Opinion

State v. Dart

  • 312 Or. App. 288
  • 491 P.3d 813
Court
Court of Appeals of Oregon
Filed
Jun 16, 2021
Status
Published
On the bench
Armstrong
Cited by
1 cases
Authority
More cited than 46.4%

The opinion

288

Argued and submitted March 22, 2019, affirmed June 16, 2021

STATE OF OREGON,

Plaintiff-Respondent,

v.

THEODORE EDWIN DART II,

Defendant-Appellant.

Union County Circuit Court

16CR64901, 17CR02656;

A165099 (Control), A165100

491 P3d 813

Defendant was convicted of two counts of second-degree criminal trespass

and one count of third-degree criminal mischief, which occurred in connection

with defendant attempting to stop neighbors from idling their semi-trucks. He

appeals, assigning error to the trial court’s ruling preventing him from pre-

senting a choice-of-evils defense on one of the trespassing charges, and rulings

excluding evidence. Held: The trial court did not err. Defendant failed to present

sufficient evidence that his otherwise unlawful conduct was necessary, which is

an element of the choice-of-evils defense. The trial court also correctly excluded

as irrelevant the evidence at issue on appeal. Evidence of defendant’s PTSD was

not relevant because the harm in a choice-of-evils defense is to be judged by an

objective reasonable-person standard, not by a subjective, defendant-specific

standard.

Affirmed.

Russell B. West, Judge.

Mark Kimbrell, Deputy Public Defender, argued the

cause for appellant. Also on the brief was Ernest G. Lannet,

Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate Section, Office of Public

Defense Services.

Hannah K. Hoffman, Assistant Attorney General, argued

the cause for respondent. On the brief were Ellen F.

Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor

General, and Peenesh Shah, Assistant Attorney General.

Before Armstrong, Presiding Judge, and Tookey, Judge,

and Shorr, Judge.

ARMSTRONG, P. J.

Affirmed.

Cite as 312 Or App 288 (2021) 289

ARMSTRONG, P. J.

Defendant appeals his convictions in these criminal

cases, which were consolidated for trial and appeal. In Case

No. 16CR64901, the jury acquitted defendant of menacing

(Count 1) and found him guilty of second-degree criminal

trespass (Count 2). In Case No. 17CR02656, the jury found

defendant guilty of third-degree criminal mischief (Count 1)

and second-degree criminal trespass (Count 2). The cases

were based on two occasions when defendant took action in

relation to diesel-engine “semi-trucks” that neighbors had

left running on their property for extended periods of time.

On appeal, defendant first assigns error to the

trial court’s failure to give his requested choice-of-evils jury

instruction on the second-degree criminal trespass charge

(Count 2) in Case No. 16CR64901.1 In his second assign-

ment, which is related to the first, he assigns error to the

trial court’s pretrial ruling that, for the charges in Case

No. 16CR64901, the jury could not consider evidence of two

statutes that relate to limits on commercial-vehicle-engine

idling. Defendant argues that the evidence was relevant to

the choice-of-evils defense that he should have been allowed

to present on Count 2. In his third assignment, he challenges

the trial court’s exclusion of evidence concerning defendant’s

post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which he contends

was relevant to his choice-of-evils defense for all counts and

also relevant to whether he had the required mental state

for third-degree criminal mischief. We affirm.

Because defendant’s assignments of error address

pretrial rulings on whether defendant would be allowed to

1

ORS 161.200 establishes the choice-of-evils defense. That statute provides,

in relevant part:

“(1) Unless inconsistent with other provisions of chapter 743, Oregon

Laws 1971, defining justifiable use of physical force, or with some other provi-

sion of law, conduct which would otherwise constitute an offense is justifiable

and not criminal when:

“(a) That conduct is necessary as an emergency measure to avoid an

imminent public or private injury; and

“(b) The threatened injury is of such gravity that, according to ordinary

standards of intelligence and morality, the desirability and urgency of avoid-

ing the injury clearly outweigh the desirability of avoiding the injury sought

to be prevented by the statute defining the offense in issue.”

290 State v. Dart

present a choice-of-evils defense for each of the two inci-

dents, including rulings excluding evidence on the basis of

relevance and declining to give a requested jury instruction,

we recount the pertinent evidence in the record as of the

time that the court made those rulings.2 We view the evi-

dence in support of the choice-of-evils defense in the light

most favorable to defendant. State v. Payne, 366 Or 588, 607,

468 P3d 445 (2020) (“[A] reviewing court must view the evi-

dence in the light most favorable to the party requesting the

instruction.”).

