Title: State v. Leverich

State: oregon

Issuer: Oregon Supreme Court

Document:

522 P.2d 1390 (1974)
STATE of Oregon, Appellant,
v.
John Richard LEVERICH, Respondent.

Supreme Court of Oregon, In Banc.
Argued and Submitted January 8, 1974.
Decided June 13, 1974.
*1391 Thomas H. Denney, Asst. Atty. Gen., Salem, argued the cause for appellant. With him on the briefs were Lee Johnson, Atty. Gen. and John W. Osburn, Sol. Gen.
Stephen S. Walker, Portland, argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent.
McALLISTER, Justice.
In this case the circuit court allowed defendant's plea of former jeopardy to an indictment charging negligent homicide in violation of ORS 163.145.[1] The state appealed from the circuit court's judgment dismissing the indictment and the Court of Appeals affirmed[2] on the authority of *1392 State v. Brown, 262 Or. 442, 497 P.2d 1191 (1972).
We granted review to determine the applicability of Brown to this case.[3]
The following statement of facts (omitting footnotes) is taken from the opinion of the Court of Appeals:
In Brown the defendant was charged first in the district court with carrying a concealed pistol, a misdemeanor, and later was indicted for the felony of being a convicted person in possession of a firearm. Both prosecutions were based on the same act. The defendant pled guilty to the misdemeanor charge and we held that prosecution of the felony charge was barred by Article I, Section 12, of the Oregon Constitution, which provides:
In the Brown opinion we rejected the traditional "same evidence" test for determining what is the "same offense" within the meaning of the constitutional provision and held that where there is more than one violation arising out of the "same act or transaction" ordinarily only one offense is involved.
It is obvious that under this test the charges of reckless driving and negligent homicide made against the defendant in this case constitutes but one offense. As the Court of Appeals said:
It is now argued, however, that it is impossible to apply the Brown holding here because of the following statement in the opinion in that case following a discussion of the necessity in appropriate cases of consolidating criminal charges:
The ground of the objection is that the second criterion in Brown, namely, "if ... the charges could have been tried in the same court" is absent in the pending case. This is because, in order to consolidate the two prosecutions in the circuit court (where, of course, the felony charge must have been tried) the traffic charge, a misdemeanor, must first be dismissed upon application of the district attorney, for there could not be two prosecutions of the same offense against the same defendant pending at the same time in two different courts.
But ORS 134.160 provided:
And ORS 134.150 provided:
ORS 134.140(2) provided:
Under 134.160 and 134.150 the prosecution of the reckless driving charge (there having been no indictment) could not have been dismissed on application of the district attorney, and it would not seem that a dismissal for the purpose of consolidating the misdemeanor charge with the felony charge in the circuit court could reasonably be held to be an exception to the statutory prohibition. And even if that charge could have been so dismissed, the order of dismissal would have been a bar to another prosecution for reckless driving. ORS 134.140(2); State v. Mayes, 245 Or. 179, 184, 421 P.2d 385 (1966).
In Brown, as here, the misdemeanor charge was filed in the district court and the felony charge, of course, in the circuit court, and this court said that both these charges "could have been tried in the circuit court." 262 Or. at 458, 497 P.2d  at 1198. To that statement, in a footnote, we cited former ORS 46.040 and said "The two offenses could have been charged in a single indictment. ORS 132.560(2)." Id.
By that statement we did not intend to be understood as meaning that the charges in the manner in which they were filed "could have been tried in the same court", but, rather, that the offenses charged were of such character that they could properly be consolidated. This is indicated by our reference to ORS 132.560(2). We did not intend to hold that the adventitious circumstance of a procedural statute which prevents such consolidation in the particular case is effective to alter the fundamental principle that crimes committed as parts of the same act or transaction amount to but one offense within the meaning of the constitution.
Certainly, the pending case is on all fours with Brown. The central feature of the Brown decision is the abandonment of the "same evidence" rule in favor of the "same transaction" rule. While consolidation of criminal prosecutions is expressly approved and, when possible, required for the protection of the accused, State v. Fair, 263 Or. 383, 389, 502 P.2d 1150 (1972), there is no holding or intimation in the opinion that where two violations arise out of the same transaction or act, they cannot be viewed as but one offense within the meaning of the constitution if prosecution of them cannot be consolidated simply because of a procedural obstacle resulting, *1394 not from conduct of the accused, but of the law-enforcing authorities. That would mean loss of a valuable constitutional right which would have been preserved had the police and the district attorney acted differently in the beginning, that is, had the defendant been proceeded against by indictment in the misdemeanor case, instead of by complaint or information.
The facts of this case bring it squarely within the Brown case. About this there is no dispute. It follows that the judgment under review should be, and is, affirmed.
[1]  "(1) A person commits the crime of criminally negligent homicide when, with criminal negligence, he causes the death of another person.

"(2) Criminally negligent homicide is a Class C felony."
(Unless otherwise indicated, citations to ORS will be to the statutes as they read at the times pertinent to this case.)
[2]  State v. Leverich, 14 Or. App. 222, 511 P.2d 1265 (1973).
[3]  The procedural problems resulting from the dismissal of a misdemeanor and the effect of such dismissal involved in this case have been obviated by the new Criminal Procedure Code, ORS 135.753-135.757.
[4]  Now ORS 135.755 (1973).
[5]  Now ORS 135.753(2) (1973). See Oregon Criminal Procedure Code §§ 305, 306, Criminal Law Revision Commission, Final Draft November 1972.