## Facts

- Hazel Chatfield and her daughter, Judith Moen, were found dead in Chatfield’s home on March 14, 1986; both died from gunshot wounds to the head.
- Physical evidence suggested a domestic dispute: Judith was injured and bled in a bedroom area, was moved while bleeding, then shot; Hazel was likely shot while responding to Judith’s injury.
- Investigators discounted burglary based on the condition of the scene and items left behind; ballistics indicated shots were fired from a .38 caliber revolver.
- The state’s theory was that Ronald Howard Moen killed Judith during a quarrel and killed Hazel when she intervened.
- Before the killings, Chatfield made statements to her physician during visits for hypertension and related conditions, describing Moen’s abuse of Judith and expressing fear that Moen might kill them.
- A physician diagnosed Chatfield with situational depression, prescribed medication, and advised contacting police.
- The state introduced additional evidence, including forensic bite-mark testimony relating an injury on Moen’s hand to Hazel’s teeth, and evidence of Moen’s prior violent conduct.
- A Marion County jury convicted Moen of aggravated murder and imposed a death sentence.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court properly admitted Chatfield’s statements to her physician under the hearsay exception for statements made for purposes of medical diagnosis or treatment.
2. Whether admitting those statements violated the Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause.
3. Whether the indictment should have been set aside based on the nature or sufficiency of evidence presented to the grand jury, including hearsay.
4. Whether Oregon’s capital-sentencing framework and jury instructions allowed the jury to consider and give effect to all mitigating evidence as required by the Eighth Amendment.

## Decision

- The Oregon Supreme Court affirmed the aggravated-murder conviction.
- The court held that Chatfield’s statements to her physician were admissible under the medical-diagnosis-or-treatment hearsay exception because they were reasonably pertinent to diagnosing and treating her stress-related and psychological condition.
- The court held that admitting the statements did not violate the Confrontation Clause under then-controlling doctrine because the declarant was unavailable and the statements had sufficient guarantees of trustworthiness.
- The court rejected challenges to the indictment based on the character of the grand-jury evidence.
- The court reversed the death sentence and remanded for resentencing because the penalty-phase instructions and framework did not adequately permit the jury to consider and give effect to mitigating evidence under applicable constitutional standards.

## Legal Principles

- Statements made for purposes of medical diagnosis or treatment may include descriptions of abuse and fear of future harm when reasonably pertinent to treating stress-related or psychological conditions.
- Under then-controlling confrontation analysis, hearsay admitted within a firmly rooted exception, from an unavailable declarant, may be admitted if it bears adequate indicia of reliability, including circumstances showing a strong motive to be truthful in seeking medical care.
- Attacks on an indictment based on the type or sufficiency of evidence presented to the grand jury are limited under Oregon law; reliance on hearsay before the grand jury generally does not require dismissal.
- In capital sentencing, jury instructions and the statutory question framework must allow jurors to consider and give effect to all mitigating evidence; failure to do so requires reversal of a death sentence and resentencing.

## Conclusion

The court upheld the aggravated-murder conviction, including admission of a victim’s family member’s abuse-and-fear statements to a physician as medically pertinent and sufficiently reliable under then-governing confrontation doctrine, but vacated the death sentence because the sentencing instructions and framework did not adequately permit jurors to give effect to mitigating evidence.


State v. Moen, 309 Or. 45, 786 P.2d 111 (Or. 1990)