Case Title: Oregon v. Nix

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: oregon

Court: Oregon Supreme Court

Date: 2014-08-07T00:00:00Z

Document:
No. 50	
August 7, 2014	
777
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE 
STATE OF OREGON
STATE OF OREGON,
Petitioner on Review,
v.
ARNOLD WELDON NIX,
Respondent on Review.
(CC CRH090155; CA A145386; SC S060875)
On review from the Court of Appeals.*
Argued and submitted September 17, 2013.
David J. Celuch, argued the cause and filed the brief for 
petitioner on review.
Jamie K. Contreras, Assistant Attorney General, argued 
the cause and filed the brief for respondent on review.
Before Balmer, Chief Justice, and Kistler, Walters, 
Linder, Landau, and Baldwin, Justices.**
LANDAU, J.
The decision of the Court of Appeals is affirmed. The 
judgment of the circuit court is reversed, and the case is 
remanded for entry of separate convictions on each guilty 
verdict for a violation of ORS 167.325 and for resentencing.
____________
	
**  Appeal from Umatilla County Circuit Court, Jeffrey M. Wallace, Judge. 
251 Or App 449, 283 P3d 442 (2012).
	
**  Brewer, J., did not participate in the consideration or decision of this case.
778	
State Nix
Defendant was found guilty and convicted of 20 counts of second-degree 
animal neglect. ORS 167.325 (2009). The trial court merged those convictions 
into a single conviction after determining that animals are not “victims” under 
Oregon’s anti-merger statute, ORS 161.067(2). The state appealed and the Court 
of Appeals reversed, reasoning that animals can be considered “victims” of ani-
mal neglect for purposes of the anti-merger statute. Held: The ordinary meaning 
of the word “victim” as it is used in ORS 161.067(2) can include both human and 
non-human animals. This court’s cases construing the term “victim” as it is used 
in that statute hold that, in fact, the meaning of the term is not to be found in 
an analysis of ORS 161.067(2) itself, but rather, it derives from the underlying 
substantive criminal statute that defendant has been found to have violated. A 
person violates ORS 167.325 by failing to provide minimum care to “an animal.” 
It is the animal itself that “suffers harm that is an element of the offense,” and 
therefore, it is the animal that is considered the “victim” of second-degree animal 
neglect for purposes of the anti-merger statute.
The decision of the Court of Appeals is affirmed. The judgment of the circuit 
court is reversed, and the case is remanded for entry of separate convictions on 
each guilty verdict for a violation of ORS 167.325 and for resentencing.
Cite as 355 Or 777 (2014)	
779
	
LANDAU, J.	
	
In this criminal case, defendant was found guilty 
of 20 counts of second-degree animal neglect. ORS 167.325 
(2009).1 Oregon’s “anti-merger” statute, ORS 161.067, pro-
vides that, when the same conduct or criminal episode vio-
lates only one statute, but involves more than one “victim,” 
there are “as many separately punishable offenses as there 
are victims.” The issue in this case is whether defendant is 
guilty of 20 separately punishable offenses, which turns on 
the question whether animals are “victims” for the purposes 
of the anti-merger statute. The trial court concluded that, 
because only people can be victims within the meaning of 
that statute, defendant had committed only one punishable 
offense. The court merged the 20 counts into a single convic-
tion for second-degree animal neglect. On appeal, the Court 
of Appeals concluded that animals can be victims within 
the meaning of the anti-merger statute and, accordingly, 
reversed and remanded for entry of a judgment of conviction 
on each of the 20 counts and for resentencing. State Nix, 251 
Or App 449, 283 P3d 442 (2012). We agree with the Court of 
Appeals and affirm.
	
The undisputed facts are aptly summarized by the 
Court of Appeals:
“Acting on a tip, police officers entered defendant’s farm 
and found dozens of emaciated animals, mostly horses 
and goats, and several animal carcasses in various states 
of decay. Defendant owned those animals. Defendant was 
indicted on 23 counts of first-degree animal neglect, ORS 
167.330, and 70 counts of second-degree animal neglect, 
ORS 167.325. Each separate count identified a different 
animal and charged conduct by defendant toward that 
animal. All of the separate counts were alleged to have 
	
1  ORS 167.325 was amended in 2013. Or Laws 2013, ch 719. The new law 
includes findings that “[a]nimals are sentient beings capable of experiencing 
pain, stress and fear” and that “[a]nimals should be cared for in ways that min-
imize pain, stress, fear and suffering.” Id. § 1. It also increases the penalty for 
second-degree animal neglect if, among other things, “the offense was part of a 
criminal episode involving 11 or more animals.” Id. § 4(3)(b). The amendments 
do not apply to this case, and we refer to the 2009 version of the law—the law 
that applied when defendant committed the offenses—throughout this opinion. 
We also express no opinion about the effect of the 2013 amendments on the issue 
presented in this case.
780	
State Nix
occurred within the same span of time. A jury convicted 
defendant of 20 counts of second-degree animal [neglect].
	
“At defendant’s sentencing hearing, the state asked the 
trial court to impose 20 separate convictions because the 
jury had found defendant guilty of neglecting 20 different 
animals. Accordingly, the state argued, the convictions ‘do 
not merge based on [ORS 161.067](1), (2) and (3).’ The trial 
court disagreed and merged the guilty verdicts into a sin-
gle conviction, explaining that
	
“ 
‘[ORS 161.067(2)] talks about—although violating 
only one statutory provision, it involves two or more vic-
tims. In this case, I agree with the defendant’s position 
that the animals are not victims, as defined by the stat-
ute; by the ORS 161.067(2).
	
