Opinion ID: 836206
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Subject Analysis

Text: The first step in addressing a challenge under Article IV, section 20, is to consider whether the act embraces only one subject and matters properly connected with that subject. The Court of Appeals identified that single subject in SB 936 as the prosecution and conviction of persons who have committed criminal acts. Fugate, 154 Or.App. at 654, 963 P.2d 686. We would put it differently, but only slightly so. Sections 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, and part of section 20 of SB 936 directly provide various specific rights to crime victims. Sections 1, 22, 29, and 37 deal at various levels with the admissibility of evidence in criminal trials. Sections 18 and 19, and the remainder of 20, deal with release criteria respecting those accused of crimes. Sections 14, 15, 16, 17, 23, 24, 26, 27, and 32 address criminal sentencing and orders for restitution. Sections 8, 9b, 21, and 25 make various changes to the law respecting juries in criminal cases. (The remaining sections involve conforming amendments, effective dates, and the like.) We would summarize the foregoing by saying that the subject of SB 936 is the prosecution and conviction of persons accused of crime. That subject logically connects and unifies all the provisions of SB 936, including those that create, within the process of criminal law enforcement, certain legal rights for the victims of crime, and those that deal with sentencing and restitution. Defendant argues that victims' rights and criminal prosecutions are different legislative subjects. The rights of victims may be vindicated in civil cases, defendant contends, while criminal cases involve the protection of the public, not the rights of victims. For that reason, defendant contends that SB 936 contains two subjects: victims' rights, and criminal procedure and sentencing. We do not accept that distinction. Both victim's rights and criminal procedure and sentencing are connected by, indeed are aspects of, the occurrence of a criminal act. There is a logical connection between what is done for the victim and what is done to the criminal. Defendant next contends that the definition of a subject under Article IV, section 20, should be delimited by the possibility of logrolling. That is, defendant suggests that the test is whether a legislator could support one provision of an act while opposing another. If so, defendant argues, then the act involves logrolling and the statute should be construed as involving multiple subjects. We disagree. Logrolling is not a constitutional term. Subject, on the other hand, is such a term. Our holding that SB 936 embraces only one subject and matters properly connected therewith answers the pertinent question. The capacity of legislators to combine or disagree over sections, sentences, clauses, or even single words in a bill may be illimitable, but logrolling becomes a concern only when proposed legislation embraces more than one subject and matters properly connected therewitha circumstance not presented here. Defendant's proposed rule effectively would require that each act contain but a single provision-a result that this court has rejected. See, e.g., State v. Allen, 152 Or. 422, 429-30, 53 P.2d 1054 (1936) ([W]hile the subject must be single, the provisions involved may be multifarious.). Defendant contends, in the alternative, that SB 936 has two distinct purposes to `protect crime victims' rights' and `to ensure the prosecution and conviction of persons who have committed criminal acts.' Armatta, 327 Or. at 278 n. 8, 959 P.2d 49 (emphasis omitted; quoting preamble to Measure 40). The constitutional test, however, is whether the provisions of the act embrace one subject and matters properly connected therewith. That test does not prohibit legislation from promoting more than one desirable purpose in the process. Defendant's proposed interpretation would prohibit the legislature from ever passing any act that promoted two or more desirable ends, even if the act involved but a single section. Such a result would inhibit legislation without promoting any of the purposes underlying Article IV, section 20. See McIntire, 322 Or. at 437-38, 909 P.2d 846 (Article IV, section 20 should not be so construed so as to hamper or cripple legislation    by a strictness unnecessary to the accomplishment of the beneficial purpose for which it was adopted (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)). [4] In summary, we conclude that SB 936 embraces only a single subject and matters properly connected therewith, as required by Article IV, section 20, of the Oregon Constitution.