State v. LeeState v. Lee
Reversed and remanded.
R. Curtis Conover, Judge.
Kyle Krohn, Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant. With him on the brief was Peter Gartlan, Chief Defender, Office of Public Defense Services.
Tiffany Keast, Assistant Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent. With her on the brief were Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, and Anna M. Joyce, Solicitor General.
DUNCAN, P. J.
Reversed and remanded.
In this criminal case, defendant appeals the trial court’s judgment convicting him of one count of criminal mischief in the third degree as defined by
To frame the legal issue before us, we begin with a brief statement of the facts and the procedural history of the case. The state charged defendant with third-degree criminal mischief for violating
“A person commits the crime of criminal mischief in the third degree if, with intent to cause substantial inconvenience to the owner or to another person, and having no right to do so nor reasonable ground to believe that the person has such right, the person tampers or interferes with property of another.”
Under
When discussing jury instructions at trial, the parties disputed the meaning of “tamper.” Relying on State v. Schoen, 348 Or 207, 228 P3d 1207 (2010), the state asked the trial court to instruct the jury that “tampering is defined as conduct that alters, rearranges, or changes property.” Also relying on Schoen, defendant objected, arguing that the state’s instruction was incomplete because “some kind of adverse effect on the property or its use must be shown.” As mentioned, the trial court instructed the jury by stating, “[t]amper requires conduct that alters, rearranges, or changes property.” The court’s instruction is a quote from Schoen, in which, as discussed below, the Supreme Court held that “tamper” requires an effect on property or its use, but did not have occasion to address, and did not address, whether the effect must be adverse. Defendant took exception to the instruction on the ground that it did not include any language to indicate that the required alteration, rearrangement, or change must have an adverse effect on the property or its use.1
A jury found defendant guilty, and this appeal followed. On appeal, the parties renew their arguments regarding the meaning of “tamper” and the implications of Schoen.
Whether a jury instruction is a correct statement of law is a question of law. State v. Brown, 310 Or 347, 355, 800 P2d 259 (1990). When, as here, the correctness of an instruction depends on the interpretation of a statutory term, we employ the interpretive method prescribed by PGE v. Bureau of Labor and Industries, 317 Or 606, 610-12, 859 P2d 1143 (1993), and State v. Gaines, 346 Or 160, 171-72, 206 P3d 1042 (2009), to determine the legislature’s intended meaning of the term. We look to the text and context of the statute, as well as any pertinent legislative history. Gaines, 346 Or at 171-72. The Supreme Court undertook such an analysis of the term “tamper,” as used in
On review, the question before the Supreme Court was “whether a reasonable jury could find that the defendant ‘tamper[ed] * ** with property of another,’ as that phrase is used in
First, the Schoen court noted that the criminal code does not define “tamper” for the purposes of
Notably, the Schoen court considered and rejected the state’s argument that the legislature intended the term “tamper” to cover all conduct that a person engages in with respect to another’s property that is performed with an intent to cause substantial inconvenience to the owner of the property. Id. at 215. The court explained that
“[t]he legislature set out a specific mens rea in
ORS 164.345(1) —the intent to cause substantial inconvenience. But the statute does not simply criminalize all acts done with that intent. Rather, it also sets out a specific actus reus for third-degree criminal mischief: ‘tamper[ing] or interfer[ing] with property or another.’”
Id. Referring back to its review of the text, context, and legislative history of
To illustrate the meaning of “tampering,” the Schoen court discussed several hypothetical examples. Id. at 216. The court stated:
“Throwing a switch on a train track that could change the path of a train or opening a gate that blocks access on a forest service road is conduct that alters, rearranges, or changes property, and constitutes ‘tampering’ with property. If done with the intent to cause substantial inconvenience, it constitutes third-degree criminal mischief. Similarly, mixing up library books and reshelving them out of order is an alteration and rearrangement of property and constitutes ‘tampering with property.’”
Of particular relevance to the case before us, the Schoen court explained that
“[w]hat constitutes tampering with property for the purposes of
ORS 164.345(1) may depend on the nature of the property: merely entering a ‘clean room’ at a manufacturing facility for silicon wafers or touching a valuable painting with one’s finger might constitute tampering, while the same conduct with respect to other property would not.”
Id. The hypothetical examples discussed by the Schoen court suggest that, in order for conduct to constitute “tampering” for the purposes of
The Schoen court then applied its rule—“that the word ‘tampering,’ as used in
Given the issue before it, the Schoen court held only that, in order for conduct to constitute “tampering” for the purposes of the third-degree criminal mischief statute, it must have an effect on the property or its use, i.e., “Some showing *** of an appreciable physical change or rearrangement of property.” Id. The court was not presented with the issue in this case, which is whether the effect must be adverse. However, the Schoen court’s analysis of the text, context, and legislative history of the statute leads us to the conclusion that, as defendant argues, the effect must be adverse.
As described above, the applicable dictionary definition of “tamper” is “to interfere so as to weaken or change for the worse.” Webster’s at 2336 (emphasis added). And “tamper” is a synonym for “meddle,” the definition of which specifies that “TAMPER suggests unwarranted alteration or change, ill-advised readjustment, meddlesome experimentation, or improper influence.” Webster’s at 1401 (emphasis added). Thus, the definition of “tamper,” the fact that it is synonymous with “meddle,” and the fact that the definition of “meddle” specifies that tampering has a negative aspect to it, all indicate that tampering requires an adverse effect. The action itself, separate from the mental state accompanying it, must be improper; it must have an adverse effect on either the property itself or its use. See Schoen, 348 Or at 215 (
Our conclusion is supported by the Schoen court’s discussion of hypothetical examples of third-degree criminal mischief. As set out above, the court observed “mixing up library books and reshelving them out of order is an alteration and rearrangement of property and constitutes ‘tampering’ with property.” Id. at 216 (emphasis added). Notably, in that example, the court described an act that has an adverse effect on the library’s collection of books. If, as the state suggests, tampering does not require an adverse effect on property or its use, then, as defendant argues “sorting library books and reshelving them in order would also
Like rearranging library books out of order, both throwing a train switch and opening a gate that blocks access to forest property involve changes to property that adversely affect its use. They involve moving property from a position where it would serve a particular purpose to a different position that adversely affects its ability to achieve that purpose.
In addition, the court observed that whether conduct constitutes tampering depends on the nature of the property; thus, an action that has an effect on property may not constitute tampering if the effect cannot be said to be adverse. For example, entering a room (and thereby introducing dust) may constitute tampering if the room is a “clean room” at a silicon wafer manufacturing facility, but not if the room is the public lobby of the same facility.
In sum, in keeping with the text, context, and legislative history of the term tampering, and the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the term in Schoen, we conclude that, for the purposes of
Having concluded that the trial court erred in instructing the jury, we turn to the question of whether the error was harmless.
The erroneous instruction in this case misinformed the jury about an element of the charged crime and the misinformation could have affected their analysis of whether the state had carried its burden of proving all of the elements of
“Tampering requires a conduct that alters, rearranges or changes property.
“Now, altering property means just moving it. You just move the property. That’s tampering with it.
“So he knew he was moving the property.”
Given that the erroneous instruction misinformed the jury about an element of the charged crime and the element related to the central disputed issue at trial, we cannot conclude that giving the instruction was a harmless error.
Reversed and remanded.