been committed
at any time before the finding thereof and within the time in which an action
may be commenced therefor, except where the time is a material element in
the offense.”
Cite as 316 Or App 667 (2021) 671
on whether the charging instrument states an offense with-
out the allegation from which the state varied in its presen-
tation of evidence at trial. State v. Stavenjord, 290 Or App
669, 672, 415 P3d 1143 (2018). Here, if the date is removed
from the information, it would allege that defendant “did
unlawfully and criminally drive a motor vehicle upon a
highway and premises open to the public, during a period
when defendant’s driving privileges * * * were suspended
* * * in this state[.]” Thus, the variance is not material.
Defendant’s reliance on Newman, 179 Or App at 9,
in support of his argument that the variance concerned a
material element, does not assist him. In that case, the state
had alleged that the defendant’s license had been suspended
by the Department of Motor Vehicles, but it proved that
his license had been suspended by the Deschutes County
District Court instead. Id. at 10. That variance was mate-
rial because the statute required proof that driving priv-
ileges were suspended in this state, the allegation in the
indictment served to allege that material element, the state
had not otherwise alleged in the indictment that the crime
occurred in this state and, therefore, the court could not
sever the allegation of the entity that imposed the suspen-
sion from the charging instrument. Id. at 10-11. Here, the
charging instrument alleges that defendant drove during a
period of time when his license had been suspended. The
date could have been severed from the charging instrument
and it would still have alleged the material element of time:
during a period of suspension.
Affirmed.