Opinion ID: 2711529
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: reconsideration of freeland

Text: That does not end our inquiry, however. Because defendant would prevail under Freeland, as the Court of Appeals concluded, we must next address the state’s argument that application of the Priest methodology to Article I, section 20, demonstrates that Freeland should be overruled because Article I, section 20, does not require a prosecutor to apply a “coherent, systematic policy” to a charging decision like the one at issue here. Thus, we turn to examining the meaning of Article I, section 20, and specifically to whether it requires government entities to apply such a “policy” in granting a privilege or immunity.6 In undertaking the inquiry outlined in Priest, our goal is to identify the historical principles embodied in the text of Article I, section 20, and to apply those principles faithfully to modern circumstances as they arise. Coast Range Conifers v. Board of Forestry, 339 Or 136, 142, 117 P3d 990 (2005). Put differently, the historical inquiry set out in Priest invites us to identify the principles that Article I, section 20, was intended to advance, while recognizing that the scope of that provision is not limited to the historical circumstances surrounding its adoption. See Hewitt v. SAIF, 294 Or 33, 46, 653 P2d 970 (1982) (recognizing that Article I, section 20, extends protection to classes of citizens who were not protected when Oregon adopted its constitution in 1859). 6 Although we reconsider Freeland, as requested by the state, we reject the state’s argument that we should reconsider and “realign the entirety of the court’s Article I, section 20, analysis with the intent of the framers.” This case does not require us to reconsider the application of Article I, section 20, to claims of discrimination against classes of individuals. Moreover, as discussed later, we reject the state’s suggestions that Article I, section 20, applies only to the enactment of laws and not to their implementation and that it applies only to economic privileges. For those reasons, we agree with several of the arguments set out in the brief of amicus curiae ACLU Foundation of Oregon, Inc., and find others unnecessary to address in this case. Cite as 354 Or 64 (2013) 73 A. Text and History of Article I, Section 20 We begin with the text of Article I, section 20, which provides: “No law shall be passed granting to any citizen or class of citizens privileges, or immunities, which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens.” That section consists of an independent clause and a dependent clause. The independent clause is directed to the legislature. It provides that “[n]o law shall be passed granting to any citizen or class of citizens privileges, or immunities[.]” The dependent clause qualifies what would otherwise be an almost absolute prohibition on lawmaking, because lawmaking almost always involves or establishes some advantage or disadvantage for some group of citizens. The dependent clause permits laws granting privileges or immunities to any citizen or class of citizens as long as the privileges or immunities belong “equally” to all citizens “upon the same terms.” At first blush, the two clauses in Article I, section 20, appear antithetical. Read together, they prohibit a law granting a privilege or immunity to one citizen or a class of citizens unless the privilege or immunity is available to all citizens upon the same terms. As this court has recognized, the inclusion of the word “equally” resolves the tension between the two clauses and permits the legislature to draw classifications among citizens in granting privileges and immunities. Specifically, the court has recognized that requiring privileges or immunities to be granted “equally” permits the legislature to grant privileges or immunities to one citizen or class of citizens as long as similarly situated people are treated the same. In re Oberg, 21 Or 406, 41011, 28 P 130 (1891). Accordingly, this court held in Oberg that a statute exempting sailors but no one else from arrest for debt did not run afoul of Article I, section 20, because it “prescribe[d] the same rule of exemption to all persons placed in the same circumstances.” Id. at 408.7 Thus, the text of 7 In explaining why the legislature could conclude that other debtors were not similarly situated to sailors, the court offered three rationales. First, it explained that, at least on its face, the law was open ended: “[A]ny citizen desiring such immunity may have it in the words of the constitution, ‘upon the same terms,’ by becoming a sailor.” Oberg, 21 Or at 408. Second, the court reasoned that, because different occupations may pose separate concerns, the legislature can enact laws 74 State v. Savastano Article I, section 20, places a limit on the legislature’s ability to draw classifications among citizens in enacting laws, but a requirement that the government apply a coherent, systematic policy—or any policy at all—in all decisions involving its citizens is not apparent from the text. Similarly, the history of Article I, section 20, does not support a general requirement that the government must make decisions according to a “systematic policy.” No record exists of any discussion of Article I, section 20, in the debates over the Oregon