- Court: Oregon Supreme Court
- Area(s) of Law: Criminal Law
- Date Filed: 01-31-2019
- Case #: S065957
- Judge(s)/Court Below: Walters, Chief J., Balmer, J., Nakamoto, J., Flynn, J., Duncan, J., Nelson, J., & Garrett, J.
- Full Text Opinion
Defendant appealed the trial court’s determination of the 13-month presumptive sentence set out in HB 3078 (2017). Defendant assigned error to the constitutionality of HB 3078. On appeal, Defendant contended that once the legislature mustered the required two-thirds majority and enacted a reduction of a voter-approved sentence, the resulting sentence became enacted by the legislature, not “approved by the people,” and is not subject to Article I, section 33’s supermajority requirement anymore. In response, the State argued that a criminal sentence either remained perpetually “approved by the people” or ceased when the supermajority enacted a permanent reduction. Although the preamble to the legislature’s 2009 bill, HB 3508, and on representations made by legislators and their staff during committee hearings on the bill might support a legislative intent to “phase in” sentences that were as long as the ones that the voters had approved in Measure 57, they do not support an intent to restore the sentences to their former status as sentences that were approved by the people and thus subject to the two-thirds majority requirement of Measure 57 as they are sentences that the legislature adopted. The Court held that the trial court erred because Article IV, section 33 does not apply to the resulting sentences and that the legislature could validly reduce them by a simple majority in both houses—and did so when it enacted HB 3078 (2017). Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings.