State v. Courier

                                   334

 Argued and submitted December 18, 2020; convictions on Counts 3, 5, 9, 10,
and 11 reversed and remanded, remanded for resentencing, otherwise affirmed
                            February 10, 2021


                    STATE OF OREGON,
                     Plaintiff-Respondent,
                               v.
                JOHN EDWARD COURIER,
                    Defendant-Appellant.
               Washington County Circuit Court
                    18CR01964; A171074
                               

   Andrew Erwin, Judge.
  George W. Kelly argued the cause and filed the brief for
appellant.
   Dashiell L. Farewell, Assistant Attorney General, argued
the cause for respondent. Also on the brief were Ellen F.
Rosenblum, Attorney General, and Benjamin Gutman,
Solicitor General.
  Before Armstrong, Presiding Judge, and Tookey, Judge,
and Aoyagi, Judge.
   PER CURIAM
  Convictions on Counts 3, 5, 9, 10, and 11 reversed and
remanded; remanded for resentencing; otherwise affirmed.
Cite as 

 (2021)                                           335

          PER CURIAM
         Defendant was found guilty by jury verdict on five
counts of first-degree sexual abuse (Counts 3, 4, 5, 6, and 9),
one count of attempted first-degree sexual abuse (Count 10),
one count of strangulation (Count 11), two counts of first-degree criminal mistreatment (Counts 12 and 13), and one
count of third-degree assault (Count 14). The trial court
merged the verdicts on Counts 4 and 6 with the verdicts
on Counts 3 and 5. The verdicts on Counts 12 through 14
were unanimous; the other verdicts were not unanimous.
Defendant argues that the trial court erred in admitting
certain evidence, and in instructing the jury that it need
not reach unanimous verdicts. We reject defendant’s evidentiary argument without discussion. The state concedes that
defendant’s convictions based on the nonunanimous verdicts
must be reversed in light of Ramos v. Louisiana, 

,

, 

 (2020). We agree and accept
that concession. To the extent that defendant may be arguing that his remaining convictions also should be reversed
based on the erroneous nonunanimous verdict instruction,
we reject that argument for the reasons set forth in State
v. Flores Ramos, 

, 

 (2020), in which
the court concluded that the erroneous nonunanimous
jury instruction was harmless with respect to unanimous
verdicts.1
       Convictions on Counts 3, 5, 9, 10, and 11 reversed and
remanded; remanded for resentencing; otherwise affirmed.




    1
      The nonunanimous verdicts for Counts 4 and 6 are similarly erroneous and
no judgment may be entered on those verdicts.