State v. Taylor

There must be an unreasonable and obvious legal error drawn from the irrefutable facts of the record for there to be plain error. Ailes v. Portland Meadows, Inc.. 312 Or 376, 823 P2d 956 (1991). If the Court finds an error, the Court has discretion to correct the error, but must also articulate its reason for doing so. Id. at 382. The Court may take into consideration the “competing interest of the parties; the nature of the case; how the error came to the court’s attention; and whether the policies behind the general rule requiring preservation of error have been served in another way” when determining whether to exercise Court discretion. Id. at 382.

Defendant appealed the trial court’s judgment to revoke probation and sentence him to 36 months incarceration. Defendant assigned error to the trial court’s judgment to sanction the defendant to 36 months as a plain error. The State conceded the error, but argued that the circumstances weighed against the defendant because of his failure to object for the Court to exercise discretion to correct the trial court’s error. There must be an unreasonable and obvious legal error drawn from the irrefutable facts of the record for there to be plain error. Ailes v. Portland Meadows, Inc.. 312 Or 376, 823 P2d 956 (1991). If the Court finds an error, the Court has discretion to correct the error, but must also articulate its reason for doing so. Id. at 382. The Court may take into consideration the “competing interest of the parties; the nature of the case; how the error came to the court’s attention; and whether the policies behind the general rule requiring preservation of error have been served in another way” when determining whether to exercise Court discretion. Id. at 382. The Court found the error of the trial court to be an obvious one and an error on its face and determined to apply its discretion because the Court believed the sentence of the defendant was a tactical decision and not a mistake. Reversed and remanded for a different sentence.