“ 
‘* 
* 
* I don’t think that [ORS 161.067(3) ] applies 
because the animals are not victims under the defini-
tion of the statute requiring that to be persons.’
	
“Defendant was sentenced to 90 days in jail and three 
years of bench probation; the trial court suspended imposi-
tion of the jail sentence, and the state appealed.”
Nix, 251 Or App at 451-52.
	
The state appealed, assigning error to the trial 
court’s merger of the 20 counts of second-degree animal 
neglect. The state argued that, under State Glaspey, 337 
Or 558, 563, 100 P3d 730 (2004), the term “victim” in the 
anti-merger statute draws its meaning from the underlying 
substantive criminal statute that defendant violated. In this 
case, the state argued, the text, context, and legislative his-
tory of the second-degree animal neglect statute make clear 
that the legislature intended the neglected animals as the 
victims of the offense.
	
Defendant argued that the ordinary meaning of the 
term “victim” does not include non-humans. Animals, he 
argued, are treated by Oregon law as the property of their 
owners. In defendant’s view, because no statute expressly 
defines the word to include animals, only persons can be 
victims under the anti-merger statute.
	
The Court of Appeals reversed. In brief, the court 
reasoned that, following this court’s instruction in Glaspey, 
Cite as 355 Or 777 (2014)	
781
the meaning of the term “victim” as it is used in the anti-
merger statute is determined by reference to the underlying 
substantive criminal statute that defendant violated. 251 
Or App at 457-58. The court explained that the substan-
tive criminal statute at issue in this case, ORS 167.325, 
evinces a legislative concern with the well-being of animals. 
Reviewing the text and history of the statute, the court con-
cluded that, although animals are usually considered the 
property of persons, ORS 167.325 reflects a broader pub-
lic interest in “protect[ing] individual animals as sentient 
beings” by ensuring that such animals receive minimum 
care and are not abused or neglected. Id. at 460-61.
	
On review before this court, defendant renews his 
argument that “the ordinary meaning of the word ‘victim’ 
means a ‘person,’ 
” not an animal. According to defendant, 
“[a]nimals are defined as property under Oregon law,” and 
“[t]here is no statute that allows property to be seen as a 
victim” of a criminal offense. In defendant’s view, the victim 
of an animal neglect case is either the public at large or the 
owner of the animal.
	
The state responds that the ordinary meaning of 
the word “victim” is not as narrow as defendant contends 
and that, to the contrary, it commonly is used to refer both to 
animals and to human beings. Moreover, because individual 
animals directly suffer the harm that is central to the crime 
of animal neglect, as set out in ORS 167.325, they are the 
“victims” of that crime. According to the state, the text and 
history of the statute make clear that the legislature was 
concerned with the capacity of animals to suffer abuse and 
neglect. Indeed, the state argues, the legislature expressly 
structured the animal neglect statutes “such that the degree 
of the crime corresponds to the extent of the animal’s suffer-
ing.” Thus, in the state’s view, the statutes evince a concern 
to protect more than a general public interest in animal wel-
fare; rather, those statutes reflect the legislature’s intention 
to protect individual animals from suffering.
	
The issue before us is one of statutory construction, 
which we resolve by applying the familiar principles set out 
in PGE Bureau of Labor and Industries, 317 Or 606, 610-12, 
859 P2d 1143 (1993), and State Gaines, 346 Or 160, 171–73, 
782	
State Nix
206 P3d 1042 (2009). Our goal is to ascertain the mean-
ing of the statute that the legislature most likely intended. 
Halperin Pitts, 352 Or 482, 486, 287 P3d 1069 (2012).
	
We begin with the text of the statute, in context. 
Oregon’s anti-merger statute provides that, when a defen-
dant is found guilty of committing multiple crimes during a 
single criminal episode, those guilty verdicts “merge” into a 
single conviction, unless they are subject to one of a series of 
exceptions. One of those exceptions is ORS 161.067(2), which 
provides that, “[w]hen the same conduct or criminal episode, 
though violating only one statutory provision[,] involves two 
or more victims, there are as many separately punishable 
offenses as there are victims.” At issue in this case is the 
meaning of the word “victims” as it is used in that statute.
	
In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we 
assume that the legislature intended that the wording of an 
enactment to be given its ordinary meaning. State Murray, 
340 Or 599, 604, 136 P3d 10 (2006). The ordinary mean-
ing of the word “victim” reflected in a dictionary of common 
usage is:
“1 : a living being sacrificed to some deity or in the perfor-
mance of a religious rite 2 : someone put to death, tortured, 
or mulcted by another : a person subjected to oppression, 
deprivation, or suffering   
 3 : someone who 
suffers death, loss, or injury in an undertaking of his own 
 4 : someone tricked, 
duped, or subjected to hardship : someone badly used or 
taken advantage of  
“syn PREY, QUARRY: VICTIM applies to anyone who suf-
fers either as a result of ruthless design or incidentally or 
accidentally    * 
* 
*.”
Cite as 355 Or 777 (2014)	
783
Webster’s Third New Int’l Dictionary 2550 (unabridged ed 
1983).2
	
In that light, it can be seen that defendant’s conten-
tion that the “plain meaning” of the word “victim” refers only 
to persons, and not to animals, is predicated on a selective 
reading of the dictionary definitions. The first sense listed in 
the definition, for example, refers broadly to “a living being,” 
not solely to human beings. And the synonymy gives as an 
example of the word “victim” the sacrifice of animals. The 
ordinary meaning of the word “victim,” then, is capable of 
referring either to human beings, animals, or both.3
	
