State v. Flack
State v. Flack
Opinion of the Court
*153Defendant appeals a judgment of conviction for resisting arrest, second-degree assault, and assaulting a public safety officer, raising three assignments of error. We write to address only defendant's first assignment of error, and reject his second and third assignments without discussion.
The relevant facts are primarily procedural. Following an affray with Officer Murphy, defendant was charged with second-degree disorderly conduct, ORS 166.025, resisting arrest, ORS 162.315, second-degree assault, ORS 163.175, assaulting a public safety officer, ORS 163.208, and second-degree escape, ORS 162.155. At trial, defendant relied on a theory of self-defense, and the parties requested jury instructions on that point. The state first requested Uniform Criminal Jury Instruction (UCrJI) 1116. UCrJI 1116, "Defense-Physical Force-Involving Peace Officers," provides, in pertinent part, that "[a peace officer] is justified in using physical force on a person being arrested when and to the extent that [he] reasonably believes it is necessary to [make an arrest] unless [he] knows the arrest is not lawful." Defendant argued that the court should not instruct the jury *154with UCrJI 1116 because it "is a comment on the evidence" and because "the state is going to be arguing that Officer Murphy is not on trial in this case, and that he had no burden to * * * justify the use of force." The state responded that the instruction is "an accurate statement of the law" and is appropriate to show Murphy was "justified in using physical force" because defendant was claiming self-defense. The court ruled that UCrJI 1116 was an appropriate instruction to give the jury.
Next, the state offered UCrJI 1226, "Resisting Arrest-Illegality of Arrest-No Defense," which provides: "If [defendant] knew that the person making the arrest was a [peace officer], it is not a defense to the charge of resisting arrest that the [peace officer] lacked legal authority to [make the arrest], provided the officer was acting under color of official authority." Defendant continued to object to any instruction that focused the jury's attention on the lawfulness of Murphy's actions, stating, "Here again, I think * * * what this does is it shifts the burden of proof from the state to the defendant, and I think it does so improperly." The court overruled defendant's objection and decided to give UCrJI 1226 to the jury.
Finally, the state offered UCrJI 1227A, "Peace Officer Use of Physical Force During an Arrest," which provided that "[a] peace officer may use physical force on a person he is arresting, but only when and to the extent that the officer reasonably believes physical force is necessary to make an arrest. An arresting officer may use reasonable physical force to overcome opposition to the arrest."
*155The court turned to defendant's proposed instructions. Defendant requested UCrJI 1227, "Self-Defense-Resisting Arrest," which provides:
"If [defendant] reasonably believed that the officer arresting [him was] using more physical force than was necessary to make the arrest, then [defendant] was entitled to use physical force in self-defense. In defending, [defendant] was entitled to use only that degree of physical force that [he] reasonably believed to be necessary to defend [himself] against what [he] believed to be the excessive force.
"The burden is on the state to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this defense does not apply."
The state responded that, "if [defendant] is going to offer [UCrJI] 1227, than I do think I need to offer [UCrJI] 1227A," and argued that the state should be able to offer both *452UCrJI 1227A, and UCrJI 1116. The court stated, "They say basically the same thing," and ruled that it was "not going to give an instruction twice." The state acknowledged that the instructions say basically the same thing and opted to substitute UCrJI 1227A for UCrJI 1116. The court asked defendant if he had "any problem with that," and defendant responded, "No." The court stated, "Okay. So [UCrJI] 1116 is out."
After the court instructed the jury with UCrJI 1227, defendant's self-defense instruction, and UCrJI 1227A, the state's instruction on the lawfulness of Murphy's use of force, the jury found defendant guilty of resisting arrest, second-degree assault, and assaulting a public safety officer. Additionally, the jury found defendant not guilty of second-degree disorderly conduct and attempted second-degree escape. The court entered a judgment of conviction for resisting arrest, second-degree assault, and assaulting a public safety officer.
On appeal, defendant contends that "[t]he trial court erred by giving * * * UCrJI 1227A," and that his objections "to an instruction on the lawfulness of a police officer's use of force" served "the policies underlying the preservation rule," so we "should review and correct the trial court's error." The state argues that, "[b]ecause defendant *156invited the error in giving [UCrJI] 1227A, this court should decline to exercise its discretion to review defendant's claim of instructional error."
Although defendant's objection to UCrJI 1116 was insufficient to preserve defendant's claim that it was inappropriate to give the jury any instruction that focused on Murphy's state of mind, we address the error as plain error. As the Supreme Court explained in State v. Oliphant ,
The state relies on defendant's response of "no" to the court's question about whether defendant had "any problem" with the state substituting UCrJI 1227A for UCrJI 1116 to argue that defendant invited the error regarding UCrJI 1227A. "Under the invited error doctrine, a party who 'was actively instrumental in bringing about' an alleged error 'cannot be heard to complain, and the case ought not to be reversed because of it.' " State v. Kammeyer ,
In this case, defendant was not actively instrumental in bringing about the error. It is apparent that the trial court had already decided that it was going to give an instruction about Murphy's state of mind, UCrJI 1116, before defendant agreed to the state substituting UCrJI 1227A for UCrJI 1116. See State v. Brown ,
For the reasons expressed in Vanornum , "[t]he gravity of the error and the ends of justice require that we exercise our discretion to correct the instructional error."
Correction of the error also "serves the ends of justice by ensuring that defendant has the opportunity to have a trial with a jury that has been correctly instructed on the law." Id . Accordingly, we exercise our discretion to correct the error.
Convictions for resisting arrest, second-degree assault, and assaulting a public safety officer reversed and remanded; otherwise affirmed.
In defendant's second assignment, he contends that the "trial court erred by denying defendant's motion for judgment of acquittal on the second-degree assault charge in Count 3" because "the state produced insufficient evidence that [Officer Murphy's] scar was a serious disfigurement." In his third assignment, defendant contends that the trial court erred "by denying defendant's request to make a photographic record of the scar's in-court appearance, for the purposes of appellate review."
UCrJI 1227A was withdrawn by the Oregon State Bar Committee on Uniform Criminal Jury Instructions in December 2015 in light of State v. Vanornum ,
For purposes of this case, we agree with the trial court that, in substance, UCrJI 1116 and UCrJI 1227A "say basically the same thing." As noted, UCrJI 1116 provides, in pertinent part, that a "peace officer is justified in using physical force on a person being arrested when and to the extent that he reasonably believes it is necessary to make an arrest ." (Emphasis added.) UCrJI 1227A provided, in part, that a "peace officer may use physical force on a person he is arresting, but only when and to the extent that the officer reasonably believes physical force is necessary to make an arrest ." (Emphasis added.) Both instructions insert the same "irrelevant issue-the arresting officers' actual state of mind-into the jury's deliberations concerning [the defendant's] claim of self-defense." Oliphant ,
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.