Case Name: STATE OF OREGON, Appellant, v. ANDREW STEPHEN PAIGE, Respondent
Court: Oregon Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: Oregon
Decision Date: 1982-01-11
Citations: 55 Or. App. 519
Docket Number: No. 10-80-07972, CA A20052
Parties: STATE OF OREGON, Appellant, v. ANDREW STEPHEN PAIGE, Respondent.
Judges: ROBERTS, J.
Reporter: Oregon Reports, Court of Appeals
Volume: 55
Pages: 519–526

Head Matter:
Submitted on record and appellant’s brief April 29;
resubmitted in banc December 17, 1981,
reversed and remanded for trial January 11,
reconsideration denied February 25,
petition for review allowed August 3, 1982
See later issue Oregon Reports
STATE OF OREGON, Appellant, v. ANDREW STEPHEN PAIGE, Respondent.
(No. 10-80-07972, CA A20052)
638 P2d 1173
J. Pat Horton, District Attorney for Lane County and Darryl L. Larson, Assistant District Attorney, Eugene, filed the brief for appellant.
No appearance contra.
ROBERTS, J.
Gillette, J., dissenting opinion.

Opinion:
ROBERTS, J.
This is an appeal by the state from an order sustaining defendant's demurrer to a charge of coercion. Our decision is controlled by the decision in State v. Robertson, 54 Or App 630, 635 P2d 1057 (1981), the defendant in this case having been indicted along with the defendant in Robertson for the crimes of first degree sodomy and coercion arising from the same single incident.
The opinion in Robertson made clear that the basis of its holding that the coercion statute, ORS 163.275, is constitutional was its finding that it is not a statute regulating speech. It is this position with which the author of the dissent in this case disagrees. This difference is significant because if ORS 163.275 were a statute regulating speech then, following Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 US 479, 14 L Ed 2d 22, 85 S Ct 1116 (1965) and State v. Drummond, 6 Or App 558, 489 P2d 958 (1971), defendant could challenge the constitutionality of the statute as it might be applied in a variety of hypothetical situations. The author of the dissent in Robertson and the author of the dissent here have also attempted to provide hypothetical examples. As Drummond noted, however, if First Amendment rights are not affected, defendant must show that the statute is unconstitutional as applied to him. Drummond, 6 Or App at 562.
ORS 163.275 makes it a crime when one "compels or induces another person to engage in conduct from which he has a legal right to abstain, or to abstain from engaging in conduct in which he has a legal right to engage The definitions for "compel" and "induce" in Webster's Third New International Dictionary 463, 1154, (17th ed 1976) indicate that these words mean to force or bring about a desired action. That is, the offense of coercion is not committed until the victim acts, and the dissent misrepresents the thrust of the statute when it calls "the act of making the threat [the] gravamen of the offense." The drafters of the statute said as much in the commentary to the Oregon Criminal Code of 1971 (1975 ed), at p. 131:
"Coercion as defined by the proposed draft requires successful intimidation; the victim must actually act or refrain from acting. A mere threat or attempt failing of its coercive purpose would constitute attempted coercion." (Emphasis supplied.)
The making of the threat is not the basis of the offense, but only a manner of bringing it about. Since, therefore, it is not speech but conduct — the act of overpowering another's will — which the coercion statute proscribes, defendant can only succeed on his constitutional claims by showing the statute is unconstitutional as applied to him. Here, as in Robertson, defendant makes no attempt to do so.
Reversed and remanded for trial.
Defendant in this case has filed no respondent's brief, but his attorney was also the defense attorney in Robertson and this was the type of challenge set forth in that appeal.
We are not required here to make a determination whether a statute making attempted coercion a crime would be constitutional.