Defendant lives in a residential neighborhood in a

small town in Oregon. Some of the residents in defendant’s

neighborhood have diesel-engine semi-trucks that they

sometimes start up and leave running for a period of time.

Defendant and his housemate, Hill, are bothered by the

noise and smell from the idling trucks. Defendant is partic-

ularly affected by the sound and smell of the idling diesel

trucks due to PTSD that he suffers because of an accident

at sea in which he had to cling to a barrel of diesel fuel for

31 hours. Defendant has tried to speak with the neighbors3

to ask them to stop idling their trucks, has informed them

that they are violating the law by idling their trucks for long

periods of time, and has sought enforcement of those laws

by reporting the issue to local law enforcement officials.4 In

addition, he has brought the issue to the attention of the city

2

After the close of the evidence, defendant made an objection “for the record”

to the trial court refusing to give a choice-of-evils jury instruction as to the

charges in Case No. 16CR64901. He made no argument, however, that the evi-

dence admitted at trial had changed in any way the evidence bearing on the

court’s pretrial rulings, nor did he argue that the trial court had previously ana-

lyzed the issue incorrectly. The court told defendant that he had made his record.

Accordingly, we focus on the state of the evidence before the court when it made

its pretrial rulings.

3

We use the term “neighbors” loosely to reflect that the properties are close

to each other. The owners of the property involved in Case No. 16CR64901, Gregg

and Davidson, live diagonally across from defendant, and the owner of the truck

involved in Case No. 17CR02656, Wisdom, lives across an alley from defendant.

Defendant has complained about other neighbors who also have large trucks.

4

In his brief, defendant cites ORS 825.605 and ORS 825.610. Those stat-

utes provide that commercial vehicles may not idle for more than five minutes

in a continuous 60-minute period, except in certain circumstances. In his offer

of proof, defendant stated that “[t]here’s a ton of state laws and ORS’s and DEQ

laws, environmental quality laws that regulate these trucks besides the CDL of

DOT.” Defendant also noted that there are numerous “No Trucks” signs in the

neighborhood.

Cite as 312 Or App 288 (2021) 291

council. On two occasions, as relevant here, defendant engaged

in conduct that led to criminal charges against him.

Before trial, defendant made an offer of proof for the

trial court to determine whether he would be able to present

evidence to support a choice-of-evils defense and have the

jury instructed on the defense. Defendant and Hill testified

as part of the offer of proof.

Defendant testified that, in January 2016, defen-

dant approached a neighbor, Gregg, who had recently moved

in. Defendant introduced himself, and said, “By the way, I’ve

got a problem with your truck and here’s an ordinance and

all these rules that you’re supposed to abide by.” In response,

he “got * * * a verbal assault with some foul language,” and

Gregg said that he was “going to be [defendant’s] nightmare

neighbor.”

Case No. 16CR64901 is based on an October 5,

2016, incident involving Gregg’s truck. On that occasion,

according to defendant, Gregg’s truck, which was parked

less than 150 feet from defendant’s bedroom, was started

at 4:45 in the morning. It was still idling 45 minutes later.

Defendant went onto Gregg and Davidson’s property and

knocked on the front door of the house. No one answered,

so he knocked harder. Then both Gregg and Davidson came

to the door. Defendant testified that his purpose in going to

their house was “[t]o get them to be a good neighbor. To, you

know, abide by the laws. I quoted the laws [to] them again

and asked them to please shut the truck off or please move

it right now.” Gregg told defendant to leave, and defendant

responded that he would, “but you need to shut your truck

off and you need to abide by these laws.”5 According to defen-

dant, “this is probably about the fifteenth time that they’ve

5

Defendant includes in his briefing and argument evidence that was adduced

at trial—that, in April 2016, he had been told by a sheriff’s deputy not to enter

Gregg and Davidson’s property. But, on appeal, we view the evidence that was

before the trial court at the time that it made the pretrial ruling on the availabil-

ity of the defense. Defendant’s offer of proof did not include evidence that he had

previously been “trespassed” from the property. Rather, defendant’s offer of proof

included only Gregg telling defendant to leave after defendant was on the porch,

after which defendant initially refused to leave and continued to urge Gregg to

turn off the truck or to move it somewhere else. Defendant also did not make

any argument concerning the April 2016 communication when he made his later

objection “for the record” at the end of the trial.

