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

Heading: Criminal History and Recidivism

Text: A third factor that this court often has considered in proportionality cases is the defendant's criminal history. The idea that a penalty that might be proportional as applied to one who has previously committed the same or other crimes but not proportional as applied to a first-time offender is rooted in Blackstone's influential writings on proportionality. Blackstone, who urged more rational, proportional sentences, argued that different standards should apply to repeat offenders. 4 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 12, 15-16 (1769). This court emphasized the importance of a defendant's criminal history 80 years ago when it considered a proportionality challenge in State v. Smith, 128 Or. 515, 273 P. 323 (1929). The defendant had challenged as disproportionate a life sentence that he had received under a habitual-offender statute. He had been convicted of receiving stolen goods, and, because he had been convicted of three prior felonies, he came within the terms of the recidivism statute and was sentenced to life in prison. The court observed that the state has an interest in preventing repeat offenders from engaging in further crimes and stated that it does no violence to any constitutional [guarantee] for the state to rid itself of depravity when its efforts to reform have failed.  128 Or. at 525, 273 P. 323 (quoting State v. Le Pitre, 54 Wash. 166, 168, 103 P. 27, 28 (1909) (emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted)). The court in Smith went on to say: The defendant in the instant case had previously been convicted of burglary, but the offense for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment    was a lesser crime, the crime of receiving stolen property. Were we to consider this penalty with reference to the defendant's latest offense alone, we would be astounded at its severity. But a careful analysis of the entire record clearly indicates that the defendant is an incorrigible criminal, a man who has heretofore been convicted at least four times for burglariously preying upon the property and safety of others. Add to this fact that, throughout the history of criminal law, burglary has been looked upon as a crime of great magnitude, and the burglar as a dangerous and desperate criminal, and the sentence imposed in this case can be deemed a just one. 128 Or. at 525-26, 273 P. 323. As we said of Smith in the recent decision in Wheeler, that case emphasized that the [proportionality] analysis must focus not only on the latest crime and its penalty, but on the defendant's criminal history. 343 Or. at 673, 175 P.3d 438. This court similarly relied upon the defendant's criminal history in rejecting Article I, section 16, and other constitutional challenges to an indeterminate life sentence for a sex offender in Jensen v. Gladden, 231 Or. 141, 372 P.2d 183 (1962). The statute in that case permitted a life sentence only if the defendant had prior convictions for sex crimes, and the court stated that determining whether the sentence would shock the moral sense would depend upon the seriousness of repetitive sexual conduct of this kind and the danger that it forecasts for others unless the defendant is segregated from society. Id. at 144-45, 372 P.2d 183 (emphasis added). Acknowledging what it described as the dimly understood subject of sex crimes and recidivism, id. at 145, 372 P.2d 183, the court upheld the sentence. Reviewing those and other cases, this court in Wheeler explicitly agreed that a penalty that might be proportional for a repeat offenderin Wheeler, the defendant, who was sentenced to life in prison for multiple felony sex offenses, had two prior felony sex convictionswould not necessarily be proportional for a first time offender. Wheeler, 343 Or. at 671, 175 P.3d 438 ([T]he proportionality provision permits the imposition of penalties for repeat offenders that might not be permissible for a single offense.). This court's cases firmly establish that a defendant's criminal historyincluding, necessarily, a defendant's lack of any criminal history isrelevant in determining whether a particular penalty is proportioned to the defendant's offense. [10]