State v. Ramirez, 483 P.3d 1232

Defendant was convicted of third-degree sexual abuse and had probation revoked; conviction followed a jury trial.
The complaining witness (T) initially spoke to Officer Pahlke and later to Officer Walters; her statements to Walters matched her trial testimony that the encounter was nonconsensual and continuous.
Defense theory: the encounter began consensually; defendant stopped when T first told him to stop, and T later changed her account after dissatisfaction with the first officer.
On cross-exam, defense elicited that T’s statements to Pahlke differed about when she first told defendant to stop; defense sought to call Pahlke to impeach T with that prior inconsistent statement.
Trial court excluded Pahlke’s testimony as inadmissible hearsay because the prior statement was not under oath and therefore not a qualifying prior inconsistent statement; state conceded error on appeal.
Court of Appeals accepted the concession, held the offer of proof was sufficient, found the exclusion was not harmless because the inconsistency went to a core issue (consent/timing), and reversed and remanded.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether extrinsic evidence of a witness’s prior inconsistent statement (testimony from the first officer) is admissible for impeachment under OEC 613	State: Trial court properly excluded Pahlke’s testimony as hearsay because prior statement was not under oath and thus not a qualifying prior inconsistent statement	Ramirez: The testimony was admissible impeachment evidence under OEC 613 (not offered for truth but to impeach); the trial court erred in excluding it	Court: Excluding the testimony was error—prior inconsistent statements may be used to impeach and are not hearsay for that purpose; OEC 613 governs admissibility
Whether the exclusion warranted reversal (offer of proof sufficiency and harmless-error)	State: Even if error, reversal unnecessary because (1) defendant’s offer of proof was insufficient, or (2) any error was harmless/de minimis	Ramirez: Offer of proof adequately described the excluded testimony and the inconsistency; exclusion was prejudicial because it undermined a central element of defense (consent/timing)	Court: Offer of proof was sufficient; error was not harmless because the excluded inconsistency went to a core issue and could have affected the jury’s verdict; reversed and remanded

State v. Guzek, 336 Or 424 (2004) (confronting a witness with prior inconsistent statements is impeachment, not hearsay)
State v. Phillips, 314 Or 460 (1992) (offer of proof standards and admissibility principles)
State v. Wright, 323 Or 8 (1996) (what an offer of proof must accomplish for trial judge and appellate review)
State v. Davis, 336 Or 19 (2003) (harmless-error standard for evidentiary rulings)
State v. Shearer, 101 Or App 543 (1990) (definition of material variance for prior inconsistent statements)
Rigelman v. Gilligan, 265 Or 109 (1973) (material variance test for inconsistency)
State v. Hren, 237 Or App 605 (2010) (consider role of excluded evidence in proponent’s theory when assessing harmlessness)