State v. Martin

Defendant appealed his second sentencing judgment after receiving post-conviction relief. Defendant assigned error to the trial court’s holding that his 5 public indecency exposures, which occurred in the same night, did not stem from the same criminal episode.  On appeal, Defendant argued that the public indecency incidents arose out of a single criminal episode because his conduct had a single criminal objective of “exposing himself for the purposes of sexual arousal.”  The State argued, although Defendant had the same criminal objective during each exposure, Defendant accomplished this objective each time.  Under ORS 131.505d(4), “criminal episode” is defined as “continuous and uninterrupted conduct that is so joined in time, place or circumstances that such conduct is directed to the accomplishment of a single criminal objective.” A criminal objective, “refers to the pursuit of some object or attainment of some goal beyond the successful commission of the acts constituting the offense charged.” State v. Cloutier, 286 Or 579, 599 (1979). The Court reasoned, because Defendant did not need to expose himself a certain number of times to achieve his goal, his objective was not a “discrete” goal but rather a “distant and overriding” goal similar to running a drug-dealing enterprise. The Court held that each count of public indecency was a separate criminal episode.  Affirmed.