Illustrative examples of the plain meaning of “vic-
tim” to refer to animals are not difficult to locate. Especially 
in the context of animal cruelty, it is common to refer to 
animals as “victims.” As far back as the mid-nineteenth 
century, John Stuart Mill referred to the “unfortunate 
slaves and victims of the most brutal part of mankind; the 
lower animals.” John Stuart Mill, 2 Principles of Political 
	
2  Other dictionaries offer similar definitions. The Oxford dictionary, for 
example, defines “victim” as, among other things, “[a] living creature killed and 
offered as a sacrifice” and “[o]ne who is reduced or destined to suffer under some 
oppressive or destructive agency” and includes as an example of the latter sense 
a literary quotation that refers to an animal as a victim: “We . . . even went to the 
length of fixing upon one useless, toothless old fellow [sc a dog] as a victim to our 
appetites, in case of extremity.” XIX Oxford English Dictionary 607 (2d ed 1989) 
(alternation in original; internal quotation marks and citation omitted). See also 
The American Heritage Dictionary 1990 (3d ed 1992) (“One who is harmed or 
killed by another * 
* 
* A living creature slain and offered as a sacrifice”). The 
definition of “one,” it should be noted, is not limited to human beings. See, e.g., 
Webster’s at 1575 (“a single unit or entire being or thing”); X Oxford at 805 (“[a] 
person or being whose identity is left undefined”).
	
3  The idea of animals being regarded as “victims” is not a new one. Animals 
as Offenders and Victims, 21 Alb LJ 265, 266 (1880) (recounting the history of 
animal welfare laws in Europe and noting that eventually legislation prohibited 
cruelty to animals “not out of regard to the owner, but in mercy to the creature 
itself”). In a related vein, there are records of legal proceedings being brought 
against animals as named parties to legal proceedings as early as the Middle 
Ages in Europe and as recently as the twentieth century in this country, which 
reflect that animals often have been treated, as least for some purposes, as per-
sons. See generally Jen Girgen, The Historical and Contemporary Prosecution 
and Punishment of Animals, 9 Animal L 97 (2003) (recounting criminal prose-
cutions of pigs, cows, bulls, horses, mules, oxen, goats, sheep, and dogs, among 
others, dating at least from the thirteenth century); see also Edward P. Evans, 
The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals (1987); Paul Schiff 
Berman, Rats, Pigs, and Statues on Trial: The Creation of Cultural Narratives in 
the Prosecution of Animals and Inanimate Objects, 69 NYU L Rev 288 (1994).
784	
State Nix
Economy: With Some of Their Applications to Social 
Philosophy 579 (1864). Rachel Carson complained of cru-
elty to all, “whether its victim is human or animal.” Letter 
from Rachel Carson to Oxford University Press, (undated) 
(on file with Yale University Library). A headline from an 
early New York Times article referred to “Animal Victims 
of Railroad Trains.” N Y Times, Oct 11, 1914, at 77. A more 
recent article from 1982 on a series of hunting photographs 
from India mentioned pictures of “animal victims.” Images 
of India, N Y Times, April 25, 1982. A 1992 article from the 
Chicago Tribune similarly is headlined, “Pair Heading to 
Bosnia to Aid Animal Victims of War.” Chi Trib, Oct 6, 1992. 
Closer to home, an article in the Oregon State Bar Bulletin 
reported that, “[t]he Oregon Legislature has repeatedly and 
consistently articulated a strong public policy favoring the 
aggressive prosecution of animal cruelty cases by enacting 
statutes requiring police officers to make arrests in cases 
of animal abuse and to pay for and provide care to victim 
animals.” Full-Time Prosecutor to Litigate Animal Cruelty 
Cases Statewide, Or State Bar Bulletin, May 2013.
	
Having established the common, ordinary meaning 
of the term “victim,” the question is whether anything in the 
statute at issue suggests that the legislature meant some-
thing different. Certainly nothing in the wording of ORS 
161.067(2) suggests that the word “victim” cannot refer to 
animals. If anything, the phrasing of the statute—which 
refers to the violation of another statutory provision— 
suggests that the meaning of the word “victim” will depend 
on the underlying substantive statute that the defendant 
violated.
	
The legislative history sheds no light on the matter. 
The wording of ORS 161.067(2) can be traced to 1985, when 
Senate Bill 257 was introduced at the request of the Oregon 
Department of Justice on behalf of the Oregon District 
Attorneys Association. The bill was intended
“to address two related problems which have caused crimi-
nal law practitioners and the courts consternation for quite 
some time. The first issue is how many judgments of con-
viction a court may enter when a criminal defendant has, 
during an episode, violated several statutes, injured several 
Cite as 355 Or 777 (2014)	
785
victims or violated the same statute against the same vic-
tim several times. The second issue concerns the question 
of when a court may sentence a defendant convicted of mul-
tiple crimes to consecutive sentences.”
Staff Measure Analysis, Senate Judiciary Committee, SB 
257, 1985. Up to that time, no statute existed to guide the 
courts about how to enter judgments when a single criminal 
episode might provide grounds for multiple convictions and 
sentences. See generally State Cloutier, 286 Or 579, 582-85, 
596 P2d 1278 (1971) (noting incomplete legislative direc-
tion regarding possible “multiple consequences” of a “single 
criminal act”). SB 257 was proposed to provide the courts 
that needed direction. State Crotsley, 308 Or 272, 276-78, 
779 P2d 600 (1989) (discussing legislative history of for-
mer ORS 161.062). The House voted in favor an amended 
version of SB 257, which the legislature ultimately adopted 
and codified at former ORS 161.062(2). Id. As enacted, the 
new law provided in part that, “when the same conduct 
or criminal episode violates only one statutory provision, 
but involves two or more victims, there are as many sepa-
rately punishable offenses as there are victims.” Or Laws 
1985, ch 722, § 4(2). Nothing in the legislative history men-
tions any concern with the definition of the word “victim,” 
however.
	