292 State v. Dart

been requested to be a good neighbor.” After that, Gregg and

Davidson stepped out onto their porch, and Gregg pushed

defendant off the porch. Defendant landed in some land-

scaping rocks. According to defendant,

“that’s when I jumped up with a rock * * * in my left

hand. Because I didn’t know what was happening. I never

expected them to do that.

“And I was just; I had a rock in my left hand. I’m

right-handed.

“* * * * *

“I’m [a] totally nonviolent person.

“* * * * *

“I was tossing it up in the air in my left hand to see what

was going on with them, because, you know, I didn’t know if

they had a weapon or what.”

Defendant dropped the rock and walked away. Defendant

denied that he had threatened anyone with the rock and

said that he was defending himself.

When asked about the harm that he had been expe-

riencing from the truck idling before he went over to Gregg

and Davidson’s property, defendant said that he woke up “in

a panic” and that he had tried listening to music to calm

down, but the truck kept idling. Asked if he had any “men-

tal or physical manifestations” related to the truck idling,

he responded, “We never had any physical.” As a result of

that incident, defendant was charged with second-degree

trespassing for entering Gregg and Davidson’s property, and

menacing.

Case No. 17CR02656 is associated with another

incident, on January 1, 2017, involving a different neighbor,

Wisdom. Defendant testified during the offer of proof that

Wisdom had never previously parked his truck at his home.

One day around that date, defendant had been complaining

about the trucks in his neighborhood to the city and to the

state police. Then, according to defendant, the next day, “the

City came up with their backhoe * * * and plowed out for,

with all this snow that we had, plowed out for Mr. Wisdom

to park his truck right on our property line.” Then, a day

Cite as 312 Or App 288 (2021) 293

or two later, Wisdom started up his truck at about 6:00 in

the morning and left it idling for over an hour. According to

defendant, the sheriff’s department was called, but no one

was available to come out. Defendant’s attorney was also

called, as well as “the City” and a city councilor.

After the truck had been idling for about an hour,

defendant went over to Wisdom’s house and knocked on the

door. There was no answer. Defendant entered the truck and

shut the engine off. Forty minutes later, defendant noticed

that the truck was running again. He went to Wisdom’s door

and knocked, and there was no answer. He again entered

the truck and shut the engine off, and this time he took the

key. He went back home and called his lawyer and the sher-

iff and told them what he had done. He also called the city

councilor again. Then, within 20 minutes, a sheriff’s deputy

arrived.

Defendant identified “the noise and the smell” of the

diesel as bothering him before he decided to enter Wisdom’s

vehicle. He was “aggravated” by the noise and smell, in con-

nection with his PTSD. Defendant was charged with second-

degree trespassing for entering the truck, and third-degree

criminal mischief for taking the key.

“ ‘A choice of evils defense is a defense of justifi-

cation,’ State v. Oneill, 256 Or App 537, 539, 303 P3d 944,

rev den, 354 Or 342 (2013), and the ‘trial court has a screen-

ing function in determining whether the evidence is suffi-

cient to send the choice of evils question to the jury,’ State v.

Marsh, 186 Or App 612, 615, 64 P3d 1141, rev den, 335 Or

655 (2003).” State v. McPhail, 273 Or App 42, 48, 359 P3d

325 (2015). To be entitled to a choice-of-evils instruction, a

defendant must present sufficient evidence from which a

factfinder could find the required elements of the defense,

and the proposed instruction must correctly state the law.

Oneill, 256 Or App at 539-40. We have summarized the

choice-of-evils defense statute, ORS 161.200, to require evi-

dence that:

“(1) a defendant’s conduct was necessary to avoid a threat-

ened injury; (2) the threatened injury was imminent; and

(3) it was reasonable for the defendant to believe that the

294 State v. Dart

threatened injury was greater than the potential injury of

his illegal actions.”

State v. Seamons, 170 Or App 582, 586, 13 P3d 573 (2000).

To show that criminal conduct was ‘necessary’ for purposes

of the choice-of-evils defense, the defendant must put forth

evidence that would allow the factfinder to find that there

was no reasonable alternative but to commit the crime. State

v. Freih, 270 Or App 555, 557, 348 P3d 324 (2015); see also

State v. Miles, 197 Or App 86, 93, 104 P3d 604 (2005) (“For

a defendant’s conduct to be ‘necessary’ to avoid a threat-

ened injury, he must show that no other course of action was

available to him but to ‘choose an evil.’ ”).

