State v. Huddleston

Under ORS 161.485(2), in order for convictions for inchoate offenses to merge, a defendant’s actions must constitute a single course of conduct aimed at the commission of the same crime.

At trial, a jury convicted defendant of two counts of attempted aggravated murder, ORS 163.095, and one count of intentional murder, ORS 163.115(1)(a). On appeal, defendant raised two assignments of error, which both present the same issue of whether the trial court erred in failing to merge the convictions for attempted aggravated murder with the conviction for intentional murder. Defendant argued that, under ORS 161.485(2), he cannot be convicted of more than one count of attempted aggravated murder. The Court of Appeals held that the trial court did not err in declining to merge defendant’s two convictions for attempted aggravated murder under ORS 161.485(2), because defendant engaged in separate and distinct criminal acts when he solicited two individuals several weeks apart to kill the victim, resulting in multiple commissions of the same inchoate offense. Affirmed.