Constitution. See Claudia Burton and Andrew Grade, A Legislative History of the Oregon Constitution of 1857 - Part I (Articles I & II), 37 Willamette L rev 469, 532-33 (2001). We know, however, that the provision was taken from the Indiana Constitution of 1851, Clark¸ 291 Or at 236, 236 n 7, and that it finds its roots in early colonial declarations of rights. See David Schuman, The Right to “Equal Privileges and Immunities”: A State’s Version of “Equal Protection,” 13 Vt L rev 221, 223 (1988) (tracing the history of equal privileges and immunities clauses). We also know that state constitutions drafted between 1840 and 1880 sought to address abuses that included “revealed fraud and corruption in public-land dealings and in the getting and granting of franchises, subsidies, and rate privileges for turnpikes, canals, river improvements, toll bridges, and, of course, especially railroads and street railways.” James Willard Hurst, The Growth of American Law: The Law Makers 24142 (1950). The historical usage of the phrase “privileges, or immunities” points in the same direction. Before the revolution, one legal dictionary defined a “privilege” as consisting of four elements: “(1) a benefit or advantage; (2) conferred by positive law; (3) on a person or place; (4) contrary to what the rule would be in absence of the privilege.” Robert G. Natelson, The Original Meaning of the Privileges and Immunities Clause, 43 that apply only to a single occupation without engaging in prohibited “class legislation.” Id. at 409-10. The third rationale was a variation on the second. The court observed that, because the “object of the act    was to aid and extend our foreign commerce by protecting sailors and preventing such burdens or exactions from being laid upon shipping as would discourage vessels from frequenting our ports,” Article I, section 20, did not prevent the legislature from enacting an exemption for sailors that advanced only that legislative objective. Id. at 410. Cite as 354 Or 64 (2013) 75 Ga L rev 1117, 1130 (2009) (summarizing prerevolutionary legal dictionary definition). It also appears that “ ‘immunity’ and ‘privilege’ were reciprocal words for the same legal concept. Because an immunity was a benefit, otherwise contrary to law, given to a person or place by special grant, it was a privilege.” Id. at 1133-34; accord Campbell v. Morris, 3 H & McH 535, 553 (Md 1797) (explaining that the terms “[p]rivilege and immunity are synonymous, or nearly so”). In the period leading up to the Civil War, the phrase “privileges and immunities” ordinarily referred to statecreated rights. See Kurt T. Lash, The Origins of the Privileges or Immunities Clause, Part I: “Privileges and Immunities” as an Antebellum Term of Art, 98 Geo LJ 1241, 1253, 1260-61 (2010).8 A grant of privileges and immunities was not always viewed positively, however. During the Jacksonian era, newspaper editorials “commonly decried ‘the possession of privileges or immunities, in which ninety-nine hundredths of the community, by the very nature of their situation, are denied all participation,’ and they vilified the ‘ “privileged order”    on whom the law confers certain privileges or immunities not enjoyed by the great mass of the people.’ Id. at 1256- ” 57 (quoting editorials) (ellipses in Lash; footnote omitted). Consistent with that concern, state constitutional privileges and immunities clauses drafted during and shortly after that period sought to prevent the government from granting benefits only to a favored few. See id. at 1257. Article I, section 20, was no exception to that trend. See Clark, 291 Or at 236 (explaining that the “language [of Article I, section 20,] reflects early egalitarian objections to favoritism and special privileges for a few”). The history reveals that, in borrowing Article I, section 20, from Indiana, the framers were acting in response 8 In Salem College & Academy, Inc. v. Emp. Div., 298 Or 471, 488 n 13, 695 P2d 25 (1985), this court explained that the phrase “privileges, or immunities” in Article I, section 20, is not limited to the fundamental rights that Justice Washington identified in Corfield v. Coryell, 6 Fed Cas 546 (1823). More recently, commentators have questioned whether Justice Washington’s identification of the fundamental rights protected by the federal Privileges and Immunities Clause is consistent with other cases from that period recognizing that the federal clause protects a limited set of state-created rights. See Lash, 98 Geo LJ at 1271 (summarizing discussion). 76 State v. Savastano to legislative grants of privileges to a favored few. Viewed more abstractly, Article I, section 20, limited the criteria that government can use in granting privileges and immunities. It is difficult, however, to go beyond that and find in the history of that provision a requirement that executive agencies (or other branches of government, for that matter) standardize their decision making. The state argues that Article VII (Original), section 17, of the Oregon Constitution provides additional historical context that clarifies how Article I, section 20, interacts with the role of prosecutors. Article VII (Original), section 17, creates the office of district attorney: “There shall be elected by districts comprised of one, or more counties, a sufficient number of prosecuting Attorneys, who