Background
A jury convicted Teddy Carlton Peal II of harassment and fourth-degree assault constituting domestic violence but acquitted him of strangulation constituting domestic violence. Peal appealed, arguing that the trial court erred by failing to reread at the close of evidence certain jury instructions that it had delivered at the beginning of trial.
Before closing arguments, the trial court orally delivered instructions that it had not previously read and gave the jury a complete written set of instructions, including the preliminary instructions. Peal maintained that ORCP 58 B and ORCP 59 B required the court to state aloud at the conclusion of the case all legal principles necessary to the verdict. Because the issue had not been preserved, he requested plain-error review.
The Court’s Holding
The Oregon Court of Appeals held that the trial court plainly erred. Under State v. Shine, ORCP 58 B and ORCP 59 B require the court to charge the jury at the conclusion of the case by reading aloud the instructions necessary to decide the verdict. The omitted oral instructions included necessary matters such as the definitions of applicable culpable mental states and the defendant’s right not to testify.
The court nevertheless affirmed because the error was harmless. Less than a day separated the preliminary and final instructions; the court repeated the presumption of innocence and proof-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt instructions immediately before deliberations; and jurors received the complete instructions in writing. Considering the instructions as a whole, the court found little likelihood that the failure to reread the remaining preliminary instructions affected the verdict.
Judge Pagán concurred, arguing that Oregon should consider adopting the federal structural-error doctrine for fundamental errors whose effect on a verdict cannot reasonably be measured. In his view, publicly reading jury instructions supports the transparency and legitimacy of the justice system, not merely the individual defendant’s interests.
Key Takeaways
- Oregon trial courts must read aloud at the conclusion of a case all jury instructions necessary for the jury’s verdict.
- A failure to reread necessary instructions can constitute plain error, even when the jury receives a complete written set.
- The error was harmless here because the trial lasted less than a day, key constitutional instructions were repeated before deliberations, and all instructions were available in writing.
Why It Matters
The decision applies Shine while showing that failure to reread necessary instructions does not automatically require reversal. Harmlessness depends on the trial’s circumstances, including the time between instruction sets, which principles were repeated, and whether jurors received complete written instructions.
The concurrence also highlights an unresolved broader question: whether Oregon should treat some fundamental trial errors as structural rather than attempt to assess their effect through ordinary harmless-error review. The opinion is a nonprecedential memorandum opinion under ORAP 10.30 and may be cited only as that rule permits.