670 205 v. Maxon State 30322, April Or2020 App

Submitted April 2, affirmed April 22, 2020

STATE OF OREGON, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. STEVEN ELLIOTT MAXON, Defendant-Appellant. Clackamas County Circuit Court 18CR02036; A169207

Ulanda L. Watkins, Judge. Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate Section, and Kyle Krohn, Deputy Public Defender, Office of Public Defense Services, filed the brief for appellant. Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General, and Daniel Norris, Assistant Attorney General, filed the brief for respondent. Before Lagesen, Presiding Judge, and Powers, Judge, and Kamins, Judge. PER CURIAM Affirmed. Cite as

(2020) 671

PER CURIAM Defendant was convicted after a bench trial on three counts of menacing. ORS 163.190. He argues on appeal that the trial court erred in denying his motion for judgment of acquittal on one of the counts and in refusing to allow defense counsel to question a defense witness about whether his testimony was accurate and truthful. We reject without discussion defendant’s contention that the court erred in denying his motion for judgment of acquittal. With respect to the evidentiary issue, defendant asserts, and the state acknowledges, that the court erred in excluding the witness’s testimony. The state argues, however, that the error was harmless under the circumstances of this case. As explained below, we agree. As a general matter, a court must not allow a witness to give “vouching” testimony, that is, “one’s personal opinion about the credibility of a witness.” State v. Sperou,

,

(2019). The reason for the vouching rule is to ensure that the jury’s role in assessing witness credibility “is not usurped by another witness’s opinion tes- timony.” State v. Chandler,

,

(2016). The vouching rule is not implicated, however, when a witness asserts his or her own truthfulness: “[A] witness does not impermissibly ‘vouch for’ or ‘bolster’ his or her own testimony by proclaiming truthfulness.” State v. Sanchez- Jacobo,

,

(2012), rev den,

(2013) (emphasis in original). Here, defendant presented testimony from his room- mate that generally supported defendant’s version of the events that led to the menacing charges. On redirect, defense counsel asked the witness whether his testimony had been “accurate and truthful,” and the trial court sua sponte struck the question as “vouching.” That was error. We conclude, however, that the error was harmless. This case is not meaningfully distin- guishable from State v. Partain,

,

, rev den,

(2019). There, we concluded that a trial court’s error in preventing the defendant from answer- ing a question about whether he was lying was harmless, 672 State v. Maxon

primarily because “the content of the excluded statement does not differ meaningfully from the assertion implied by the oath that defendant took before testifying.” Id. at 805. In this case, not only did defendant’s roommate take an oath, defense counsel asked the roommate on redirect whether he was “testifying under oath today,” and he confirmed that he was. Consistent with Partain, we agree with the state that, under those circumstances, the error was harmless. Affirmed.