State v. Spring

21 P.3d 657, 172 Or. App. 508, 2001 Ore. App. LEXIS 182
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedFebruary 21, 2001
DocketCF960667; CA A102831
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 21 P.3d 657 (State v. Spring) 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. Spring, 21 P.3d 657, 172 Or. App. 508, 2001 Ore. App. LEXIS 182 (Or. Ct. App. 2001).

Opinion

*510 WOLLHEIM, J.

After a jury trial, defendant was convicted of rape in the second degree (count 1), ORS 163.365, sexual abuse in the first degree (count 2), ORS 163.427, rape in the third degree (count 3), ORS 163.355, and sexual abuse in the third degree (count 4), ORS 163.415. On appeal, defendant assigns error to the trial court’s failure to merge his conviction on count 2 into count 1 and his conviction on count 4 into count 3. 1 We review for errors of law, ORS 138.222(4)(a), and affirm.

The facts are not disputed. In February 1996, when defendant was 26 years old and victim was 13 years old, defendant had sexual intercourse with victim. (Count 1, Rape II.) Defendant also touched victim’s breast. (Count 2, Sexual Abuse I.) In April 1996, when defendant was still 26 years old, but victim was now 14 years old, defendant engaged in sexual intercourse with victim again. (Count 3, Rape III.) Also during that encounter, defendant touched victim’s buttocks. (Count 4, Sexual Abuse III.)

On appeal, the issue is whether defendant’s sexual abuse convictions (counts 2 and 4) 2 should have been *511 merged into his rape convictions (counts 1 and 3). 3 ORS 161.067Q). 4

At the outset, we note that, in State v. Dilts, 28 Or App 393, 559 P2d 1326 (1977), we held that sexual abuse was a lesser included offense of rape because “sexual contact is implicit in” rape. Id. at 396. Thus, we found that the trial court erred in refusing to grant the defendant’s request to give a jury instruction on sexual abuse as a lesser included offense of the defendant’s charged offenses of rape and sodomy. We conclude that our holding in Dilts is no longer controlling because the anti-merger statute at issue here, ORS 161.067, was enacted after Dilts was decided 5 and changed the analysis for determining whether criminal offenses merge. Although the issue in Dilts arose in the context of a jury instruction, whereas the issue here arises in the context of merger, the issue is essentially the same — i.e., whether sexual abuse is a lesser included offense of rape.

A leading case on the issue of merger before the enactment of ORS 161.067 was State v. Cloutier, 286 Or 579, 596 P2d 1278 (1979). There, the Supreme Court stated that merger is a term “which can easily become a name for a conclusion rather than a reason, is best reserved for the narrow situation when the completion of one offense necessarily includes commission of acts sufficient to constitute violation of another statute.” Id. at 586. In determining whether a defendant’s convictions merged, the court expressly announced three sources of authority giving it the power to merge a single offender’s multiple convictions:

“[F]irst, in such legislative directives as do exist; second, in the intentions and policies that may plausibly be attributed *512 to the legislature in the light of legislative history, of the overall statutory framework, and of constitutional principles; * * * and finally in the state and federal double jeopardy clauses and other applicable constitutional limitations.” Id. at 585.

When the legislature’s intent could not be discerned, the courts “speculated] whether the legislature would have expected an offender to be sentenced for more than the most serious felony.” State v. Crotsley, 308 Or 272, 276, 779 P2d 600 (1989). At the time Cloutier was decided, the Oregon statutes did “not contain a specific provision governing conviction and sentence on multiple charges[.]” 286 Or at 592. That being the case, the Cloutier majority discussed other provisions of the Oregon code in an attempt to ascertain an overarching penal policy intended by the legislature. The majority also referred to the law of other jurisdictions.

Ten years later, the Supreme Court again addressed the issue of merger, but rather than attempting to ascertain the legislature’s intent from other statutory provisions, it had a statute directly on point — ORS 161.067. Crotsley, 308 Or 272. 6 The court interpreted ORS 161.067 and stated:

“The proponents of ORS 161.[067] clearly intended that criminal records accurately reflect all crimes actually committed and that a person who commits multiple crimes by the same conduct or during the same criminal episode should have a criminal record reflecting each crime committed rather than only a single conviction which would not accurately portray the nature and extent of that person’s conduct.
“The legislative history and text of ORS 161.[067] could not be more clear in rejecting earlier case law requiring consolidation of multiple convictions and sentences arising from the same criminal episode. For that reason, defendant’s reliance on cases decided prior to the enactment of ORS 161.[067] in [1987] is misplaced. In those cases, *513 absence of clear statutory guidance required us to fashion rules that were more properly the subject of legislation, and statutory ambiguities were construed in favor of criminal defendants. The legislature has now unambiguously embraced the policy advocated by the proponents of ORS 161.[067]. Therefore,

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
21 P.3d 657, 172 Or. App. 508, 2001 Ore. App. LEXIS 182, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-spring-orctapp-2001.