State v. Bruce

No. 995             November 19, 2025                    99

   This is a nonprecedential memorandum opinion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.
               MELISSA CAROLYN BRUCE,
                   Defendant-Appellant.
              Clackamas County Circuit Court
                   23CR13905; A183184

  Ann M. Lininger, Judge.
  Submitted October 2, 2025.
  Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate
Section, and Emma Izaguirre, 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 Shorr, Presiding Judge, Powers, Judge, and
O’Connor, Judge.
  POWERS, J.
  Affirmed.
100                                                State v. Bruce

         POWERS, J.
          Defendant appeals her convictions, after a jury
trial, of one count of reckless driving, ORS 811.140 (Count
1), and one count of resisting arrest, ORS 162.315 (Count 2).
In a single assignment of error, she contends that the trial
court erred in admitting evidence of a speeding citation that
defendant received after the incident that gave rise to the
charges. We conclude that any error in admitting the evidence was harmless and affirm.
         We begin with a brief overview of the undisputed
procedural background to give context for this nonprecedential memorandum opinion. Defendant’s charges arose out of
an incident in which she was alleged to have run a vehicle—driven by a detective wearing plain clothes—off the
road while she sped down the freeway, ran a red light, and
then engaged in a physical altercation with the detective
outside of a police station. At trial, whether defendant drove
recklessly was a question of credibility. Evidence at trial
included the detective’s and defendant’s respective testimonies describing the incident. Defense counsel asked defendant if she recalled running the red light, and she testified:
       “No. I don’t go through lights. I have kids, and I had an
   alcoholic father who would drive drunk. So I’m very cautious about driving.”
Defendant also testified that the incident involving the
detective had “affected [her] whole life,” including her “ability to drive.” She testified, “I don’t like to drive because I’m
scared of passing a cop, of interacting with a cop, anything.”
         Outside the presence of the jury, the prosecutor
told the trial court and defense counsel that she planned
to cross-examine defendant about her driving record and
to impeach defendant’s testimony with evidence of defendant’s past traffic tickets, which included a violation of a
traffic control device and several speeding citations before
the charged incident and one speeding citation from 2022,
which had been issued to defendant after the charged incident. Defendant objected to evidence of the 2022 citation,
arguing that it was not relevant. The prosecutor responded
that the citation directly impeached defendant’s testimony
Nonprecedential Memo Op: 

 (2025)              101

describing her driving after the charged incident. In reply,
defendant argued that the prejudice of that evidence outweighed any probative value.
         The trial court ruled that evidence of the post-incident citation was relevant impeachment evidence and that
the probative value of the evidence was not outweighed by
prejudice under OEC 403. Thus, the jury heard evidence of
defendant’s 2022 speeding citation over defendant’s objection. The jury also heard evidence of four other citations
that had been issued to defendant over several years before
the charged incident that were admitted without objection—
one for failing to obey a traffic control device and three for
exceeding the speed limit. As noted earlier, the jury found
defendant guilty of reckless driving and resisting arrest.
         On appeal, defendant contends that the trial court
erred in admitting the 2022 citation, because it did not
directly contradict her trial testimony about her own driving—that she was a cautious driver and that she feared the
police—and therefore was not proper impeachment evidence.
The state argues that defendant’s argument at trial failed
to preserve the argument that she now makes on appeal
and that, even if her argument is preserved for appellate
review, there was no error and that any error was harmless.
         Even assuming that defendant’s argument was
adequately preserved, we do not address the merits of her
contention on appeal, because we conclude that any error
by the trial court in admitting evidence of the 2022 citation was harmless. In light of the evidence of the four traffic
citations that were admitted without objection, we conclude
that the evidence of the 2022 citation had little likelihood of
affecting the verdict. See State v. Davis, 

, 

 (2003) (explaining that, under Article VII
(Amended), section 3, of the Oregon Constitution, erroneously admitted evidence does not provide a basis for reversal
where the error has little likelihood of affecting the verdict).
Accordingly, we affirm defendant’s convictions.
        Affirmed.