Opinion ID: 2635774
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: analysisdefendants' sentences

Text: That brings us to defendants' argument that, even if their convictions are sustained, to sentence them to a mandatory prison term of six years and three months for the conduct described above violates the proportionality requirement of Article I, section 16. We therefore put to one side the issue on which the dissent focuseswhether the legislature (or the people, exercising their legislative power through the initiative process) may protect children by imposing criminal penalties on the kinds of touching that Rodriguez and Buck engaged in. Of course they can. The question instead is whether there is any constitutional limit on the term of imprisonment that can be imposed for the touchings that occurred here. In our view, Article I, section 16, does impose a limit. In analyzing whether the imposition of a 75-month sentence is unconstitutionally disproportionate, we focus on the unlawful conduct in which Rodriguez and Buck engaged. Defendants were convicted because the finder of fact determined that, with a sexual purpose, they engaged in the touching described above: Rodriguez brought the back of the boy's head in contact with her clothed breasts, in a room of 30 to 50 other people, for about a minute; Buck failed to move his hand to eliminate the contact between the back of his hand and the girl's clothed buttocks that occurred when she leaned back to cast her fishing line and, a few moments later, he brushed dirt off the back of her shorts. Our task is to decide whether the mandatory 75-month sentence is an unconstitutionally disproportionate penalty for the conduct that occurred in these cases.
In this court's first case articulating a standard for applying Article I, section 16, the court held that, [i]n order to justify the court in declaring punishment cruel and unusual with reference to its duration, the punishment must be so proportioned to the offense committed as to shock the moral sense of all reasonable men as to what is right and proper under the circumstances. Sustar, 101 Or. at 665, 201 P. 445 (emphasis added). Although the decision in Sustar referred to the cruel and unusual punishment clause of Article I, section 16, rather than the proportionality clause, in later cases this court has made it clear that the shock the moral sense standard also applies to proportionality challenges. See State v. Wheeler, 343 Or. 652, 175 P.3d 438 (2007) (applying shock the moral sense standard to claim that sentence was not proportioned to the offense). In Wheeler, this court also refined the Sustar test, noting that the shock the moral sense of all reasonable people as to what is right and proper test was not intended to be taken literallythat is, that a penalty for a particular crime would meet the proportionality requirement if a single `reasonable person' could be found whose moral sense was not `shocked' by that penalty. 343 Or. at 670, 175 P.3d 438. Rather, as stated in Wheeler, the court in Sustar was attempting to articulate a standard that would find a penalty to be disproportionately severe for a particular offense only in rare circumstances. Id. (footnote omitted). The court also reaffirmed in Wheeler the central role that the legislature plays in establishing penalties for crimes. Id. at 671, 175 P.3d 438. It is not the role of this court to second-guess the legislature's determination of the penalty or range of penalties for a crime. However, it is the role of the court to ensure that sentences conform to requirements that have been in our constitution for 150 years. And, when we conclude that, because of its length, a sentence is inconsistent with Article I, section 16, as we have on at least three occasions, we should hold that sentence unconstitutional. [5] The difficult question posed here, then, is whether the mandatory 75-month sentence that Measure 11 would impose in each of these cases is so disproportionately severe that it constitutes one of those rare circumstances that requires reversal under Article I, section 16. In declaring unconstitutional a punishment that is so disproportionate, when compared to the offense, so as to shock the moral sense of reasonable people, this court has identified at least three factors that bear upon that ultimate conclusion: (1) a comparison of the severity of the penalty and the gravity of the crime; (2) a comparison of the penalties imposed for other, related crimes; and (3) the criminal history of the defendant. [6] We turn to an examination of each of the factors and then apply those factors.
