STATE OF OREGON, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. CHRISTOPHER THOMAS FULLER, Defendant-Appellant.
Yamhill County Circuit Court 18CR25617, 18CR41611; A168630 (Control), A168631
Oregon Court of Appeals
March 18, 2020
303 Or App 47; 463 P3d 605
Ladd J. Wiles, Judge.
Argued and submitted February 11; reversed in A168630, affirmed in A168631
Reversed in A168630; affirmed in A168631.
Anna Belais, Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant. Also on the brief was Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate Section, Office of Public Defense Services.
Robert M. Wilsey, Assistant Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent. Also on the brief were Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, and Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General.
Before Lagesen, Presiding Judge, and Powers, Judge, and Hadlock, Judge pro tempore.
LAGESEN, P. J.
Reversed in A168630; affirmed in A168631.
In this consolidated appeal,1 defendant challenges his judgment of conviction for the unauthorized use of a vehicle (UUV) in violation of
We review the denial of a motion for a judgment of acquittal “by examining the evidence in the light most favorable to the state to determine whether a rational trier of fact, accepting reasonable inferences and reasonable credibility choices, could have found the essential element[s] of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” State v. Cunningham, 320 Or 47, 63, 880 P2d 431 (1994), cert den, 514 US 1005 (1995).
We state the facts, which are not complex, in light of our standard of review. Defendant was down on his luck and had nowhere to live. His younger half-sister had recently purchased a 1998 Honda Civic and gave defendant permission to live in it. At the time, she was not yet using the car because she did not yet have her license. She did not initially tell him that he could not drive it, but, when he asked, she told him no; she “just allowed him to put his stuff in there and sleep in there.” Defendant drove the car anyway.
For that conduct, the state charged defendant with UUV in violation of
At trial, following the state‘s case, defendant moved for a judgment of acquittal “on the issue of to take, operate, ride in or control.” Pointing out that defendant‘s half-sister “gave him the authority to live in it, to be in it, to control it,” defendant argued that there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction, noting that “there‘s no sufficient evidence to indicate that he did anything other than what the scope of what you (inaudible) permission to do.” The trial court denied the motion, ruling that “the evidence is *** sufficient to go to the jury on unauthorized taking, operating or riding in.” The court observed that “[e]xercising control of the interior while it was in a particular location is different from the rest of the evidence here.” The jury found defendant guilty as charged.
On appeal, defendant argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion for judgment of acquittal in view of our conclusion in Civil that
As an initial matter, although neither party raises the point, we consider whether defendant preserved the issue he is raising on appeal. On the one hand, defendant‘s arguments to the trial court in support of his motion were brief, unclear, and did not cite the court to Civil, although it had been decided by the time of defendant‘s trial. On the other hand, defendant‘s arguments put at issue (in a shorthand way) whether there was sufficient evidence that he engaged in the type of unauthorized taking, operating, riding in, or
Those latter circumstances persuade us that the issue before us—the sufficiency of the evidence to support a finding that defendant engaged in an unauthorized use of his half-sister‘s vehicle within the meaning of
As for the merits, in view of Civil, the trial court should have granted defendant‘s motion for judgment of acquittal. Civil holds that
Reversed in A168630; affirmed in A168631.
LAGESEN, P. J.