“That ‘reasonable person’ component of the test

refers to a person of ordinary intelligence and understand-

ing, not a person with the unique history or mental charac-

teristics of any particular defendant.” Oneill, 256 Or App at

544. In Oneill, after reviewing characterizations of the “rea-

sonable person” test in multiple contexts, we concluded, “[i]n

other words, at the very least, ORS 161.200 requires that a

defendant’s perception of a threat be reasonable as gauged

by an objective ‘reasonable person’ standard, rather than a

subjective, defendant-specific standard.” Id. at 545.

Defendant first assigns error to the trial court’s

ruling that defendant had failed to present sufficient evi-

dence to raise the choice-of-evils defense as to the charges

associated with the October 5 incident.6 Defendant argues

that, under a proper analysis, he was entitled to the choice-

of-evils instruction on the second-degree trespassing charge

6

Defendant argues, in part, that the trial court improperly “coupled the two

offenses—menacing and second-degree criminal trespass—and relied on a find-

ing that defendant threatened the victim, in order to conclude that defendant’s

evidence supporting the instruction for both counts failed on the third element.”

Defendant failed to preserve that argument. Both parties and the trial court

framed the issue at the pretrial hearing as whether the choice-of-evils defense

and instruction were available as to each of the two incidents. Defendant never

argued the counts separately and did not raise the issue to the trial court during

its oral analysis. Likewise, when defendant raised his objection at the close of the

evidence to the trial court not giving the requested instruction, he did not make

separate arguments as to the two counts, but rather objected to the instruction

not being given for the October 5 incident.

Because defendant ultimately was acquitted on the menacing count, the only

question of any consequence is whether the trial court erred in its rulings as to

the trespassing count, Count 2.

Cite as 312 Or App 288 (2021) 295

from that incident. The state argues in response that the

trial court properly analyzed the defense, and that, as to

the trespassing charge, defendant failed to adduce sufficient

evidence that his criminal conduct was necessary. We agree

with the state.

Part of showing that a defendant’s conduct was

“necessary as an emergency measure to avoid an imminent

public or private injury,” ORS 161.200(1)(a), is that the con-

duct bears some logical relationship to the harm sought to

be prevented and could prevent or abate that harm. Here,

defendant’s testimony in his offer-of-proof was that ani-

mosity characterized the relationship between himself and

Gregg and Davidson. He had already tried to get them to

stop idling the truck on their property many times, and he

had shown them before the October 5 incident the statutes

that he had concluded they were violating. In response,

Gregg had cursed at him and told him that he would be

defendant’s nightmare neighbor. At the time that he tres-

passed on October 5, defendant thought that it was his fif-

teenth such request. We recognize that defendant’s prior

attempts to confront his neighbors were not successful in

getting them to stop idling their truck. Nevertheless, there

was no evidence that defendant’s trespassing conduct was

necessary to enable defendant to request again that they

stop the harm of the truck’s idling. Defendant could have

asked his neighbors to turn off their truck, as he had previ-

ously, without trespassing, and there is no basis to believe

that the trespassing aspect of his conduct was necessary to

achieve the intended result.

In addition, the state argues, defendant could have

complied with the request to leave the property, while mak-

ing his own request that the truck be turned off, when Gregg

told him to leave. Instead, he said “I will” but then contin-

ued to urge Gregg to turn the truck off and obey the law,

without leaving the property.

In State v. Ko, the defendant assigned error to the

trial court’s refusal to give a choice-of-evils instruction

on two counts of violating a stalking protective order. 245

Or App 403, 407-09, 263 P3d 1082, adh’d to as modified

on recons, 246 Or App 410, 264 P3d 1293, rev den, 351 Or

296 State v. Dart

507 (2011). In that case, the defendant had come into the

presence of two victims who had stalking protective orders

against him, and he stopped and spoke with them. At the

time that the defendant encountered them, the victims were

sitting outside a courtroom in which defendant was required

to appear. At trial on the charges of violating the stalking

protective orders, the defendant requested that the jury be

given a choice-of-evils instruction on the basis that it had

been necessary for the defendant to come into the presence

of the two victims in order to avoid committing felony failure

to appear in court. The trial court refused on the basis that

the “defendant had gone beyond the scope of conduct neces-

sary to appear in court.” We affirmed that ruling, explain-

ing that the

“defendant exceeded the scope of the conduct necessary to

avoid a failure to appear charge when he stopped to engage

the victims. His conduct thus was not necessary to avoid

the evil of failure to appear, and the trial court’s refusal to

give a choice of evils instruction was not error.”