In Wheeler, this court examined the text of Article I, section 16, and attempted to articulate what the framers of that provision meant when they required that a penalty should be proportioned to the offense: The term `proportion' indicates a comparative relationship between at least two things. See, e.g., 2 Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language 45 (1828) (`proportion' indicates a `comparative relation'). Here, the two things being related are `penalties' and `the offense,' and the provision requires that the penalties for each particular offense be `proportioned'that is, comparatively relatedto that offense. The strong implication of that requirement is that a greater or more severe penalty should be imposed for a greater or more severe offense, and, conversely, that a less severe penalty should be imposed for a less severe offense.  343 Or. at 655-56, 175 P.3d 438 (emphasis added). After an extensive discussion of the history of the proportionality requirement, the court in Wheeler applied it to the sentences at issue there, concluding that [the] defendant's sentences bear a sufficient relationship to the gravity of the crimes of which he was convicted and his prior felony convictions. 343 Or. at 680, 175 P.3d 438. Thus, it is apparent from Wheeler that application of the proportionality provision requires consideration of the relationship between the gravity of the offense and the severity of the penalty. That consideration is similar to the first step in the test used by the United States Supreme Court in determining whether a penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment for purposes of the Eighth Amendment. See Solem v. Helm, 463 U.S. 277, 292, 103 S.Ct. 3001, 77 L.Ed.2d 637 (1983) (first part of test is examining the gravity of the offense and the harshness of the penalty). [7] It also was the first step that the Court of Appeals followed in these cases, which that court applied based on its own precedents and Solem. Rodriguez, 217 Or. App. at 360-62, 174 P.3d 1100; Buck, 217 Or.App. at 370 n. 6, 174 P.3d 1106. These cases require us to elaborate on the way in which a court should examine the severity of the penalty, the gravity of the offense, and the relationship between the two. As to the relevant penalty, in contemporary criminal justice systems, including Oregon's, the primary determinant of the severity of a penalty is the amount of time that the wrongdoer must spend in prison or jail, if convicted of that offense. Examining the offense is slightly more involved. The state argues that the offense, for purposes of the proportionality requirement, is limited to the description of the prohibited conduct in the statute. In the state's view, the court is not permitted to consider the specific facts of any individual case when analyzing the gravity of the offense. The state's approach is inconsistent with this court's prior cases and defines offense too narrowly. If the state were correct, and the court could look to only the statutory definition of the offense and compare it to the statutory penalty, a defendant essentially would be limited to challenging the proportionality of a criminal penalty on its face. Of course, this court has rejected facial challenges to the mandatory sentences imposed by Measure 11, State ex rel Huddleston v. Sawyer, 324 Or. 597, 614, 932 P.2d 1145 (1997), and we do not question that decision. However, in rejecting facial challenges to Measure 11 penalties, this court explicitly stated that a defendant could assert an as-applied constitutional challenge, as defendants have here: [I]f a sentencing court rules that a statutorily prescribed sentence (under [Measure 11] or any other statute) would be unconstitutionally cruel and unusual as applied in a given case, the court may refuse to impose the prescribed sentence. Id. (emphasis in original). And an as-applied challenge necessarily involves the consideration of the particular conduct in which the defendant engaged and for which he was convicted, as well as other factors, such as the defendant's criminal history. See, e.g., Wheeler, 343 Or. at 677-80, 175 P.3d 438 (in rejecting facial and as-applied proportionality challenges to sentence for sexual abuse, noting that defendant was charged with 18 separate sex felonies involving three different boys as young as nine years of age and that he had two previous felony sex convictions as well as a robbery conviction). An as-applied proportionality analysis that considers the facts of an individual defendant's specific criminal conduct is particularly significant when the criminal statute at issue covers a broad range of activity, criminalizing a variety of forms and intensity of conduct. In such a case, a harsh penalty might not, on its face, be disproportionate, because of the fact that the statute dealt, inter alia, with some extreme form of that conduct. However, when a defendant is convicted for engaging in only more minor conduct encompassed within the statute, the defendant may plausibly argue that the mandatory sentence, as applied to the particular facts of his or her case, is unconstitutionally disproportionate. To refuse even to consider defendants' as-applied challenge would not only be inconsistent with Huddleston, but would undermine the basic proportionality concept that more serious crimes should receive more severe sentences than less serious crimes and vice versa. In any event, the state offers no cogent reason to read the word offense in Article I, section 16, as limited to only the general (and, therefore, abstract) description of the conduct prohibited in the