State v. Vallin

434 P.3d 413, 364 Or. 295
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 31, 2019
DocketCC 17CR35704 (CA A167097) (SC S065957)
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 434 P.3d 413 (State v. Vallin) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Vallin, 434 P.3d 413, 364 Or. 295 (Or. 2019).

Opinion

Before Walters, Chief Justice, and Balmer, Nakamoto, Flynn, Duncan, Nelson, and Garrett, Justices.**

*414**297Under Article IV, section 33, of the Oregon Constitution, the legislature may not reduce a criminal sentence that was "approved by the people" through the initiative or referendum process by a simple majority vote, but must garner a two-thirds majority in both houses.1 In this certified appeal, we must determine whether that constitutional rule applies to House Bill (H.B.) 3078 (2017), which recently was enacted by a simple majority in the legislature and which reduces certain statutory presumptive sentences. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that H.B. 3078 (2017) does not "reduce a criminal sentence approved by the people" within the meaning of Article IV, section 33, and that it could be, and was, validly enacted by a simple majority of the legislature.

FACTS

Defendant was charged with theft in the first degree, ORS 164.055, in June 2017. At that time, ORS 137.717 provided a presumptive sentence of 18 months imprisonment for first-degree theft for defendants having two prior convictions for certain specified crimes, to be increased by two months from that baseline for every additional prior conviction of those specified crimes. ORS 137.717(1)(b) (2015). Under that scheme, defendant in the present case would have been subject to a presumptive sentence of 22 months in prison, if convicted.2 But, while defendant's case was pending, H.B. 3078 (2017), which had been enacted by the legislature by a simple majority, became effective. See Or. Laws 2017, ch. 673, §§ 12, 13 (providing bill would become operative on, and apply to sentences imposed after, **298January 1, 2018). Among other things, H.B. 3078 (2017) amended ORS 137.717 (2015) to provide a presumptive sentence of 13 months imprisonment for a first-degree theft conviction of a person in defendant's circumstances. Or. Laws 2017, ch. 673, § 5.

In the plea negotiations in defendant's case, an issue arose as to which version of *415ORS 137.717 would apply if defendant were to plead guilty to first degree theft. The state insisted, in its sentencing memorandum, that the trial court would be required to sentence defendant in accordance with the 2015 version of the statute. It posited that the presumptive sentences therein had been "approved by the people" as part of Ballot Measure 57 (2008), a legislatively referred measure that increased prison sentences for repeat property-crime offenders. The state argued that that sentence had not lost its status as one that had been "approved by the people" when, in 2009, by a two-thirds majority, the legislature enacted a bill, H.B. 3508 (2009), that, in one section, reduced the sentences set out in ORS 137.717 (2015), but, in another section, returned them to their previous ranges, effective some two years later. Consequently, the state argued, H.B. 3078 (2017) was unconstitutional: the legislature had reduced a sentence "approved by the voters" when, by a simple majority and not the two-thirds majority required by Article IV, section 33, it reduced the presumptive sentences set out in ORS 137.717(1)(b) (2015). Thus, according to the state, the presumptive 13-month sentence for defendant's offense provided by H.B. 3078 (2017) had not been constitutionally enacted and had not replaced the 18-month presumptive sentence, with additional months for more than two prior convictions, set out in ORS 137.717(1)(b) (2015).

In his own sentencing memorandum, defendant argued that H.B. 3078 (2017) had reduced a presumptive sentence that had been adopted by the legislature, not one that had been "approved by the people." Defendant acknowledged that "the people" had approved an 18-month presumptive sentence when they enacted Measure 57 in 2008, but he argued that the legislature had lawfully reduced and replaced that sentence-and others-when, in 2009, it enacted H.B. 3508 and amended ORS 137.717 by a two-thirds majority in both houses. Defendant recognized that, under the 2009 **299amendment, the reduced sentences provided therein shifted back, after two years, to sentences that were commensurate with the sentences that the voters had approved in Measure 57. But he insisted that, because both the reduced sentences for the time period from February 15, 2010 to January 1, 2012 and the restored sentences for the period beginning on January 1, 2012 had been enacted by the legislature, not the people, the resulting sentences-including the one at issue here-did not constitute "criminal sentence[s] approved by the people" within the meaning of Article IV, section 33. Accordingly, defendant argued, although H.B. 3078 (2017) reduced the presumptive sentence set out in ORS 137.717 (1)(b) (2015) on a simple majority vote, that reduction was to a sentence enacted by the legislature, not to one "approved by the people," and therefore did not violate Article IV, section 33.

The trial court rejected defendant's argument and agreed with the state that H.B. 3078 (2017) had been enacted in violation of Article IV, section 33. Based primarily on recitals in the preamble to the 2009 bill that amended ORS 137.717, the trial court determined that that bill reflected a legislative intent not to reduce the voter-approved sentences in Measure 57 (2008), but to phase them in over time. The trial court reasoned that, although the legislature had temporarily reduced the voter-approved sentences by the requisite supermajority, it ultimately had resurrected them. Thus, the trial court concluded, the sentences that were in place when H.B. 3078 came before the legislature in 2017 were the original sentences that the voters had approved as Measure 57, and, under Article IV, section 33, they could not be reduced by the simple majority vote that H.B. 3078 (2017) had garnered.

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Bluebook (online)
434 P.3d 413, 364 Or. 295, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-vallin-or-2019.