State v. Reamer

82                          February 11, 2026        No. 85


     This is a nonprecedential memorandum opinion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.
                   AUSTIN THOMAS REAMER,
                       Defendant-Appellant.
                  Clackamas County Circuit Court
                       21CR16306; A181389

     Ann M. Lininger, Judge.
     Submitted November 25, 2024.
  Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate
Section, and Sara F. Werboff, Deputy Public Defender,
Oregon Public Defense Commission, filed the brief for
appellant.
   Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin
Gutman, Solicitor General, and Erica L. Herb, Assistant
Attorney General, filed the brief for respondent.
   Before Ortega, Presiding Judge, Hellman, Judge, and
O’Connor, Judge.*
     ORTEGA, J.
     Affirmed.




______________
     * O’Connor, Judge, vice Mooney, Senior Judge.
Nonprecedential Memo Op: 

 (2026)                83

        ORTEGA, P. J.
         Defendant appeals a judgment of conviction for three
counts each of first-degree sodomy, ORS 163.405, and first-degree sexual abuse, ORS 163.427, assigning two errors.
First, defendant contends that the trial court lacked subject
matter jurisdiction in this case because defendant was under
18 years old when he committed the charged offenses and,
as a result, the juvenile court had exclusive original jurisdiction under ORS 419C.005. Second, defendant contends that
the trial court plainly erred in allowing the state’s forensic
interviewer to testify about scripted memories without laying a foundation of scientific validity, and he asks that we
exercise our discretion to correct the error.
         As to defendant’s first assignment, we recently
rejected identical arguments in State v. Edwards, 

, ___ P3d ___ (2026), and reaffirmed that exclusive
original juvenile court jurisdiction turns on the person’s age
at the time the case is initiated, not when the charged conduct occurred. Because it is undisputed that defendant was
indicted in this case after he turned 18, his first assignment
of error fails. As to defendant’s second assignment, assuming without deciding that the court plainly erred in admitting the forensic interviewer’s testimony without a scientific
foundation, we decline to exercise our discretion to correct
any error under the circumstances in this case. Accordingly,
we affirm.
         The relevant facts are undisputed. Defendant was
born in 1998, and his cousin N was born in 2006. In 2011,
N and their family moved into defendant’s parents’ house.
Beginning in 2012, when defendant was 13 years old, he
repeatedly sexually abused N while N’s little brother was
present. N initially disclosed the abuse in 2014 to their
mother, who encouraged N not to further disclose the abuse
to authorities out of fear of losing the family’s housing.
Defendant continued to abuse N for about a year after the
initial disclosure. In 2019, after N and their family had
moved out of the house, N again disclosed the abuse, and the
state ultimately indicted defendant in 2021. The indictment
alleged that defendant committed the offenses between 2012
and 2017, when he was 13 to 19 years old.
84                                           State v. Reamer

         After defendant waived his right to a jury, the case
was tried to the court. At trial, N recounted the abuse, and
N’s brother corroborated the abuse. In addition, the state
presented the recorded forensic interviews of N and N’s
brother, and defendant’s recorded statement to police confessing to one act of abuse. Finally, a state forensic interviewer testified, among other things, how “scripted” memories of events that happen to someone multiple times tend
to “meld[ ] together” and lack “more context or details …
because [the event] didn’t change.” After expressly crediting N’s testimony and interview, N’s brother’s testimony
and interview, and defendant’s corroborated confession, the
court found defendant guilty as charged but also found that
the state had failed to prove that defendant was over 18
years old for any count. This timely appeal followed.
         In his first assignment of error, defendant contends
that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over
this case because he was younger than 18 at the time of the
charged offenses. Defendant presents the same argument
that we recently rejected in Edwards, where we reaffirmed
that the plain text of ORS 419C.005 vests exclusive original
jurisdiction upon the juvenile court in cases where the person is younger than 18 when the state initiates the case, and
we adhered to our longstanding case law so construing that
statute and its predecessor. 