statute. Certainly, offense, for purposes of the proportionality requirement, includes the statutory definition of the crime, but the ordinary definition of the word offense also includes the specific conduct of the defendant that (because it was within the statutory definition) led to the prosecution and conviction of that defendant. [8] We therefore conclude that a defendant's offense, for purposes of Article I, section 16, is the specific defendant's particular conduct toward the victim that constituted the crime, as well as the general definition of the crime in the statute. In considering a defendant's claim that a penalty is constitutionally disproportionate as applied to that defendant, then, a court may consider, among other things, the specific circumstances and facts of the defendant's conduct that come within the statutory definition of the offense, as well as other case-specific factors, such as characteristics of the defendant and the victim, the harm to the victim, and the relationship between the defendant and the victim. Having identified the penalty and the offense, Article I, section 16, requires a court then to consider whether the former is proportioned to the latter. As discussed above, we observed in Wheeler that the use of the word proportioned strongly implies that a greater or more severe penalty should be imposed for a greater or more severe offense, and conversely, that a less severe penalty should be imposed for a less severe offense. 343 Or. at 656, 175 P.3d 438. The state argues that, by enacting a statute that sets a more severe penalty, the legislature (or the people acting through the initiative process) establishes that the offense to which the penalty is attached is, necessarily, a more severe offense. That is true, to a point. But this court has an independent duty to consider whether the specific sentences imposed pursuant to that statute are consistent with the constitutional proportionality requirement of Article I, section 16. Indeed, in Huddleston, we recognized that a court's authority to hold a Measure 11 sentence unconstitutional if, based on the facts of the particular case, the sentence violated Article I, section 16, was essential if the judicial branch were to retain its appropriate constitutional role. 324 Or. at 614, 932 P.2d 1145. We acknowledge that the task of comparing the penalty to the offense involves judgments that courts find difficult, but it is not impossible. The United States Supreme Court addressed the issue of the court's role in making such determinations in Solem: Application of these factors assumes that courts are competent to judge the gravity of an offense, at least on a relative scale. In a broad sense, this assumption is justified, and courts traditionally have made these judgmentsjust as legislatures must make them in the first instance. Comparisons can be made in light of the harm caused or threatened to the victim or society, and the culpability of the offender.    [T]here are widely shared views as to the relative seriousness of crimes. For example, as the criminal laws make clear, nonviolent crimes are less serious than crimes marked by violence or the threat of violence. There are other accepted principles that courts may apply in measuring the harm caused or threatened to the victim or society. The absolute magnitude of the crime may be relevant. Stealing a million dollars is viewed as more serious than stealing a hundred dollarsa point recognized in statutes distinguishing petty theft from grand theft. Few would dispute that a lesser included offense should not be punished more severely than the greater offense. Thus a court is justified in viewing assault with intent to murder as more serious than simple assault. 463 U.S. at 292-93, 103 S.Ct. 3001 (citations omitted).
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]
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]

We next apply the proportionality provision of Article I, section 16, to the cases before us by considering the factors described above. The first factor identified above is the comparison of the penalty and the offense. Defendants were convicted of first-degree sexual abuse. The crimes of first- and second-degree sexual abuse originally were enacted as part of the 1971 revision of the criminal code. Former ORS 163.425 (1971) (first-degree sexual abuse); former ORS 163.415 (1971) (second-degree sexual abuse). First-degree sexual abuse was defined (among other things) as sexual contact with a person less than 12 years of age. Under versions of those statutes that were in effect from 1971 until 1991, the conduct at issue here would have constituted second-degree sexual abuse, which was a Class A misdemeanor subject to a maximum sentence of one year in jail. See former ORS 163.415 (1971) (defining second-degree sexual abuse and classifying crime as Class A misdemeanor); former ORS 161.615(1) (1971) (setting maximum penalty for Class A misdemeanor of one year in jail). First-degree sexual abuse required that the defendant use forcible compulsion or that the victim be under 12 years old; it was a Class C felony. Former ORS 163.425 (1971). In 1991, the legislature expanded the scope of first-degree sexual abuse to include sexual contact with a person under the age of 14. Or. Laws 1991, ch. 830, § 3. The legislature also reclassified the offense as a Class B felony. Id. From 1991 until the effective date of Measure 11 in 1995, the presumptive sentence for first-degree sexual abuse under the sentencing guidelines was 16-18 months in prison. Even that presumptive sentence would have been subject to a