Opinion ID: 836009
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Use of Procedures Associated with Criminal Prosecution

Text: The use of arrest, detention, or other similar police procedures that ordinarily are associated with criminal law enforcement may suggest that a nominally civil proceeding in fact is criminal in nature. Selness, 334 Or. at 535-36, 54 P.3d 1025; Brown v. Multnomah County Dist. Ct., 280 Or. 95, 108, 570 P.2d 52 (1977). One amicus suggests that the criminal nature of the PFZ exclusion process is demonstrated by the fact that, under the PFZ ordinance, arrest for one of the specified prostitution crimes is an essential precondition for issuance of an exclusion order. PCC § 14.150.030. However, although arrest is a necessary precondition to the exclusion process, that process is not part of the criminal prosecution that may follow from the arrest, but arises out of a separate source of law. Indeed, the police have no authority under the PFZ ordinance itself to arrest individuals for committing prostitution-related crimes. [7] Thus, the fact that individuals may be excluded from PFZs only after being arrested for a prostitution crime does not demonstrate that the PFZ exclusion process is criminal, rather than civil.