- Court: Oregon Court of Appeals
- Area(s) of Law: Appellate Procedure
- Date Filed: 02-26-2020
- Case #: A167612
- Judge(s)/Court Below: Aoyagi, J. for the Court; Armstrong, P.J.; & Tookey, J.
- Full Text Opinion
Defendant appealed convictions of False Application for Vehicle Registration and False Statement on Title or Transfer of Vehicle. On appeal, Defendant argued the trial court erred when it allowed the prosecution to waive its initial closing argument and did not prohibit their rebuttal or allow Defendant surrebuttal. Defendant asserted that while the court has discretion in handling closing arguments, it abused that discretion when relying on ORCP 58 B(6) to conclude the State’s right to rebuttal and last word, even when waiving its initial closing, because ORS 136.330 makes that rule applicable only to jury trials not bench trials. In response, the State argued Defendant’s error is unpreserved and not plain. Plain-error review has three requirements: (1) the error was one of law; (2) the error was apparent and not reasonably in dispute; and (3) the error appeared on the record. State v. Coverstone, 260 Or App 714, 715, 320 P3d 670 (2014). The Court found that Defendant did not preserve the error because he made a different argument on appeal and did not give the State nor Court the adequate opportunity to address and consider it. The Court held that it was not apparent ORCP 58 B(6) only applied to jury trials nor that the trial court’s ruling actually relied upon it. Thus, the Court held that the error was not plain. Affirmed.