State v. Parker

Summarized by:

  • Court: Oregon Court of Appeals
  • Area(s) of Law: Sentencing
  • Date Filed: 11-27-2013
  • Case #: A147862
  • Judge(s)/Court Below: Wollheim, J. for the Court; Schuman, P.J.; and Duncan, J.

To determine whether a sentence would shock the moral sense for purposes of Oregon's proportionality clause: "(1) a comparison of the severity of the penalty and the gravity of the crime; (2) a comparison of the penalties imposed for other, related crimes; and (3) the criminal history of the defendant."

Defendant was convicted for ten counts of first-degree encouraging of child sexual abuse, dating from June 30, 2004 to December 31, 2009. His aggregate sentence was 119 months, with the longest of the individual sentences being 45 months. On appeal, Defendant argues the constitutionality of his sentence claiming that it exceeds to maximum allowable sentence, by law. In his argument, Defendant compared his 119 month aggregate to that of the defendant in State v. Baker where the defendant there compared his 180 month sentence to the mandatory minimum sentence of 100 months for one count of first-degree rape. The Court concluded that the proper comparison is not comparing an aggregate sentence for multiple convictions to a single sentence for a single conviction, but rather, comparing each individual charge with the comparable single conviction. The Court compared Defendant's longest individual sentence of 45 months to a mandatory minimum sentence of 75 months for the crime of first-degree sexual abuse. With that, the Court held that Defendant’s sentence was not disproportionate that it would shock the moral sense of a reasonable person. Affirmed.

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