The following year, a “crime victims’ bill of rights” 
was adopted by initiative as Ballot Measure 10 (1986). The 
measure recognized the rights of crime victims at trial, at 
sentencing, and after sentencing. For example, Measure 10 
amended ORS Chapter 136 to require the trial court to take 
the victim into account in setting a trial date; it amended 
ORS 40.385 to provide that trial courts are not authorized 
to exclude victims from the court; it amended ORS 136.060 
to require the trial court to take into consideration the 
crime victim’s interest in determining whether to try jointly 
charged defendants together; it amended ORS Chapter 137 
to recognize a crime victim’s right to appear at sentencing; it 
amended ORS 137.101 to require courts to liberally construe 
restitution statutes in favor of victims; it amended ORS 
144.120 to require the Parole Board to attempt to notify 
the crime victim in advance of any parole hearings and to 
recognize a right of the victim to appear at such hearings; 
786	
State Nix
and it amended ORS 144.260 to require the Parole Board to 
provide the victim advance notice of any release decision. Or 
Laws 1987, ch 2.
	
Significantly for our purposes, Measure 10 also 
added the anti-merger provision to ORS Chapter 161 that 
is now ORS 161.067(2): “When the same conduct or crimi-
nal episode, though violating only one statutory provision[,] 
involves two or more victims, there are as many separately 
punishable offenses as there are victims.” Id. § 13. That pro-
vision is nearly identical to what the legislature had just 
enacted the year before as former ORS 161.062(2). In fact, 
the source of the wording of the ballot measure provision 
was SB 257 (1985). Crotsley, 308 Or at 276 n 3 (noting that 
both ORS 161.062 and ORS 161.067 “derived from a com-
mon source”).4
	
Ordinarily, when legislation has been essentially 
reenacted with no material change, we assume—in the 
absence of evidence to the contrary—that no change in 
meaning was intended. See, e.g., Carter US National Bank, 
304 Or 538, 544, 747 P2d 980 (1987) (“[t]here is no indica-
tion that the legislature intended any substantive change 
when it repealed former ORS 17.605 and reenacted it as 
ORCP 64A”), overruled on other grounds by Assoc. Unit 
Owners of Timbercrest Condo. Warren, 352 Or 583, 288 P3d 
958 (2012); Kingery Dept. of Revenue, 276 Or 241, 247, 554 
P2d 471 (1976) (“[t]here is no evidence that the legislature 
intended any change in its prior statutory direction * 
* 
* by 
its substitution of the words ‘true cash value’ for the words 
‘full and true value’ when it reenacted” the statute). In this 
case, nothing in that history of Measure 10 suggests that 
the duplicate provision was intended to have a meaning dif-
ferent from what the legislature had just enacted.
	
4  As this court explained in Crotsley, 308 Or at 276, the same anti-merger 
statute, in effect, “was enacted twice,” first by the legislature and second by ini-
tiative. Both provisions remained in the Oregon Revised Statutes for the next 
13 years, during which time courts referred to the two statutes as being essen-
tially interchangeable. In 1999, the legislature repealed former ORS 161.062, Or 
Laws 1999, ch 136, § 1, on the recommendation of the Oregon Law Commission, 
which explained that the enactment of ORS 161.067, with its nearly identi-
cal wording, had rendered the older statute obsolete. Tape Recording, Senate 
Committee on Judiciary, HB 2277, Feb 1, 1999, Tape 20, Side A (Statement of 
Rep. Lane Shetterly).
Cite as 355 Or 777 (2014)	
787
	
To be sure, other provisions of Measure 10 appear 
to assume that “victim” refers to persons. After all, provi-
sions relating to the rights of victims to appear in court, to 
obtain restitution, and to be heard at sentencing and Parole 
Board hearings would be difficult to apply were “victims” 
to include non-human animals. The measure itself provides 
a definition of “victim” as “the person or persons who have 
suffered financial, social, psychological or physical harm 
as a result of a crime.” Or Laws 1987, ch 2, § 17 (emphasis 
added.)
	
But that definition expressly applies only to certain 
provisions in the measure, specifically, those that amended 
“ORS 40.385 and * 
* 
* ORS Chapters 136, 137, and 144.” Id. 
The definition of “victim” as a person does not apply to the 
anti-merger statute. Consequently, just as with former ORS 
161.062(2), the otherwise undefined reference to “victim” 
in ORS 161.067(2) must draw its meaning from some other 
source.
	
Two of this court’s decisions interpreting ORS 
161.067(2) hold precisely that. The first is Glaspey. In that 
case, the defendant was found guilty of two counts of fel-
ony assault in the fourth degree, based on the fact that he 
had assaulted his wife in the presence of his two children. 
337 Or at 560. Under ORS 163.160(3), the offense of fourth-
degree assault, ordinarily a misdemeanor, is categorized a 
Class C felony if it is committed in the presence of, among 
other things, “the victim’s minor child.” The state argued 
that, because minor children who witness assaults suffer a 
variety of harms, each of the two children who witnessed 
defendant assaulting his wife were “victims,” thus justifying 
separate convictions under ORS 161.067(2).
	
