Opinion ID: 1145252
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Heading: Principles of Clark and Edmonson.

Text: Before turning to the facts in this case, we summarize what was decided in Clark and Edmonson. A claim of impermissibly unequal use of authority, like other claims of illegality, must be tested first against the legal source of the authority and second against the state constitution before reaching a claim under the United States Constitution. 291 Or. at 233, n. 1, 630 P.2d 810; State v. Smyth, 286 Or. 293, 297, 593 P.2d 1166 (1979). [1] The test of unequal treatment under Or. Const. art. I, § 20, is not always the same as the tests articulated from time to time under the federal equal protection clause, although the clauses are sufficiently similar that compliance with article I, section 20 usually will also satisfy the 14th amendment. [2] 291 Or. at 243-44, 630 P.2d 810; Hewitt v. SAIF, 294 Or. 33, 43, 653 P.2d 970 (1982). See, e.g., Jarvill v. City of Eugene, 289 Or. 157, 184, 185, 613 P.2d 1, cert den 449 U.S. 1013, 101 S.Ct. 572, 66 L.Ed.2d 472 (1980). In particular, article I, section 20, expressly guarantees equality of privileges to each individual citizen as well as to any class of citizens. A person therefore need not complain of being the victim of an invidiously discriminatory classification in order to invoke this guarantee, although such discrimination also is forbidden. [T]his section is a guarantee against unjustified denial of equal privileges or immunities to individual citizens at least as much as against unjustified differentiation among classes of citizens. It also was early established that the guarantee reached forbidden inequality in the administration of laws under delegated authority as well as in legislative enactments.... One branch of article I, section 20, and decisions under it thus call for analysis whether the government has made or applied a law so as to grant or deny privileges or immunities to an individual person without legitimate reasons related to that person's individual situation. 291 Or. at 239, 630 P.2d 810, citing State v. Cory, 204 Or. 235, 282 P.2d 1054 (1955); White v. Holman, 44 Or. 180, 74 P. 933 (1904); In re Oberg, 21 Or. 406, 28 P. 130 (1891). District attorneys, like other officials, are held to constitutional limits in the exercise of the discretion entrusted to them.... Their discretionary decisions, even if not subject to judicial `supervision,' are not immune from judicial scrutiny. 291 Or. at 245, 630 P.2d 810, citing State v. Jones, 279 Or. 55, 566 P.2d 867 (1977); In re Rook, 276 Or. 695, 556 P.2d 1351 (1976); State v. Langley, 214 Or. 445, 323 P.2d 301, cert. den. 358 U.S. 826, 79 S.Ct. 45, 3 L.Ed.2d 66 (1958). A complaint of unequal treatment, however, cannot rest simply on the existence of discretion alone. Clark and Edmonson attacked the coexistence of alternative charging procedures, one providing and the other denying a preliminary hearing at the choice of the prosecutor, as intrinsically denying defendants the equal protection of the laws, on the grounds that led the Supreme Court of California in Hawkins v. Superior Court, 22 Cal.3d 584, 150 Cal. Rptr. 435, 586 P.2d 916 (1978) to order that indicted defendants must be afforded preliminary hearings equally with those charged by information. State v. Clark rejected that wholesale attack. It recognized that preliminary hearings were an important privilege to which one accused of crime is entitled upon the same terms as others: There is no question that the opportunity of a preliminary hearing is a `privilege' within the meaning of the constitutional guarantee, and potentially one of great practical importance. 291 Or. at 241, 630 P.2d 810. [3] But upon the same terms does not mean that every accused must be afforded a preliminary hearing or none can be. The preliminary hearing itself is not constitutionally required where probable cause to prosecute is shown to the satisfaction of a grand jury. The two methods are capable of valid administration, if the `terms' on which one or the other method is used are defensible under the constitutional guarantees of equal treatment. State v. Edmonson, 291 Or. at 253, 630 P.2d 822. Finally, State v. Clark held that defensible terms of valid administration need not be promulgated as rules, although of course they might take that form. 291 Or. at 246, 630 P.2d 810. [4] But the standards or criteria used, whether or not stated as rules, must pass muster under those guarantees of equal treatment. 291 Or. at 239-240, 630 P.2d 810.