shall be the law officers of the State, and of the counties within their respective districts, and shall perform such duties pertaining to the administration of Law, and general police as the Legislative Assembly may direct.” The state argues that prosecutors historically had discretionary authority regarding whether and how to bring charges and that attempts to limit that discretion did not emerge until well after the Oregon Constitution was adopted. Therefore, the state reasons, the framers intended prosecutors to have discretion that would not be limited by Article I, section 20. Defendant responds that the decision to create the office of district attorney in no way indicates an intent to exempt district attorneys from the requirements of Article I, section 20; in fact, defendant notes, the district attorneys’ duties were to be set by the legislature, and even the state accepts that the legislature is subject to Article I, section 20. The additional historical context of Article VII (Original), section 17, does not change the historical analysis of Article I, section 20. Similarly to Article I, section 20, Article VII (Original), section 17, does not indicate an intent to require consistency or policies in prosecutorial decisions; but neither does it indicate an intent for prosecutors to have unbridled discretion outside the bounds of Article I, section 20, particularly given the legislature’s control over prosecutors’ duties. Cite as 354 Or 64 (2013) 77 B. Early Cases Interpreting Article I, Section 20 Having considered the text and history of Article I, section 20, we turn to this court’s cases interpreting it. Most of this court’s decisions have addressed challenges to legislative classifications.9 As such, they did not address the issue raised here. We begin with five of this court’s early decisions involving individual-based claims, which addressed either laws or executive decisions granting privileges or immunities to a single citizen. We then discuss Clark and Freeland. Finally, we discuss this court’s decisions applying Freeland. The first five decisions divide into two groups: One decision treated Article I, section 20, as a counterpart to constitutional provisions prohibiting special or local laws, see Altschul v. State, 72 Or 591, 596-97, 144 P 124 (1914), and the other four decisions addressed situations where the government had granted one person a monopoly. In Altschul, the legislature had granted one person (the plaintiff) the right to bring a suit against the state to determine his interest in land held by the state. Id. at 595. The state demurred to the plaintiff’s suit on the ground that the statute authorizing that suit violated Article IV, section 24, which prohibits “special act[s]” permitting suits to be brought against the state; Article IV, section 23, which prohibits “special or local laws” in certain classes of cases; and Article I, section 20. The court held that the statute violated all three constitutional provisions. Id. at 596-97. The court’s analysis under Article I, section 20, consisted of a single sentence. It held that the statute “grant[ed] to the plaintiff [t]here a privilege which [was] not extended to any other person in the state, and hence [was] in conflict with Article I, section 20.” Id. at 596. In grouping Article I, 9 For much of this court’s history, it analyzed challenges to legislative classifications under Article I, section 20, and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment the same way. See City of Klamath Falls v. Winters, 289 Or 757, 769-70 n 10, 619 P2d 217 (1980), appeal dismissed, 451 US 964, 101 S Ct 2037, 68 L Ed 2d 343 (1981) (explaining that “[t]his court has consistently held that the scope of these two provisions is the same”). In Clark, the court interpreted Article I, section 20, independently from the federal constitution, while recognizing that “for most purposes analysis under Article I, section 20 and under the federal equal protection clause will coincide” in the result, if not the reasoning. 291 Or at 243. 78 State v. Savastano section 20, with Article IV, sections 23 and 24, the court appears to have treated the prohibition against laws granting a privilege or immunity to “any citizen” as a species of constitutional provisions prohibiting special or local laws. Cf. Jeffrey M. Shaman, Equality and Liberty in the Golden Age of State Constitutional Law 31 (2008) (noting the relationship between privileges and immunities clauses and clauses prohibiting special or local laws). To the extent that Altschul holds that Article I, section 20, prohibits laws addressed to only a single person, that decision seems inapposite when applied to executive acts, which, by definition, often require acting only in individual cases. As noted, the other four decisions addressed either statutes or agency decisions giving one person a monopoly. The first and most comprehensive of those decisions was White v. Holman, 44 Or 180, 74 P 933 (1904). In that case, the legislature had authorized a board to issue licenses to run sailors’ boarding houses to “any person, firm, or corporation” that presented “satisfactory evidence    of the respectability and competency of such applicant, and of the suitableness of his or their accommodations, and of his or their compliance with all the provisions of this act.” Id. at 