This court rejected that argument. The court 
explained that, regardless of whether the children might 
have been “victims” in some sense, what counts for the 
purposes of ORS 161.067(2) is whether they were victims 
under the substantive criminal statute that the defendant 
violated:
“When the statute speaks of criminal conduct that ‘vio-
late[s] only one statutory provision,’ it necessarily refers to, 
and depends upon, some statute other than itself. That is, 
788	
State Nix
it refers to the substantive criminal laws that define par-
ticular criminal offenses. It follows that the statutory ref-
erence to ‘victims’ in the phrase ‘[w]hen the same conduct 
* 
* 
* involves two or more victims’ also must refer to victims 
within the meaning of the substantive statute that defines 
the relevant crime.”
Id. at 563. The court then turned its attention to “whether 
the child witnesses described in ORS 163.160(3)(c) are vic-
tims of the crimes that that statute defines.” Id. The court 
noted that, ordinarily, a “victim” is one “who suffers harm 
that is an element of the offense.” Id. at 565. The underly-
ing substantive statute may use the term “victim,” but, even 
then, that is regarded as “context” for the purposes of deter-
mining the controlling question of legislative intent. Id. at 
566. In that particular case, the court explained, the word-
ing of the statute in context compelled the conclusion that 
the legislature considered the “victim” to be the person who 
is physically assaulted, not the children. Id. at 565.
	
The second case is State Hamilton, 348 Or 371, 233 
P3d 432 (2010). In that case, the defendant was found guilty 
of seven counts of first- and second-degree robbery, based on 
an incident in which the defendant robbed a bar at gunpoint 
in the presence of the owner, two employees, and four cus-
tomers. Id. at 373-74. The defendant argued that the multi-
ple robbery counts should have merged into a single convic-
tion, because he committed only a single robbery against the 
bar owner. Id. The state argued that each of the witnesses 
to the robbery was a victim and, as a result, separate con-
victions were appropriate under ORS 161.067(2). Hamilton, 
348 Or at 376.
	
This court agreed with the state. Citing Glaspey, 
the court began by stating that, “[i]n analyzing whether a 
crime involves ‘two or more victims’ within the meaning of 
ORS 161.067(2), this court determines who qualifies as a 
‘victim’ by interpreting the substantive statute defining the 
relevant crime.” Hamilton, 348 Or at 376. Turning to the 
text, context, and legislative history of the robbery statutes, 
the court concluded that the “victim” of a robbery includes 
any person against whom a defendant uses or threatens vio-
lence in the course of committing a theft, not only the owner 
of the property. Id. at 377-79.
Cite as 355 Or 777 (2014)	
789
	
To summarize our analysis so far: The ordinary 
meaning of the word “victim” as it is used in ORS 161.067(2) 
can include both human and non-human animals, and noth-
ing in the text, context, or legislative history of the stat-
ute necessarily precludes an animal from being regarded 
as such. This court’s cases construing the term “victim” as 
it is used in that statute hold that, in fact, the meaning of 
the term is not to be found in an analysis of ORS 161.067(2) 
itself, but rather, it derives from the underlying substan-
tive criminal statute that defendant has been found to have 
violated.
	
Whether each of the animals that defendant 
neglected was a “victim” for the purposes of the anti-merger 
statute, then, depends on whether the legislature regarded 
them as such for the purposes of the substantive offense of 
second-degree animal neglect. More particularly, it depends 
on “who suffers harm that is an element of the offense.” 
Glaspey, 337 Or at 565. We turn to that issue.
	
ORS 167.325 (2009) provides:
“A person commits the crime of animal neglect in the sec-
ond degree if, except as otherwise authorized by law, the 
person intentionally, knowingly, recklessly or with crimi-
nal negligence fails to provide minimum care for an animal 
in such person’s custody or control.”
An “animal” means “any nonhuman mammal, bird, reptile, 
amphibian or fish.” ORS 167.310(1) (2009). “Minimum care” 
refers to “care sufficient to preserve the health and well-being 
of an animal and, except for emergencies or circumstances 
beyond the reasonable control of the owner, includes, but is 
not limited to,” such requirements as food, water, shelter, 
and reasonably necessary veterinary care. ORS 167.310(7) 
(2009). For domesticated animals, “minimum care” also 
includes access to adequate shelter, continuous access to an 
area that is adequate for “exercise necessary for the health 
of the animal,” being kept at a “temperature suitable for the 
animal,” and being “[k]ept reasonably clean and free from 
excess waste or other contaminants that could affect the 
animal’s health.” Id.
	
The phrasing of the offense reveals that the leg-
islature’s focus was the treatment of individual animals, 
790	
State Nix
not harm to the public generally or harm to the owners of 
the animals. The offense is committed by failing to provide 
required care to “an animal,” regardless of who owns it. The 
required care includes the minimum necessary “to preserve 
the health and well-being” of that animal. It is the indi-
vidual animal that “suffers harm that is an element of the 
offense.” Glaspey, 337 Or at 565.
	
The larger context of the statutory offense confirms 
that the legislature’s focus is on the treatment of individual 
animals. Second-degree animal neglect is a component of a 
more comprehensive set of offenses concerning the care of 
animals, offenses that are structured to correspond to the 
extent of an animal’s suffering. The statutes begin with ani-
mal neglect in the second degree, which, as we have noted, 
is committed when a person fails to provide minimum 
care. When the person’s failure to provide minimum care 
“results in serious physical injury or death to the animal,” 
that person commits animal neglect in the first degree. 
ORS 167.330. When a person “intentionally, knowingly, or 
recklessly causes physical injury to an animal,” that person 
commits the offense of animal abuse in the second degree. 
ORS 167.315. And when a person intentionally, knowingly, 
or recklessly causes “serious physical injury” or “[c]ruelly 
causes the death of an animal,” that person commits ani-
mal abuse in the first degree. ORS 167.320. Finally, when 
a person “[m]aliciously kills an animal” or “[i]ntentionally 
or knowingly tortures an animal,” that person commits the 
offense of aggravated animal abuse in the first degree, a 
Class C felony. ORS 167.322.
	