possible downward departure if the court found certain mitigating factors. With the passage of Measure 11, the penalty for first-degree sexual abuse was set as a mandatory term of 75 months in prison. ORS 137.700(2)(a)(P). The penalty for a first-time offender, like defendants here, cannot be increased or decreased. [11] The penalty, for purposes of the proportionality analysis, is the mandatory prison sentence of 75 months. As discussed above, the offense, for purposes of an as-applied proportionality challenge, consists of both the statutory definition of the crime and the circumstances of the particular crime that led to the defendant's conviction. That approach is particularly appropriate here. The statutory definition consists of the terms of the conduct prohibited by the first-degree sexual abuse statute, ORS 163.427(1), and few statutes criminalize such a broad range of conduct. [12] Measure 11 groups all acts constituting first-degree sexual abuse together and subjects all acts that fall within the definition of that crime to the same sentence. As defendants point out, ORS 163.427(1) covers [a] wide swath of conduct when the victim is less than 14 years, including, but not limited to, momentary touching of an intimate part without the victim's awareness or knowledge, touching that the victim apprehends but does not appreciate as sexual, momentary touching over clothing, prolonged hand to genital contact, prolonged skin to skin genital contact, and, of course, forcing a person under 18 to engage in bestiality. Measure 11 imposes the same, mandatory prison term for a 50-year-old man forcing a 13-year-old girl to engage in prolonged skin-to-skin genital contact with him and a 19-year-old forcing the same 13-year-old to touch his clothed buttock for five seconds. Because the statutory wordingany touching of the sexual or other intimate parts of a person [under 14 years of age]    for the purpose of arousing or gratifying the sexual desire of either partyencompasses (for example) the former conduct, the mandatory 75-month sentence for first-degree sexual abuse does not, on its face, violate Article I, section 16. But because the statute also encompasses conduct that reasonable people would consider far less harmful, defendants are entitled, as this court held in Huddleston, to argue that the mandatory sentence, as applied to the particular facts of their cases, is unconstitutionally disproportionate. [13] Thus, the offense at issue here includes the specific conduct in which each defendant engaged. That conduct consisted of Rodriguez causing the back of the boy's head to be in contact with her clothed breasts for about a minute and of Buck letting the back of his hand remain when the girl leaned her clothed buttocks against his hand several times and later wiping dirt off the back of her shorts with two swipes of his hand. In each case, defendant's contact came within the scope of first-degree sexual abuse, because it was the touching of the sexual or other intimate parts of a person under the age of 14 for the purpose of arousing or gratifying the sexual desire of either party. See ORS 163.305(6) (defining sexual contact). In determining whether the penalty here is unconstitutionally disproportionate, we cannot ignore the limited extent of the offensesthe physical touchingat issue here. There is no evidence that any touching between Rodriguez and the boy involved fondling, stroking, rubbing, or palpating. And the trial court, sitting as the factfinder in Buck, found that his contact with the girl did not involve fondling and was minimal. The touchings were brief, if not momentary. There is no evidence of force or threats of any kind. The sexual or intimate body parts that were touched were clothed. There was no skin-to-skin contact, no genital contact, no penetration, no bodily injury or physical harm. [14] In our view, comparing the statutory sentence of six years and three months in prison to the gravity of the touching for which defendants were convicted suggests, preliminarily, that that penalty is not proportioned to their offenses as required by Article I, section 16. That view is strengthened when we compare defendants' conduct with other conduct that ORS 163.427 explicitly brings within its scope and that also may be prosecuted as first-degree sexual abuse. First, the text of the statute penalizes, to the same extent as the conduct at issue here, the following conduct: Intentionally caus[ing] a person under 18 years of age to touch or contact the mouth, anus or sex organs of an animal for the purpose of arousing or gratifying the sexual desire of a person. ORS 163.427(1)(b). Reasonable peopleone is tempted to say, all reasonable people would agree that the conduct in which defendants engaged here is far less severe, wrongful, immoral, or harmful to a victim than at least one other form of first-degree sexual abuseintentionally causing a person under 18 to engage in bestiality. ORS 163.427 also makes sexual contact first-degree sexual abuse if it is the result of forcible compulsion by the wrongdoer, regardless of the age of the victim, ORS 163.427(1)(a)(B), such as by violence towards a victim, armed threats to accomplish sexual contact, or ripping off the victim's clothes to make sexual contact. Again, the difference between such conductpunished by the same mandatory 75-month sentence that Measure 11 would impose hereand defendants' conduct is obvious to any reasonable person. Second, when one examines the conduct here compared not just to other conduct specifically described in ORS 163.427 but to the range of possible conduct encompassed