- Court: Oregon Court of Appeals
- Area(s) of Law: Criminal Law
- Date Filed: 02-16-2022
- Case #: A174133
- Judge(s)/Court Below: Tookey, P.J. for the Court; Aoyagi, J.; & Armstrong, S.J.
- Full Text Opinion
A unanimous jury convicted Defendant of two counts of second-degree robbery, two counts of menacing, and one count of unlawful use of a vehicle. Defendant argues that his conviction was unlawful because the court instructed the jury they could rule non-unanimously. The state argued the instruction was harmless because the verdict was unanimous. The Court contemplated if the instructional error affected the verdict. The fact that the verdict was unanimous provides assurance in and of itself that no juror was ignored, and all jurors’ reasonable doubts were resolved. The erroneous instruction would have only made a difference if the jury was not unanimous. Defendant does not persuasively explain how the jury instruction for a unanimous jury would have changed the outcome. The Court ruled the error was harmless. Affirmed.