In each instance, the offense is committed against 
“an animal,” and the relative seriousness of the offense is 
gauged in accordance with the relative degree of harm to 
or suffering of that animal. If the animal suffers a lack of 
minimum care, the offense is second-degree animal neglect. 
But if the animal is subjected to torture, the offense is felony 
aggravated animal abuse. In any reasonable sense of the 
word, the “victim” of those offenses is the individual animal 
that suffers the neglect, injury, cruelty, torture, or death.
	
Other aspects of the larger statutory scheme sim-
ilarly confirm the legislature’s focus on the suffering of 
Cite as 355 Or 777 (2014)	
791
individual animals. ORS 167.350, for example, provides 
that, in addition to other penalties that a court may impose 
for violations of the animal cruelty laws, the court may order 
the forfeiture of a defendant’s rights in the animal. ORS 
167.350(1). The same statute provides that, if a court orders 
such a forfeiture, it may further order “that the rights be 
given over to an appropriate person or agency demonstrat-
ing a willingness to accept and care for the animal.” ORS 
167.350(2). The statute also provides that a court may also 
require the owner to repay the reasonable costs incurred by 
any person or agency caring for the animal during the pen-
dency of the charges. In each instance, again, the focus is on 
the care of the animal who has suffered the harm of neglect 
or abuse. ORS 167.350(3)
	
The legislative history of ORS 167.325, particularly 
in the larger context of the history of animal cruelty legis-
lation, confirms what our textual analysis so strongly sug-
gests. At common law, cruelty to animals did not constitute 
an offense. See State Bruner, 12 NE 103, 104 (1887) (“There 
is a well-defined difference between the offense of malicious 
or mischievous injury to property, and that of cruelty to ani-
mals. The former constituted an indictable offense at com-
mon law, while the latter did not.”); State Beekman, 27 NJL 
124, 125 (1858) (“The general rule is that no injuries of a 
private nature [including wounding an animal], unless they 
some way concern the king or affect the public, are indict-
able at common law.”).
	
The first animal cruelty legislation on this conti-
nent can be traced to the Puritan “Body of Liberties” from 
the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which prohibited cruelty to 
“any bruite [sic] Creature which are usuallie [sic] kept for 
man’s use.” Massachusetts Body of Liberties §  92 (Ward 
1641); Thomas G. Kelch, A Short History of (Mostly) Western 
Animal Law: Part II, 19 Animal L 347, 350 (2013) (quoting 
Body of Liberties). By its terms, the law protected the ani-
mals only as property of their owners, and even then, only 
as to commercially valuable animals that were “usuallie 
kept for man’s use.”
	
That view of animals as the property of their owners, 
and subject to protection only as such, is reflected in animal 
792	
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cruelty legislation adopted by the states throughout the next 
several centuries. See generally David Favre & Vivian Tsang, 
The Development of Anti-Cruelty Laws During the 1800s, 
1 Det C L Rev 1 (1993); Deborah J. Challener, Protecting Cats 
and Dogs in Order to Protect Humans: Making the Case for 
a Felony Companion Animal Statute in Mississippi, 29 Miss 
C L Rev 499, 501 (2010) (“Although these laws afforded some 
protection to certain kinds of animals, their primary focus 
was not animal welfare. Instead, animal cruelty was crim-
inalized in order to (1) protect the property rights of those 
who owned commercially valuable animals, such as cows, 
horses and oxen; and (2) prevent harm to human beings.”).
	
In the nineteenth through the twentieth centu-
ries, some states began to pass anti-cruelty laws that were 
intended to deter immoral conduct; the emphasis still was 
not on protecting the animals themselves. See, e.g., Johnson 
District of Columbia, 30 App DC 520, 522 (DC 1908) (preven-
tion of animal cruelty “is in the interest of peace and order 
and conducive to the morals and general welfare of the com-
munity”); see also Gary L. Francione, Animals, Property and 
Legal Welfarism: “Unnecessary” Suffering and the “Humane” 
Treatment of Animals, 46 Rutgers L Rev 721, 754 (1994) 
(“the purpose of the statutes is to improve human character 
not to protect animals”). The 1962 Model Penal Code provi-
sion on animal cruelty, for example, provided:
	
“A person commits a petty misdemeanor if he purposely 
or recklessly:
	
“(1)  subjects any animal to cruel mistreatment; or
	
“(2)  subjects any animal in his custody to cruel neglect; 
or
	
“(3)  kills or injures any animal belonging to another 
without legal privilege or consent of the owner.
	
“Subsections (1) and (2) shall not be deemed applicable 
to accepted veterinary practices and activities carried on 
for scientific research.”
Model Penal Code § 250.11 (1962). According to the commen-
tary to that provision, “[c]ruelty to animals is another class 
of behavior widely penalized because of outrage to the feel-
ings of substantial groups in the population.” Model Penal 
Cite as 355 Or 777 (2014)	
793
Code and Commentaries (Tentative Draft No. 13), American 
Law Institute 40, § 250.6 (1962).
	