182-83 (describing the statutory criteria for issuing licenses) (internal quotation marks omitted). The board, however, had not followed those statutory criteria in denying a license to the plaintiffs in White. Id. at 183. Rather, the board had denied the plaintiffs a license based on the wishes of shipping companies, which had directed the board “to limit the business to only one sailors’ boarding house at Portland.” Id. at 181-82. The question, as this court framed it in White, was whether the board could grant a monopoly consistently with Article I, section 20.10 In resolving that question, the court explained that a board charged with implementing a statute “can exercise no greater power than was possessed by the legislative assembly” in enacting it. Id. at 192. In holding that a board could not grant a license to only one applicant, the court concluded that the board had used a criterion that 10 The court could have decided the case on the ground that the board had not followed the statutory criteria in denying the license. It did not take that course, however. Cite as 354 Or 64 (2013) 79 Article I, section 20, did not permit either the legislature or the board to use. Specifically, the court started from the premise that “[t]he keeping of a sailors’ boarding house is, in our opinion, a legitimate business, in the performance of which any citizen may engage as a matter of common right[.]” Id. at 191. It followed that the legislature could deny a license to run such a house only if it had a reasonable ground for doing so. See id. at 191-92. On that point, the court explained that the legislature could seek to deny licenses to persons who might take advantage of sailors’ susceptibility to temptations once they reached shore. See id. at 189-91 (describing, at some length, the temptations to which sailors habitually fell prey while on shore). The board, however, had not based its decision to deny a license to the plaintiffs on that ground. Rather, the board arbitrarily had excluded what otherwise may have been qualified applicants from receiving a license based only on the wishes of the shipping industry. Id. at 192. Under Article I, section 20, this court held, neither the legislature nor the board could do that. Id.11 The other three decisions held that neither the legislature nor a board may grant an exclusive right to fish in one area of a navigable stream, because the right to fish in those waters is held in common by all citizens. Monroe v. Withycombe, 84 Or 328, 341, 165 P 227 (1917); Eagle Cliff Fishing Co. v. McGowan, 70 Or 1, 15, 137 P 766 (1914), appeal dismissed, 248 US 589, 39 S Ct 5, 63 L Ed 435 (1918); Hume v. Rogue River Packing Co., 51 Or 237, 259, 92 P 1065 (1907). Citing White and Article I, section 20, the court reasoned in Hume that granting an exclusive right to fish was comparable to granting a monopoly, without any legitimate basis for giving only one person a right that the people held in common. 51 Or at 259-60. Following Hume and Eagle Cliff Fishing, the court reasoned in Monroe that, in light of the public’s right to fish for salmon, neither the legislature nor the Fish Warden could “authorize only one person to fish for salmon for his own personal benefit and 11 The court reasoned that, because the legislature “could not create a monopoly of a legitimate business in which every person can engage of common right, a fortiori, its creatures, the board, are likewise prohibited from doing so.” White, 44 Or at 192. 80 State v. Savastano private profit without any advantage to the public.” 84 Or at 338, 341. White and Monroe thus recognized that Article I, section 20, applies not only to the legislature but also to other branches of government. Both White and Monroe also made clear that, under Article I, section 20, the same limitations that apply to the legislature in enacting laws apply to other government entities when they take action in an individual case. That is, the government may not use a classification or criterion to decide an individual case that the legislature could not use in enacting a law. Neither White nor Monroe went beyond that, however. None of the early decisions interpreting Article I, section 20, held or suggested that that section requires systematic consistency in government decision making, which is the lynchpin of the Court of Appeals decision, applying Freeland, in this case. Savastano, 243 Or App at 590 (“We require only consistent, systematic criteria, and that those criteria be permissible.”). One other case deserves discussion because it is sometimes cited as precedent for the individual branch of Article I, section 20, analysis. In State of Oregon v. Cory, 204 Or 235, 237, 282 P2d 1054 (1955), the defendant challenged a statute that authorized increased punishment for persons convicted of two or more felonies within five years. See Or Laws 1947, ch 585, §§ 1, 2. As amended in 1951, the statute provided that, if, within two years of a defendant’s conviction, the prosecutor learned that the defendant previously had been convicted of a nonviolent felony, the prosecutor “ ‘may, immediately file an information accusing the person of the previous convictions.’ ” See Cory, 204 Or at 237-38 (quoting the amended statute). The defendant in Cory focused on the phrase “may   file.” He argued that giving a prosecutor discretion to