Mandell v. Miller

To obtain relief, petitioners must establish that there was a “substantial denial” of their constitutional rights in the proceedings that resulted in their conviction. ORS 138.530(1)(a).

Mandell was convicted by jury trial for two counts of sexual abuse, with a record silent as to jury unanimity. Following the decision in Ramos v. Louisiana, Mandell filed for relief based on his claim that he was convicted by a non-unanimous jury. 590 US ___, 140 S Ct 1390, 206 L Ed 2d 583 (2020). Mandell assigned error to the denial of his claim and alleged that because statistical data indicated two thirds of jury trials between 2001 and 2018 included at least one nonunanimous jury verdict, his convictions were more likely than not to have been nonunanimous. The State contended a non-particularized assertion had little bearing on the unanimity of Mandell’s specific, multiple convictions. To obtain relief, petitioners must establish that there was a “substantial denial” of their constitutional rights in the proceedings that resulted in their conviction. ORS 138.530(1)(a). The Court held that “[g]eneral statistical information about the criminal justice system as a whole does not establish what happened in [Mandell’s] particular case.” See McDonnell v. Premo, 309 Or App 173, 187 (2021), rev den, 369 Or 507 (2022). Mandell failed to show a Ramos violation impacted his convictions because the record contained no information as to the unanimity of Mandell’s jury verdicts. Compare State v. Ulery, 366 Or 500, 502 (2020) (reversing nonunanimous verdicts), with State v. Flores Ramos, 367 Or 292, 333 (2020) (affirming unanimous verdict because of harmless error). Affirmed.