Opinion ID: 2635774
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Comparison of Penalties Imposed for Related Crimes

Text: In determining whether a penalty is proportioned to the offense, it also is helpful to examine the penalties imposed for other, related crimes. If the penalties for more serious crimes than the crime at issue result in less severe sentences, that is an indication that the challenged penalty may be disproportionate. Indeed, two of the three cases in which this court has overturned criminal penalties as disproportionate State v. Shumway, 291 Or. 153, 630 P.2d 796 (1981), and Cannon v. Gladden, 203 Or. 629, 281 P.2d 233 (1955) involved just such a comparison between the penalties for two different crimes. Although both cases involved the unusual circumstance that one crime was a lesser-included offense of the other crime, this court in both cases rejected the argument that the state makes herethat it is inappropriate, as part of proportionality review, to consider the particular penalties that the legislature has imposed for other crimes. Shumway, 291 Or. at 163-64, 630 P.2d 796; Cannon, 203 Or. at 632-33, 281 P.2d 233. In Cannon, for example, this court struck down a penalty for assault with intent to commit rape (either statutory rape or forcible rape) that was greater than the penalty for a completed rape (either statutory or forcible). The penalty for assault with intent to commit rape was life in prison, while the penalty for a completed rape was a prison term of not more than 20 years. This court held the penalty for assault with intent to commit rape unconstitutional, despite the fact that a legislature reasonably might choose to impose a greater penalty for a brutal assault with the intent to commit a forcible rape than for a nonforcible statutory rape. Cannon, 203 Or. at 632-33, 281 P.2d 233. Thus, notwithstanding the special circumstances of the lesser-included offense example, the fact remains that this court has considered the penalties imposed for crimes other than the crime of conviction when it has ruled on proportionality challenges. Other courts considering proportionality challenges often compare the penalty for the crime at issue to penalties for other crimes. See, e.g., Solem, 463 U.S. at 298, 103 S.Ct. 3001 (considering sentences imposed for other crimes in same jurisdiction); State v. Dayutis, 127 N.H. 101, 104-06, 498 A.2d 325, 328-29 (1985) (same). That is not to suggest that a court may roam freely through the criminal code, deciding which crimes are more or less serious than others. We have emphasized the legislature's central role in determining which crimes are more or less serious, Wheeler, 343 Or. at 671-73, 175 P.3d 438, and, reflecting changing societal norms, the legislature may decide that certain crimes should henceforth be considered more serious and subject to more severe penalties than other crimes that previously had been considered more serious. State v. Ferman-Velasco, 333 Or. 422, 431, 41 P.3d 404 (2002). However, nothing in the concept of proportionality in criminal sentencing suggests that the only proportion that should be considered is the relationship between the crime for which the defendant was convicted and the punishment for that crime. Indeed, a standard that considers the offense and the penalty at issue in the context of related offenses and penalties provides a closer connection to the manner in which the substantive criminal laws and the sentencing statutes work togetherand to what would, or would not, shock the moral sense of reasonable peoplethan the purely abstract comparison of any single offense and the penalty for that offense. Our effort to determine whether a particular penalty is proportioned to a particular offense would be wholly divorced from social and legal reality if we were to refuse to consider the penalties imposed for other crimes that have similar characteristics to the crime at issue. For those reasons, in determining whether the penalties imposed for the crimes charged in these cases are proportional or not, we also consider the penalties imposed for related crimes. Certainly, as noted above, a court would have difficulty comparing the relative seriousness or gravity of, say, forcible rape and first-degree robbery, or identity theft and harassmentbut that is unnecessary here. Oregon has an elaborate listing of sex offenses, see ORS 163.305 to 163.479, and comparing the conduct constituting the crime and the penalty here to other sex crimes is useful in determining whether the penalty is proportioned to the offense. [9]