Id. at 409. Here, by his own account, defendant also exceeded

the scope of the conduct that he asserts was necessary—

trespassing—by remaining on the property rather than

leaving while saying what he considered to be necessary.

The trial court did not err in concluding that defendant had

failed to present sufficient evidence of the choice-of-evils

defense as to the October 5 charges.

Defendant next assigns error to a related ruling

in which the trial court determined that, for purposes of

the October 5 charges, the jury could not consider evidence

about the statutory limitations on truck idling, because that

evidence was relevant only to the choice-of-evils defense.

Defendant does not argue that the evidence would have

been relevant for any other purpose. Having affirmed the

trial court’s ruling on the choice-of-evils defense, we affirm

on the second assignment of error as well.

Finally, defendant’s third assignment of error chal-

lenges the trial court’s pretrial ruling excluding evidence

that he suffered from PTSD related to an accident at sea,

the circumstances of which caused him to have a particular

sensitivity to diesel fumes. Below, defendant sought a ruling

Cite as 312 Or App 288 (2021) 297

on the admissibility of that evidence as relevant to the immi-

nence and gravity of the harm that the idling trucks caused

him.7 The state argues that defendant’s subjective psycho-

logical harm is not relevant to the choice-of-evils defense.

We conclude that the trial court did not err in excluding the

evidence.

During the pretrial offer of proof, defendant testi-

fied about how the diesel fumes and the sound of the trucks

idling affected him, including testimony about how the

smell and noise interacted with his PTSD. The trial court

ruled that defendant could, in his defense to the January 1

charges, present evidence at trial about being bothered by

the noise and fumes as evidence of the harm caused by the

idling truck near defendant’s house. The trial court excluded,

however, any evidence about defendant’s PTSD. The trial

court concluded that that evidence was not relevant because

the harm of the fumes and noise was to be judged from the

objective perspective of a reasonable person, not from defen-

dant’s subjective perspective, with his own unique history

and mental characteristics. Further, the trial court ruled

that, even if the PTSD evidence had some relevance, it would

not be admitted under OEC 403 because its relevance would

be outweighed by the dangers of confusion and undue delay.

Defendant explained his PTSD at the pretrial offer

of proof. The following is a brief summary of that testimony.

In 1986, defendant was captaining a ship from Belize to

Panama for the Panamanian government. The ship sank

95 miles off the coast of Belize in the middle of the night.

A man had been trapped inside the boat when it sank, and

he died. Defendant, as captain, felt responsible for that

death. Defendant and other crew members had to cling to a

7

Defendant also argues that evidence of his PTSD was relevant to his mental

state on the criminal mischief charge from the January 1 incident. Specifically,

he argues that the evidence would have supported his theory that he took the

keys from Wisdom’s truck only in order to stop the idling and not with the inten-

tion of causing Wisdom substantial inconvenience. See ORS 164.345(1) (“A person

commits the crime of criminal mischief in the third degree if, with intent to cause

substantial inconvenience to the owner or to another person, and having no right

to do so nor reasonable ground to believe that the person has such right, the

person tampers or interferes with property of another.”). As the state points out,

defendant did not preserve that argument below, and, for that reason, we reject it

without further discussion.

298 State v. Dart

55-gallon drum of diesel fuel for 31 hours. They were

harassed by sharks. They had to cover themselves in die-

sel fuel to try to keep the sharks away. They washed up on

a reef 45 miles off the coast of Belize. Defendant is taken

back to that incident when he smells diesel fuel or fumes

and when he hears “a certain harmonic noise.”8 He said, “It

pretty much paralyzes me for the day.” He is “aggravated,”

“confused,” “out of [his] normal routine,” and “in a panic

more or less” on those occasions. If it “keeps aggravating”

him, he has to isolate himself. It does not make him physi-

cally ill, but he is “not mentally right” when it occurs.