. Here, it
is undisputed that a grand jury indicted defendant after
he turned 18. The trial court therefore had subject matter
jurisdiction in this case.
         To the extent defendant contends that the trial
court was required to remand his case to juvenile court
under State v. Scurlock, 

, 

 (1979),
we reject that argument as unpreserved. In any event, the
record does not support the inference that the state “intentionally delayed bringing charges to avoid juvenile court
jurisdiction,” such that the exception in Scurlock to the general rule regarding exclusive original juvenile court jurisdiction would apply here. 

; State v. Davis, 

, 

, rev den, 

 (2005).
We therefore reject defendant’s first assignment of error.
Nonprecedential Memo Op: 

 (2026)                85

          In his second assignment, defendant contends that
the trial court erred when it admitted the testimony of the
state’s forensic interviewer concerning scripted memories—
that is, memories of repeated events that are difficult to differentiate and lack context or detail—without a foundation
of scientific validity. He concedes that this claim of error is
unpreserved but argues that the error is plain and warrants
our exercising discretion to correct it. The state responds
that any error is not plain because it is not obvious that the
testimony was scientific. Alternatively, the state argues that
we should not exercise our discretion to correct any error
because it was not particularly grave, and the state likely
could have established the requisite foundation had defendant timely objected at trial.
          We assume without deciding that the court plainly
erred and that we have discretion to correct it because it was
not harmless, see State v. Mosqueda-Rivera-Burdette, 

, 

 (2025) (“When improper evidence
is included in a bench trial, in the absence of a statement
by the trial court that it did not consider improper testimony, we must conclude that the error was not harmless.”
(Brackets and internal quotation omitted; emphasis in original.)), but we decline to exercise our discretion to correct
any plain error under the circumstances in this case. State
v. Ortiz, 

, 

 (2024) (“[D]iscretion to
reverse based on an unpreserved error should be exercised
with ‘utmost caution’ and only when justified by the factors
identified in Ailes, rather than based on a determination
that the error was not harmless.”).
         We undertake a review of plain error with “utmost
caution.” State v. Vanornum, 

, 

 (2013). In doing so, we consider a nonexclusive list of
factors that may be relevant in deciding whether to exercise our discretion to correct a plain error: “the competing
interests of the parties; the nature of the case; the gravity of
the error; the ends of justice in the particular case; how the
error came to the court’s attention; and whether the policies
behind the general rule requiring preservation of error have
been served.” Ailes v. Portland Meadows, Inc., 

,
382 n 6, 

 (1991).
86                                               State v. Reamer

           In light of the record in this case, we conclude that
the gravity of the error and the ends of justice do not weigh
in favor of reversal. State v. Horton, 

,

 (2023) (explaining that “our assessment of where
[a plain error] falls on the spectrum of ‘likelihood’ of having
affected the verdict … goes to its ‘gravity’ and to ‘the ends of
justice’ ”). First, we disagree with defendant’s contention that
the disputed testimony “improperly bolstered [N’s] testimony”
and “was inordinately persuasive.” At most, the disputed testimony indirectly bolstered N’s testimony by explaining why
her account lacked specific context or details as to any particular charged incident. But N’s brother’s testimony and forensic interview directly corroborated N’s version of events, and
defendant’s confession to one instance of abuse dispelled any
reasonable inference that N had fabricated the story. Further,
in reaching its verdict the trial court expressly credited N’s
testimony and forensic interview, N’s brother’s testimony and
forensic interview, and defendant’s corroborated confession,
but it did not mention the forensic interviewer’s testimony in
general or the scripted memory testimony specifically. Thus,
although we cannot say that any error was harmless, we can
say on this record that there is an “extremely low likelihood”
that it affected the court’s credibility assessments and thus
its verdict. See 

 (declining to exercise discretion to
correct plain error where there was an “extremely low likelihood” that the verdict would have been different).
          Finally, we agree with the state that policies underlying preservation of error requirements weigh against exercising discretion to review any error in this case. If defendant had timely objected, the state could have attempted to
lay a scientific foundation given the forensic interviewer’s
training and experience, or the court could have sustained
the objection and not received the evidence. See State v.
Callen, 

, 

, rev den, 

 (2025) (“Whether the trial court could have easily
corrected its purported error had the defendant objected is
a significant factor in deciding whether to exercise discretion.” (Internal quotation marks and citation omitted.)). We
therefore reject defendant’s second assignment of error.
         Affirmed.