State v. Choat

• Court: Oregon Court of Appeals
• Area(s) of Law: Appellate Procedure
• Date Filed: 08-15-2012
• Case #: A144445
• Judge(s)/Court Below: Schuman, P.J. for the Court; Wollheim, J.; and Nakamoto, J.

For a defendant to challenge the imposition of a compensatory fine on appeal, it must have been procedurally raised at the trial level for the court to evaluate the claim.

Defendant appealed the trial court's imposition of a compensatory fine, claiming the fine did not qualify as compensation under ORS 137.101(1) because the fine was for compensation of the injured person's families' travel expenses thus not qualifying according to statute and precedent. The State argued that the Defendant failed to preserve his claim at trial as he only objected to the imposition of restitution and not the compensatory fine. The Court of Appeals determined that the Defendant only objected to expense as restitution, and did not object to the expense as a compensatory fine thus failing to allow the Defendant to bring a separate challenge. Secondly, the Court declined to exercise plain error review as the Defendant did not raise this issue at trial nor did the Defendant ask for plain error review. Affirmed

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