The trial court ruled that the PTSD evidence was

not relevant, and not admissible under OEC 403:

“I am not allowing in any evidence that either Mr. Dart

or Miss Hill suffers from PTSD. That is the holding of the

[Oneill] case.

“And so what Mr. Dart testified to was the diesel, the

truck idling for long periods of time triggered his PTSD,

caused him to be paralyzed and not be able to function.

None of that is going to come in.

“He did testify that the noise and the fumes bothered

him. That is evidence in the record that I can point to that

a reasonable person would likely object to for an extended

period of time. And, indeed, the Oregon Legislature found

there was a problem or they wouldn’t have passed this law.

And so I will allow his testimony and Miss Hill’s testimony

that the noise and the fumes bothered them.

“There will be no testimony about PTSD from either one

of them. It’s not relevant and it’s not allowed by the [Oneill]

case.

“* * * * *

“Like I said, there will be no testimony about PTSD.

Based on the [Oneill] case, it’s the reasonable person stan-

dard. And even if it was—even if it had some relevance, I

would not allow it in under the Rule 403 balancing. * * *

“It was a long convoluted story told by Mr. Dart and we

don’t have that kind of time and it’s not relevant. If it was

relevant, it’s outweighed by the danger of confusion and

being time consuming.”

8

Defendant did not explain the connection between the incident and hearing

harmonic noise.

Cite as 312 Or App 288 (2021) 299

The trial court correctly concluded that the evi-

dence of defendant’s subjective psychological harm was not

relevant to the choice-of-evils defense. We have previously

reserved a question of whether a purely psychological harm

can be sufficient to support a choice-of-evils defense. State v.

Freih, 270 Or App 555, 559, 348 P3d 324 (2015) (“We assume

without deciding that a threatened psychological harm to

a defendant or a third party could, in some circumstances,

qualify as a ‘private injury’ within the meaning of ORS

161.200(1)(a) that would support the giving of an instruc-

tion on the choice-of-evils defense if the other criteria for

the defense are met.”). In that case, the purely psychological

harm under discussion was the harm that would arise from

not being able to take care of one’s dying mother. That is a

harm that an ordinary, reasonable person would experience

or could evaluate—it does not depend on particularized indi-

vidual experiences or mental conditions. In this case, the

trial court allowed evidence of the effects on defendant and

his housemate of the noise and diesel fumes from the trucks.

What it excluded was the exceptional harm about which

defendant sought to testify—how the diesel fumes and “har-

monic noise” interacted with his PTSD condition to cause

him psychological harm. That harm is not the harm that an

ordinary, reasonable person without defendant’s particular

experiences and mental conditions would experience.

We have not previously addressed that precise

question, but we addressed a similar question in Oneill, 256

Or App at 545-46. In that case, we considered whether the

defendant, who perceived a threat due to her PTSD when no

threat actually existed, had presented sufficient evidence of

the elements of a choice-of-evils defense. The parties framed

the dispute as whether the defendant could satisfy the

threat of harm element based on the defendant’s “reason-

able belief” under all of the circumstances that the threat

existed. We decided the case based on the state’s alternative

argument that, even if the threat element could be based on

a reasonable belief, there was an objective component to that

test. “That ‘reasonable person’ component of the test refers

to a person of ordinary intelligence and understanding, not

a person with the unique history or mental characteristics

of any particular defendant.” Id. at 544. After reviewing

300 State v. Dart

characterizations of the “reasonable person” test in mul-

tiple contexts, we concluded, “[i]n other words, at the very

least, ORS 161.200 requires that a defendant’s perception

of a threat be reasonable as gauged by an objective ‘reason-

able person’ standard, rather than a subjective, defendant-

specific standard.” Id. at 545. Although that statement was

made in the context of the defendant’s perception of whether

a threat of harm existed at all, we do not see a meaning-

ful distinction to be made when, as in this case, the issue

is not the existence of the threat of harm, but, rather, the

magnitude of the harm. The harm is to be judged by an

objective reasonable-person standard, not by a “subjective,

defendant-specific standard.” That includes the magnitude

of the harm. The trial court correctly excluded the PTSD

evidence as irrelevant.

Defendant’s argument as to the trial court’s OEC

403 decision is premised on the evidence having some pro-

bative value. In light of our conclusion that the trial court

correctly excluded the evidence as irrelevant, we need not

further address defendant’s OEC 403 argument. The trial

court did not err in excluding the PTSD evidence.

Affirmed.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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