State v. Mulvaine
State v. Mulvaine
Opinion of the Court
Defendant appeals the trial court’s judgment convicting him, after a jury trial, of conspiracy to commit murder, ORS 163.115, ORS 161.450(2)(a), and assault in the second degree, ORS 163.175.
In support of his motion for judgment of acquittal on the conspiracy count, which he made at the close of the state’s case-in-chief, defendant argued that the state had failed to prove that the conspiracy took place in Malheur County. Defendant lived in Idaho, as did one of his co-conspirators; the other co-conspirator lived in Malheur County. Defendant argued that the state’s evidence showed that the three men entered into their conspiracy when they were on defendant’s property in Idaho. The state did not dispute that, but argued that, after the men entered into the conspiracy, they modified it through telephone and text conversations between defendant and one of the co-conspirators, who was in Malheur County. Based on those conversations, the state contended venue was proper in Malheur County. The trial court agreed with the state and denied defendant’s motion for judgment of acquittal.
“If, on remand, defendant elects not to challenge venue under Article I, section 11, the trial court judgment must be reinstated. If defendant challenges venue under Article I, section 11, the trial court may hold an evidentiary hearing at which the state will have the opportunity to establish— and defendant will have the opportunity to contest — that [the county in which the charges were brought] is the appropriate venue.”
To the extent that subsequent cases have presented the same unfairness that the Supreme Court identified in Mills, we have employed the same remedy. E.g., State v. Bisby, 263 Or App 598, 600-01, 330 P3d 51 (2014) (reversing and remanding for evidentiary hearing when issue of venue had been raised below by motion for judgment of acquittal prior to Mills decision); State v. Schreiber, 261 Or App 557, 558-59, 323 P3d 517 (2014) (same); State v. Burton, 261 Or App 534, 536-37, 323 P3d 516, rev den, 355 Or 703 (2014) (same); State v. Parsons, 259 Or App 344, 346-47, 314 P3d 343 (2013) (same). We have done so even in cases where the state presented substantial evidence of venue at the underlying trial, observing that, even in those cases, it “is at least theoretically possible that [the] defendant could have developed a different record had he elected to make a pretrial
Here, like the defendant in Mills, defendant raised his venue challenge through a motion for judgment of acquittal at the close of the state’s case-in-chief. That approach was proper under the controlling law at the time, but the law has changed and, as the parties agree, in the wake of that change, we must reverse the trial court’s judgment and remand for further proceedings consistent with Mills.
Conviction for conspiracy to commit murder reversed; remanded for resentencing; otherwise affirmed.
In addition to the two crimes he was convicted of committing, defendant was charged with attempted murder, ORS 163.115, ORS 161.405. The jury acquitted him of that charge.
In his other assignments of error, defendant asserts that the trial court erred by admitting an exhibit as a statement of a co-conspirator, denying his motion for judgment of acquittal on the second-degree assault count, instructing the jury that it could return a nonunanimous verdict, and accepting nonunanimous verdicts on the conspiracy and assault counts. We reject those assignments without written discussion.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.