by the subsection of the statute applied heresexual contact with a person under 14the idea that the same six-year and three-month sentence should be applied becomes even more untenable. We have reviewed all the reported first-degree sexual abuse cases decided since the effective date of the 75-month mandatory sentence, and, although not all opinions discuss the defendants' conduct in detail and many involve convictions of other sex crimes as well, we are unable to find any case in which the contact upon which the convictions were based was as limited as in these cases. More typical are cases like State v. Foreman, 212 Or.App. 109, 157 P.3d 228 (2007), where the defendant was convicted of first-degree sexual abuse for engaging in sexual contact with the three-year-old victim by touching her vagina with his hands and penis. [15] In another unfortunately typical first-degree sexual abuse case, the defendant repeatedly rubbed his penis against his six-year-old victim, including one occasion where he took her clothes off, laid her on the floor, and rubbed his penis all over her. State v. Reed, 173 Or.App. 185, 21 P.3d 137 (2001). Even the other cases involving the least sustained or harmful conduct are easily distinguishable from the facts here. In State v. Cockrell, 174 Or.App. 442, 26 P.3d 169 (2001), for example, the defendant was convicted of one count of first-degree sexual abuse when, while roughhousing with his 11-year-old niece, he picked her up and repeatedly rubbed her crotch area, rubbing that she described as persistent and deliberate. In State v. Acker, 175 Or.App. 145, 27 P.3d 1071 (2001), the defendant furnished alcohol to his stepdaughter's 13-year-old friend and touched her breasts and buttocks. Those and other reported cases lend credence to the comments made by the experienced trial judges in the cases at issue here that neither had ever seen a first-degree sexual abuse case based on such minimal physical contact. The state consistently refers to the Measure 11 sentence for first-degree sexual abuse as a mandatory minimum sentence,  suggesting that a trial court could impose a greater sentence for the crime if the facts were more egregious than they are in these cases, thus alleviating any proportionality concerns. That is incorrect. The sentencing guidelines permit a trial court to depart from a presumptive sentence and to impose a sentence which is proportionate to the seriousness of the crime of conviction and the offender's criminal history. OAR XXX-XXX-XXXX(1). However, an upward durational departure shall not total more than double the maximum duration of the presumptive prison term. OAR XXX-XXX-XXXX(2). The presumptive sentence for first-degree sexual abuseabsent Measure 11is 16 to 18 months in prison. Because no other statute authorizes the trial court to impose a greater sentence than the mandatory 75 months set by Measure 11, that sentence becomes the minimum and the maximum sentence for first-degree sexual abuse. [16] Moreover, as with other Measure 11 sentences, the trial court has no authority to reduce a sentence for first-degree sexual abuse. In other words, with a narrow exception not available to these defendants, see 347 Or. at 68, n. 11, 217 P.3d at 674, n. 11, exactly the same sentence is imposed whether the conduct is as limited as it is in these cases or as extensive and gruesome as the examples suggested by defendants or as described in other reported first-degree sexual abuse cases, discussed above. Finally, although we recognize the legislature's authority to change sentences for crimes, proportionality review under the Oregon Constitution certainly can take into consideration the historical fact that, before Measure 11, the sentencing guidelines established, as the presumptive sentence for first-degree sexual abuse, a prison term of 16 to 18 months. As noted, even if the trial court had imposed the maximum upward departure from the presumptive guidelines sentence, based on aggravating circumstances, the maximum sentence for first-degree sexual abuse for a defendant with no prior convictions would have been 36 months. Measure 11 imposed a mandatory sentence on these defendants that is more than twice as long as the maximum sentence that could have been imposed on these defendants under the guidelines. Although the 75-month sentence is not disproportionate for most of the conduct that constitutes first-degree sexual abuse, the previously applicable guidelines sentence supports the conclusion that the 75-month sentence is disproportionate for the conduct at issue here. For the reasons described above, a comparison of the penalty and the offense indicates that the 75-month Measure 11 sentence may be so disproportionate to defendants' offenses as to violate Article I, section 16. Not only does defendants' criminal conduct appear insufficiently grave to justify the mandatory six-year and three-month sentence, but it also is less severe than the conduct in the vast majority of (and probably in all) other reported first-degree sexual abuse cases since Measure 11 was passed. Despite our initial view that the penalty that Measure 11 would impose for defendants' offenses may be unconstitutionally disproportionate, one could imagine a regime of draconian penalties for a wide variety of criminal offenses in which a 75-month sentence for the conduct at issue here would not shock the moral sense, because more serious crimes routinely were punished even more severely. Accordingly, we continue our inquiry by considering the penalty that Measure 11 would impose here in the context of the penalties imposed for related crimes.
