State v. Lark

833 P.2d 1286, 113 Or. App. 458, 1992 Ore. App. LEXIS 1135
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedJune 10, 1992
DocketC89-12-37103; CA A67396
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 833 P.2d 1286 (State v. Lark) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Lark, 833 P.2d 1286, 113 Or. App. 458, 1992 Ore. App. LEXIS 1135 (Or. Ct. App. 1992).

Opinion

*460 De MUNIZ, J.

After a trial to the court on stipulated facts, defendant was convicted of burglary in the first degree. ORS 164.225. The indictment alleged that the offense “occurred in an occupied dwelling.” Defendant stipulated that he and an accomplice had burglarized an occupied dwelling, but that he did not personally enter the dwelling. On appeal he challenges the classification of his conviction on the Crime Seriousness Scale under the sentencing guidelines. He argues that it was error to rank his conviction in category 8, instead of category 7, because that imposed an enhanced sentence on the basis of vicarious responsibility. We remand for resentencing.

Vicarious responsibility is authorized by ORS 161.150: 1

“A person is guilty of a crime if it is committed by the person’s own conduct or by the conduct of another for which the person is criminally liable, or both.”

There is no comparable basis for vicarious enhancement of a penalty. State v. Wedge, 293 Or 598, 604, 652 P2d 773 (1982); State v. Hicks, 38 Or App 97, 589 P2d 1130 (1979); see also State v. Thiesies, 63 Or App 200, 662 P2d 797 (1983).

Under the sentencing guidelines, the crime seriousness of a conviction for burglary in the first degree is classified according to OAR 253-04-002, which provides, in part:

“(1) The Crime Seriousness Scale consists of eleven categories of crimes. Each crime category represents crimes of relatively equal seriousness. * * *
*461 “(2) When the statutory definition of an offense includes a broad range of criminal conduct, the offense may be sub-classified factually in more than one crime category to capture the full range of criminal conduct covered by the statutory offense. The list of subclassified offenses is set forth as Appendix 3.” (Emphasis supplied.)

Appendix 3 provides, in part:

“BURGLARY I (ORS 164.225)
“CRIME CATEGORY 9
“Burglary I shall be ranked at Crime Category 9 if any of the following factors were included in the commission of the offense:
“a.) the offender was armed with a deadly weapon; or
“b.) the offender caused or threatened physical injury to the victim.
“CRIME CATEGORY 8
“Burglary I shall be ranked at Crime Category 8 if
“a.) the offender did not cause or threaten physical injury to the victim and did not possess a deadly weapon (CC 9); but
“b.) the offense was committed in an occupied dwelling.
“CRIME CATEGORY 7
“Burglary I shall be ranked at Crime Category 7 if it cannot be ranked at Crime Category 8 or 9.”

Defendant argues that the subcategories only enhance punishment and that State v. Wedge, supra, and State v. Hicks, supra, prohibit the imposition of an enhanced punishment based solely on vicarious responsibility. The state contends that the Hicks/Wedge analogy must be rejected, because the statutes at issue in those cases were fundamentally different from the guidelines provisions. In Hicks, the statute mandated the imposition of an additional 10-year penalty if the defendant had committed a felony while armed with a concealable firearm. In Wedge, the statute mandated the imposition of a minimum term of imprisonment if a defendant had used or threatened to use a firearm during commission of a felony. The state contends that those statutes did not add new elements to existing felony statutes, which is the effect of the subcategories here, thereby creating *462 “expanded crimes” for which defendant can be vicariously responsible.

The state argues that State v. Wedge, supra, and our opinion in State v. Moeller, 105 Or App 434, 806 P2d 130, rev dism 312 Or 76, 815 P2d 701 (1991), have “blurred” what constitutes an element of a crime as opposed to a sentence enhancement by requiring, as a matter of constitutional law, that factors that have a direct bearing on the actual sentence must be pled and proved. Thus, the state argues, although the legislature did not expressly make the subcategory factors new elements of the underlying felonies, our opinion in State v. Moeller dictates that they are. The state misconstrues our holding. Irrespective of constitutional considerations, Moeller does not stand for the proposition that the subcategories of the Crime Seriousness Scale are elements of new or expanded crimes.

In Moeller, we held that the allegations of involvement in a “scheme or network” described part of the conduct with which the defendants were charged and that that had a direct bearing on the severity of the sentence that could be imposed. Therefore, the state had to give the defendant notice of that conduct through the charging instrument and had to prove that conduct to the trier of fact. The requirement that the state notify a criminal defendant of the conduct for which it intends to impose a punishment does not mean that that conduct is a part of the definition of a crime.

Requiring the state to give a criminal defendant notice of the conduct on which it intends to impose an enhanced punishment is not new. At common law, the state was required to allege in the accusatory instrument the aggravated conduct that it contended justified the imposition of an enhanced sentence. See Merrill v. Gladden, 216 Or 460, 468, 337 P2d 1774 (1959); see also State v. Blacker, 234 Or 131, 380 P2d 789 (1963). That requirement is now codified for sentencing guidelines purposes. ORS 135.711. 2

*463 The guidelines rules do not show that the legislature intended to create new crimes when it approved the subcategories:

“APPENDIX 3
“OFFENSE SUBCATEGORIES
“The offenses in this appendix have been divided into different subcategories for the Crime Seriousness Scale of the grid. The statutory definition of each offense in this appendix captures a wide spectrum of criminal conduct.

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Related

State v. Stewart
859 P.2d 545 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 1993)
State v. Flanigan
851 P.2d 1120 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1993)
State v. Lark
851 P.2d 1114 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1993)
State v. Perez
851 P.2d 617 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 1993)
State v. Coven
839 P.2d 261 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 1992)
State v. Flanigan
834 P.2d 472 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 1992)
State v. Duncan
833 P.2d 1325 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 1992)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
833 P.2d 1286, 113 Or. App. 458, 1992 Ore. App. LEXIS 1135, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-lark-orctapp-1992.