OR: State Supreme Court Rules on Longer Sentences
January 10, 2006 - 2:22pm
On the last business day of December, the Oregon Supreme Court decided in a trio of cases to support practices that allow for longer sentences. They ruled that juries can impose longer sentences based on aggravating factors like the use of a gun or racial motivations, and can make sentencing decisions at the same time they find a defendant guilty or afterwards.
The Oregon Supreme Court also decided that the practice of asking juries to consider new sentences for people who have already been convicted of crimes and sentenced is not prohibited under the constitutional ban on being tried for the same crime twice and they upheld one practice connected to the "dangerous offender" statute: introducing it as an "aggravating factor" after the indictment.
These decisions may affect 200 to 300 people, although the number of people affected is not clear. The resulting re-sentencing could lead to longer sentences for people already in Oregon's prisons.
Oregon’s 1989 sentencing guidelines permitted a judge to increase a person’s sentence beyond Oregon’s guidelines based on "aggravating factors." In 2004, the US Supreme Court decided that only juries – not judges – could decide whether or not there were aggravating factors, based on the 6th Amendment to the Constitution requiring trial by jury. The US Supreme Court’s decision does not affect Measure 11.
To fix the problem with the 1989 guidelines, the Oregon Legislature passed a law during the last session that requires juries to consider facts around aggravating factors at the same time that juries determine guilt or innocence. The only exception is if the facts are “unfairly prejudicial” to the defendant.
To read the decisions:
State v. Upton:
www.publications.ojd.state.or.us/S52316.htm
State v. Sawatzky:
www.publications.ojd.state.or.us/S52332.htm
State v. Heilman:
www.publications.ojd.state.or.us/S51479.htm
This news brief is based on the rulings as well as on a January 2, 2006, article in the Statesman Journal:
Court Gives Juries Resentencing Authority
If the link is broken, please check the archives of the Statesman Journal.