As discussed above, courts are ill-equipped to conduct an open-ended inquiry comparing the gravity of disparate crimes as part of a determination of whether the penalty for one of the crimes is disproportionate. Courts are, however, able to reach at least general conclusions about whether some related crimes are more serious than others. Defendants point out that the careful calibration of lesser and greater sex crimes from the 1971 criminal code revision, with corresponding gradations in punishment, was undone by later changes to the definitions of the substantive crimes and, in 1995, by the imposition of Measure 11 sentences for many of those crimes. The legislature, of course, can and routinely does change the criminal code and the penalties for various crimes. Nevertheless, to the extent that the structure of related sex crime statutes reflects the kinds of considerations that lead reasonable people to conclude that one crime is more serious than another, it is relevant to our consideration of proportionality. Two aspects of Oregon's penalties for sex crimes, when compared to the 75-month sentences that Measure 11 would impose on defendants here, raise proportionality concerns. First, as discussed above, the conduct in these cases is at the outer edge of sexual contact as that term is defined in ORS 163.305(6)it involved, in one case, the back of the child's head and the clothed breasts of Rodriguez, and, in the other, the child's clothed buttocks and Buck's hand. The contact was momentary; there was no fondling or stimulation. Yet conviction for the sexual contact in these cases results in the same sentence as would be imposed on a defendant who anally sodomized the boy whom Rodriguez touched or the girl whom Buck touched. See ORS 163.395 (defining second-degree sodomy); ORS 137.700(2)(a)(M) (mandatory 75-month prison sentence for second-degree sodomy). And Rodriguez and Buck would have received the same sentences if they had engaged in sexual intercourse with the children that they briefly touched. See ORS 163.365 (defining second-degree rape); ORS 137.700(2)(a)(K) (mandatory 75-month sentence for second-degree rape). They would have received the same sentences if they had penetrate[d] the vagina, anus or penis [of children under the age of 14] with any object other than the penis or mouth. See ORS 163.411 (defining second-degree sexual penetration); ORS 137.700(2)(a)(O) (mandatory 75-month sentence for second-degree sexual penetration). We can assume that a reasonable person would consider the mandatory 75-month sentences for the conduct just described constituting second-degree sodomy, second-degree rape, and second-degree sexual penetrationas proportioned to those offenses. And, we may also assume that a reasonable person would conclude that a 75-month penalty for a defendant who committed first-degree sex abuse by stripping a six-year-old girl, laying her on the kitchen floor, and rubb[ing] his penis all over her, see Reed, 173 Or.App. at 188, 21 P.3d 137, was proportioned to the offense. In our view, however, that same reasonable person could not, at the same time, conclude that the mandatory 75-month sentence for the conduct at issue here also is proportioned to the offense, whether the conduct comes within the statutory definition of first-degree sexual abuse or any other criminal statute. Another enlightening comparison, for proportionality purposes, is that between the offense and punishment in these cases and the offense of second -degree sexual abuse and the penalty for that offense. ORS 163.425 defines second-degree sexual abuse as: subject[ing] another person to sexual intercourse, deviate sexual intercourse or    penetration of the vagina, anus or penis with any object other than the penis or mouth of the actor and the victim does not consent thereto. Second-degree sexual abuse has occurred, for example, when the defendant touched the victim's vagina and penetrat[ed] the victim's anus with his fingers, State v. Liviu, 209 Or.App. 249, 251, 147 P.3d 371 (2006), and where the defendant (a nurse in a psychiatric hospital) stood next to the bed of a bipolar, sedated patient with his pants open and an erect penis and indicated that he wanted the patient to perform oral sex on him, and the patient complied, State v. Neubauer, 214 Or. App. 130, 162 P.3d 1044 (2007). That conduct, both in its physical and sexual content, invasion of the body of the victim, and likely psychological impact, seems far removed from the