State v. Pederson

No. 885               October 8, 2025                   149

   This is a nonprecedential memorandum opinion
    pursuant to ORAP 10.30 and may not be cited
         except as provided in ORAP 10.30(1).

          IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE
                  STATE OF OREGON

                 STATE OF OREGON,
                  Plaintiff-Respondent,
                            v.
              SHERRYL ANN PEDERSON,
                  Defendant-Appellant.
              Jackson County Circuit Court
                  22CR38462; A184107

  Kelly W. Ravassipour, Judge.
  Submitted August 20, 2025.
  Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate
Section, and Joel Duran, Deputy Public Defender, Oregon
Public Defense Commission, filed the brief for appellant.
   Dan Rayfield, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman,
Solicitor General, and Robert C. Hansler, Assistant Attorney
General, filed the brief for respondent.
  Before Ortega, Presiding Judge, Joyce, Judge, and
Hellman, Judge.
  JOYCE, J.
  Affirmed.
150                                         State v. Pederson

        JOYCE, J.
         Defendant appeals from a judgment of conviction
for second-degree animal neglect, ORS 167.325, after she
left her dog in a car on a hot day. During defendant’s trial,
defense counsel asked a witness, “Do you recall mentioning
to [the responding officer], I feel bad calling because I know
she cares for her dog, what did you mean by that when you
said that?” The prosecutor objected, based both on relevance
and the fact that the statement was “not in evidence.” The
trial court sustained the objection. Defense counsel then
asked his next question. On appeal, defendant contends that
the trial court erred when it sustained the state’s objection.
Because defendant failed to provide an offer of proof, we
affirm.
         To preserve a claim that the trial court erred by
excluding evidence, a party generally must make an offer of
proof “to assure that appellate courts are able to determine
whether it was error to exclude the evidence and whether
any error was likely to have affected the result of the case.”
State v. Affeld, 

, 

 (1988). If the
substance of what the witness would have testified to is
apparent from the context of the question, an offer of proof
is unnecessary. OEC 103(1)(b); State v. Partain, 

, 

, rev den, 

 (2019) (“Because
the substance of what defendant would have said can be
inferred from his counsel’s question, no express offer of proof
was necessary to preserve the error for appeal.”).
        Here, defense counsel—after the state’s objection
to his question was sustained—did not make an offer of
proof. Nor can we infer what the witness’s answer would
have been from the question itself. As the state notes, the
witness might have testified that she told the officer that
defendant cared for her dog. But it is also possible that the
witness would instead have testified either that she did not
make that statement or that she did not remember the conversation. What is more, because the witness was testifying
in support of the state’s case, we cannot presume that her
answer would have been favorable to defendant. Cf. Partain,

 (where defense counsel asked the
defendant whether the defendant would lie, the substance of
Nonprecedential Memo Op: 

 (2025)             151

what the defendant would have testified to—that he would
not lie—was apparent both from the question and the context of the defendant’s own counsel asking the question and
thus no offer of proof was required).
         Although defendant contends that it was apparent
that the witness’s answer would have supported defendant’s
claims that she cared for her dog and that she had left water
in the car for her dog, the witness’s other testimony does not
support those assertions: the witness called 9-1-1 because
she was concerned about the dog, and she testified that she
did not see any water in the car. In short, the absence of an
offer of proof here prevents us from reviewing defendant’s
claim of error. See State v. Zurita, 

, 

, rev den, 

 (2025) (without any statement
on the record about “how any answers to [the defendant’s]
questions would have been helpful to the defense[,] …
we cannot determine whether any error was likely to have
affected the result of the case so as to constitute prejudicial
error” (internal quotation marks omitted)).
        Affirmed.