Other states, however, enacted legislation target-
ing cruelty to animals for the sake of preventing the ani-
mals themselves from suffering, not merely as property to 
be protected or as a way of improving public morality. New 
York’s 1867 animal cruelty law, adopted “for the more effec-
tual prevention of cruelty to animals,” is often credited with 
being the first such statute. See generally Laurie Serafino, 
No Walk in the Park: Drafting Animal Cruelty Statutes to 
Resolve Double Jeopardy Concerns and Eliminate Unfettered 
Prosecutorial Discretion, 78 Tenn L Rev 1119, 1123-27 (2011) 
(discussing the historical foundation of modern anti-cruelty 
statutes); Luis E. Chiesa, Why Is It a Crime to Stomp on 
a Goldfish?—Harm, Victimhood and the Structure of Anti-
Cruelty Offenses, 78 Miss LJ 1 (2008). The law provided 
that,
“[i]f any person shall over-drive, over-load, torture, tor-
ment, deprive of necessary sustenance, or unnecessarily 
cruelly beat, or needlessly mutilate or kill, or cause or pro-
cure to be over-driven, over-loaded, tortured, tormented 
or deprived of necessary sustenance, or to be unnecessar-
ily or cruelly beaten, or needlessly mutilated, or killed as 
aforesaid any living creature, every such offender shall, for 
every such offense, be guilty of a misdemeanor.”
1867 Gen Stats NY, ch 375, § 1.
	
New York’s animal cruelty statute became a model 
for many other states, which adopted animal cruelty laws 
in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. See, 
e.g., Mass Gen L, ch 344 (1869); 1869 Ill Laws 3; NJ Rev 
Stat 64-82 (1873); 1878 NH Laws 281; 1900 Cal Stat § 597; 
14 Pa Stat §  7772 (1920); Mich Comp Laws ch  285 §  1 
(1929). Oregon was one of the states that followed the New 
York model of animal cruelty legislation. Adopted in 1885, 
Oregon’s statute provided:
“Whoever overdrives, or overloads, drives when overloaded, 
overworks, tortures, torments, deprives of necessary sus-
tenance, cruelly beats, mutilates, or cruelly kills, or causes 
or procures to be so overdriven or overloaded, driven when 
overloaded, overworked, tortured, tormented, deprived of 
794	
State Nix
necessary sustenance, cruelly beaten, mutilated or cru-
elly killed, any animal; and whoever having the charge 
of or custody of any animal, either as owner or otherwise, 
inflicts cruelty upon the same, shall, for every such offense 
be punished by imprisonment in the county jail not exceed-
ing sixty days, or by fine not exceeding one hundred dol-
lars, or by both fine and imprisonment.”
Lord’s Oregon Laws § 2103 (1885). The courts recognized 
that the focus of the statute was the treatment of the ani-
mals themselves, with no mention of proof of economic loss 
to the owner or harm to the public. In State Goodall, 90 Or 
485, 175 P 857 (1918), for example, this court held that evi-
dence that the defendant rode a horse while it had a deep 
ulcerated sore on its back and that the defendant had sup-
plied it with insufficient food was enough to establish viola-
tion of animal cruelty statute. Id. at 488-89. In the court’s 
view, “[i]t is clear that the act of riding a horse in such con-
dition * 
* 
* constitutes the crime of ‘torturing and torment-
ing an animal,’ as is also the act of depriving the animal of 
necessary sustenance.” Id. at 489.
	
In 1971, the legislature adopted the new Oregon 
Criminal Code. In that new code, the legislature retained 
the nearly century-old animal cruelty statute, codified at 
ORS 167.860 (1971). But it added a provision based on the 
Model Penal Code (or, more precisely, based on a Michigan 
statute that was, in turn, based on the Model Penal Code). 
Criminal Law Revision Commission, Proposed Criminal 
Code, Final Draft and Report § 226 (July 1970). The new 
law, codified at ORS 167.850 (1971), provided in part:
	
“(1)  A person commits the crime of cruelty to ani-
mals if, except as authorized by law, he intentionally or 
recklessly:
	
“(a)  Subjects any animal under human custody or con-
trol to cruel mistreatment; or
	
“(b)  Subjects any animal under his custody or control 
to cruel neglect; or
	
“(c)  Kills without legal privilege any animal under the 
custody or control of another.”
	
The legislature later overhauled the state’s animal 
cruelty laws in 1985 with the enactment of Senate Bill 508, 
Cite as 355 Or 777 (2014)	
795
which now constitutes, with amendments not pertinent to 
this case, the state’s current animal cruelty statute. The 
staff measure summary described the bill’s purpose in the 
following terms:
“In some respects the public’s attitude regarding animals 
has undergone substantial change. Many people feel that 
animals should be given greater protection from cruel 
treatment and neglect. The traditional statutes relating to 
cruel treatment of animals are seen as inadequate in that 
they only prohibit extreme conduct and do not differenti-
ate between abuse and neglect. This bill addresses those 
concerns.”
Staff Measure Analysis, Senate Judiciary Committee, SB 
508, Mar 14 1985, 1. Senate Bill 508 repealed both the old 
animal cruelty statute and the newer provision adopted in 
1971 and replaced them with a comprehensive set of offenses, 
ranging from animal abandonment to animal neglect in the 
first and second degrees and to animal abuse in the first 
and second degrees. The bill also established detailed crite-
ria for determining what constitutes the “minimum care” to 
which animals are entitled. Id.
	
The bill was proposed by the Humane Society of 
the Willamette Valley, which had developed the proposal 
after consultation with the State Police, the Farm Bureau, 
the livestock association, and other humane societies. Tim 
Greyhavens, the Executive Director of the society, explained 
to the Senate Judiciary Committee that the purpose of the 
bill was to provide clarity about what constitutes action-
able cruelty to animals and to expand the law to include an 
offense of animal abandonment. He said that current law 
was too vague about what constituted mistreatment and cru-
elty. Minutes, Senate Judiciary Committee, SB 508, Mar 14, 
1985, at 4 (testimony of Tim Greyhavens). He explained that 
the bill was intended to separate and define specific offenses 
against animals, with the difference between those offenses 
being “the extent of the harm” to the animals. Id. at 5.
	
