State v. Flores Ramos, 367 Or. 292

Defendant Isidro Flores Ramos was tried for multiple felonies (including first-degree unlawful sexual penetration, first-degree sexual abuse, attempted first-degree rape, first-degree burglary, and coercion) after assaulting a child.
Trial court denied defendant’s pretrial request for a unanimity instruction and instead instructed the jury that 10 of 12 jurors could convict.
Jury returned guilty verdicts on five counts; polling showed four counts were unanimous and one (attempted first-degree rape) was 10–2.
Defendant preserved objections to the nonunanimity instruction and appealed; the Court of Appeals affirmed; Oregon Supreme Court held the case for Ramos and then reviewed it.
Oregon Supreme Court: the nonunanimity instruction violated the Sixth Amendment under Ramos; the single 10–2 conviction was reversed; the court held the erroneous instruction was not structural and was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt as to the unanimous convictions; case remanded for further proceedings.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (State)	Defendant's Argument (Flores Ramos)	Held
Whether instructing the jury that it could convict by 10–2 violated the Sixth Amendment	Instruction was erroneous but harmless if jury actually reached unanimity on a count	Instruction violated the Sixth Amendment whenever given and requires reversal of all convictions	Instruction violated the Sixth Amendment under Ramos; nonunanimous conviction must be reversed
Whether the instructional error is a structural error requiring automatic reversal	Not structural; the error’s effects are measurable and subject to harmless-error review	Structural: undermines reasonable-doubt protection, deliberation, and public confidence	Not structural; error is subject to Chapman harmless-error analysis
Whether the erroneous instruction was harmless as to counts where the jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts	A unanimous jury poll shows the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt	Erroneous instruction could have affected deliberations and individual juror responsibility; unanimity poll is insufficient	Harmless beyond a reasonable doubt as to the four unanimous convictions; those convictions are affirmed
Remedy for the mixed verdicts (one nonunanimous, others unanimous)	Reverse only the nonunanimous conviction; leave unanimous convictions intact	Reverse all convictions because instruction contaminated entire trial	Reversed the single 10–2 conviction; affirmed the unanimous convictions; remand for further proceedings

Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U.S. _ (held Sixth Amendment requires jury unanimity for serious offenses)
State v. Ulery, 366 Or. 500 (Or. 2020) (applied Ramos to reverse Oregon nonunanimous convictions)
Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1 (1999) (harmless-error framework for omitted elements)
Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275 (1993) (failure to instruct beyond a reasonable doubt is structural)
Johnson v. Louisiana, 406 U.S. 356 (1972) (disagreement among jurors does not alone establish reasonable doubt)
Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18 (1967) (constitutional error may be affirmed only if harmless beyond a reasonable doubt)
Fulminante v. Arizona, 499 U.S. 279 (1991) (admission of coerced confession subject to harmless-error review)
Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123 (1968) (admission of codefendant confession may be inherently prejudicial but is reviewed for harmlessness)
Romano v. Oklahoma, 512 U.S. 1 (1994) (presumption jurors follow instructions; speculative harms insufficient for reversal)
Yates v. Evatt, 500 U.S. 391 (1991) (harmless-error analysis assumes jury considered all evidence unless instructions foreclosed that)