State v. Cook

“[W]here the issue is presented, a sentencing court must consider an offender’s intellectual disability in comparing the gravity of the offense and the severity of a mandatory prison sentence on such an offender in a proportionality analysis.” State v. Ryan, 361 Or 602, 620-21, 396 P3d 867 (2017).

Defendant appealed his conviction and sentence for first-degree sexual abuse. Defendant assigned error to the imposition of his mandatory 75-month sentence under ORS 137.700 (Measure 11 (1994)) by the sentencing court rejecting his constitutional proportionality challenge. On appeal, Defendant argued the sentencing court erred in declining to consider his vulnerability in prison when it found that he suffered from an intellectual disability in its sentence proportionality review under Article I, section 16 of the Oregon Constitution and the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution. In response, the State argued the sentencing court did not err because the severity of the penalty is analyzed only by the length of the sentence, and not the conditions of confinement. The State further argued that if the sentencing court did err, the error was harmless. “[W]here the issue is presented, a sentencing court must consider an offender’s intellectual disability in comparing the gravity of the offense and the severity of a mandatory prison sentence on such an offender in a proportionality analysis.” State v. Ryan, 361 Or 602, 620-21, 396 P3d 867 (2017). The Court found that for the defendant to prevail, the trial court would have had to accept defendant’s argument that he was at an increased risk of victimization, and because the trial court rejected Defendant’s argument as a necessary factual predicate, the verdict was most likely not affected. Affirmed.