Greyhavens similarly testified before the House 
Committee on Judiciary that the bill was needed because 
current law was too vague about what constitutes cruelty 
to animals and that the law needed to be broadened to 
796	
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cover animal abandonment. Minutes, House Committee on 
Judiciary, SB 508, June 12, 1985, at 18 (testimony of Tim 
Greyhavens). He offered a statement from a dozen other 
humane societies representing more than 10,000 members 
around the state urging support of the bill. “By enacting 
Senate Bill 508,” the statement declared, “you will be pre-
venting needless suffering” and saving thousands of dollars 
related to the care of stray and abandoned pets. Statement, 
House Judiciary Committee, HB 508, June 12, 1985, Ex F, 1 
(Humane Society of the Willamette Valley).
	
Marion County Reserve Deputy Sheriff David 
Hemphill also testified in support of the bill. He explained 
that, as an animal cruelty investigator,
“I see dozens of cases of animal abandonment, abuse and 
neglect that I can’t take action against because of the inad-
equacy of our current law. Much of this law was written 
* 
* 
* when there were different problems with the care of 
animals. This leaves us with a law that now contains many 
vague or archaic terms. For example, our current law pro-
hibits many acts that happened during those times when 
animals were used primarily for work purposes, such as 
‘overloading’ or ‘overworking’ a horse or ‘works an animal 
when unfit for labor.’ 
”
Testimony, House Judiciary Committee, HB 508, June 12, 
1985, Ex E, 1 (statement of David Hemphill). Hemphill 
explained that our highly mobile society is resulting in “an 
epidemic of animal abandonment and neglect.” Id. at 1. “If 
there were a strong law that prohibited any type of animal 
abandonment,” he argued, “many animals’ lives could be 
saved.” Id. Hemphill urged the committee to recommend 
passage of the bill “on behalf of all responsible pet owners 
and the animals as well, so that we can continue to make 
our state a better place for every living being.” Id. at 3.
	
The preceding history confirms that the principal 
purpose of adopting the legislation that became ORS 167.325 
was to prevent the suffering of animals. Although early ani-
mal cruelty legislation may have been directed at protecting 
animals as property of their owners or as a means of pro-
moting public morality, Oregon’s animal cruelty laws have 
been rooted—for nearly a century—in a different legislative 
Cite as 355 Or 777 (2014)	
797
tradition of protecting individual animals themselves from 
suffering. Indeed, the modern animal cruelty statute was 
designed to broaden the state’s earlier law to encompass 
abandonment, as well as neglect and abuse, and to graduate 
punishment in accordance with the severity of the harm to 
the animals.
	
We therefore conclude that defendant is incorrect 
that the real “victim” of the crime of second-degree animal 
neglect is either the public or the animal owner. It is true 
that, for a brief period of time—from 1971 to 1985—Oregon’s 
statutes included an additional provision that reflected the 
Model Penal Code’s concern that animal cruelty is a mat-
ter of public morality. But that provision reflected an addi-
tional layer of legislative policy on top of the longstanding 
concern with protecting animals from suffering for the sake 
of the animals themselves. In any event, that provision was 
repealed in 1985, replaced by the comprehensive scheme of 
animal cruelty laws that we have described, all of which are 
predicated on preventing the suffering of animals. Moreover, 
Glaspey makes clear that the “victim,” for the purposes of 
ORS 161.067(2), is the one that “suffers harm that is an ele-
ment of the offense.” Glaspey, 337 Or at 565. Public harm 
is not an element of the offense of second-degree animal 
neglect. Harm to the individual animal is.
	
Nor is there in any indication that the legislature 
regarded the “victim” of animal neglect to be the owner of the 
animal. To be sure, Oregon law regards animals as the prop-
erty of their owners. See generally State Fessenden 
/ 
Dicke, 
355 Or ___, ___, ___ P3d ___ (2014) (so noting, citing rele-
vant statutes). But it does not necessarily follow from that 
fact that owners of abused or neglected animals are the vic-
tims of the offense. Indeed, it would be anomalous to con-
clude that the “victim” of animal neglect is the owner of the 
animal when it is the owner who is charged with having 
committed the offense.5 What is more, ORS 167.325 provides 
that, in the event of a conviction for animal neglect or ani-
mal cruelty, a court may order that the defendant forfeit any 
	
5  Of course, animal cruelty offenses may be committed by persons other than 
the owner of the animal. We do not need to address whether, in those circum-
stances, the owner—in addition to the animal—may be regarded as a victim of 
the offense, and we express no opinion on that issue.
798	
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rights he or she had in the animal that has been neglected or 
abused—an odd consequence if the real victim of the offense 
is the animal’s owner.
	
In concluding that animals are “victims” for the 
purposes of ORS 161.067(2), we emphasize that our deci-
sion is not one of policy about whether animals are deserv-
ing of such treatment under the law. That is a matter for 
the legislature. Our decision is based on precedent and 
on a careful evaluation of the legislature’s intentions as 
expressed in statutory enactments. Our prior decisions hold 
that the meaning of the word “victim” for the purposes of 
ORS 161.067(2) necessarily depends on what the legislature 
intended in adopting the underlying substantive criminal 
statute that the defendant violated. In this case, the under-
lying substantive criminal statute, ORS 167.325, protects 
individual animals from suffering from neglect. In adopting 
that statute, the legislature regarded those animals as the 
“victims” of the offense. It necessarily follows that the trial 
court in this case erred in merging the 20 counts of second-
degree animal neglect into a single conviction.
	
The decision of the Court of Appeals is affirmed. 
The judgment of the circuit court is reversed, and the case 
is remanded for entry of separate convictions on each guilty 
verdict for a violation of ORS 167.325 and for resentencing.