touchings at issue here, even when the victim is older than 18. Yet, a person convicted of second-degree sexual abuse will not receive a Measure 11 sentence. Rather, if that person has no prior convictions, he or she will receive a guidelines sentence, presumptively of 90 days in jail and 90 days under some other form of custodial supervision. OAR XXX-XXX-XXXX(2)(c); OAR XXX-XXX-XXXX(1)(c). Here, in other words, is a sex crime that is closely related in terms of severity and description to first-degree sexual abuse and which, in practice, often is based on conduct that most people would consider far more serious than the conduct of Rodriguez and Buck. Nonetheless, the penalty for that crime is a fraction incarceration for one twenty-fifth the timeof the penalty that Measure 11 would impose here. It is another indication that Measure 11 sentences in these cases would be disproportionate to the offense.
The third factor on which this court's prior cases often focus in determining whether a penalty is proportioned to the offense is the defendant's criminal history. That inquiry is relevant, as discussed above, because a defendant who previously has been convicted of and served sentences for other crimes has demonstrated, by committing additional crimes, that the previously imposed sentences were insufficient to prevent the defendant from returning to his or her criminal behavior. See Smith, 128 Or. at 525, 273 P. 323 (substantial penalties for recidivists permissible, because state may rid itself of depravity when its efforts to reform have failed). As this court noted in Wheeler, a sentence that is proportioned to an offense committed by a repeat offender might not be proportioned to the offense if committed by a person with no criminal history. Wheeler, 343 Or. at 672-73, 175 P.3d 438. In contrast to repeat-offender statutes, and in contrast to the sentencing guidelines, in which criminal history plays a major role, Measure 11's mandatory 75-month sentence for first-degree sexual abuse applies even if the defendant has had no prior criminal charges, arrests, or reported police contact as in these cases. [17] The legislature may impose mandatory sentences for those who commit certain crimes, despite the fact that such sentences eliminate any consideration of the defendant's criminal history. However, the issue here is whether imposing these particular mandatory sentences on these defendants violates their constitutional right under Article I, section 16, to sentences that are proportioned to the offenses that they committed. As we have noted aboveand as the trial judge in each case emphasized in holding the 75-month mandatory sentence unconstitutional as applied to these factsneither defendant has any prior convictions. Under the sentencing guidelines, and in the absence of Measure 11, the presumptive sentence for a person convicted of first-degree sexual abuse would be 16 to 18 months in prison. Even if the person had a serious criminal record three or more person felonies  the presumptive sentence under the guidelines would have been only 41 to 45 months in prison. Moreover, defendants here not only had no prior convictions or charges of any kind, but, in each case, the brief touching occurred on a single occasion. [18] In the more common first-degree sexual abuse cases (at least those that have resulted in reported opinions), the contact is not only far more physically invasive and sexually charged, but it has occurred multiple times, rather than only once. In State v. Sullivan, 217 Or.App. 208, 174 P.3d 1095 (2007), for example, where the defendant was convicted of two counts of first-degree sexual abuse, the victim testified that the defendant had abused her over a four-year period. Similarly, in State v. Rhodes, 149 Or.App. 118, 941 P.2d 1072 (1997), the 15-year-old defendant was charged with one count of first-degree sexual abuse for touching his nine-year-old sister's vagina beneath her clothes on more than 20 separate occasions. Traditional understandings of proportionality, as well as this court's cases, require us to consider whether a defendant is a repeat offender by considering previous criminal convictions and whether there is evidence of multiple instances of uncharged wrongful conduct. Here, the absence of any criminal convictions and the single occurrence of the wrongful conduct support the conclusion that a 75-month sentence is unconstitutionally disproportionate to the offenses committed by these defendants.