Opinion ID: 836009
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Applying the Federal Double Jeopardy Analysis

Text: We already have identified a clear intent on the part of the body that adopted the PFZ scheme to create a civil, rather than a criminal, sanction. We thus turn to the seven factors that the federal cases identify as relevant.
The exact boundaries of the first factor in the federal analysiswhether the sanction involves an affirmative disability or restraintnever have been clarified. Although more recent United States Supreme Court decisions appear to suggest that nothing short of imprisonment would qualify as an affirmative disability or restraint, [12] earlier authorities suggest that the term encompasses a broader range of restraints, including permanent exclusion from a vocation, but not denial of a noncontractual government benefit. See, e.g., Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U.S. at 168 n. 22, 83 S.Ct. 554 (suggesting that deportation of, and denial of passports to, draft evaders amount to affirmative restraints, and citing Flemming v. Nestor, 363 U.S. 603, 80 S.Ct. 1367, 4 L.Ed.2d 1435 (1960) (termination of social security benefits), United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303, 106 Ct.Cl. 856, 66 S.Ct. 1073, 90 L.Ed. 1252 (1946) (statute prohibiting payment of salary or compensation to named government employees), and Ex parte Garland, 71 U.S. (4 Wall) 333, 18 L. Ed. 366 (1867) (exclusion from practice of law)). At the very least, the factor appears to refer to some kind of serious impingement on personal liberty. Although exclusion from a part of a city is some restraint on personal liberty, we are persuaded that exclusions under the ordinance are not serious enough to qualify as affirmative restraints. We reach that conclusion for a number of reasons. First, the exclusions are temporary90 days in duration. Second, they are geographically limited, i.e., they pertain to a relatively small portion of the city. Finally, they are open to variance: Under the ordinance, the City must grant a variance request to a person who works or lives within a PFZ and may grant a variance for other reasons relating to the health, welfare, or well-being of the excluded person. PCC § 14.150.160(2)(b). We hold that exclusion under Portland's PFZ ordinance is not an affirmative restraint, as that concept is used in the federal cases.
As noted above, defendant argues that exclusion under the PFZ ordinance is the equivalent of banishment, a sanction that, by long tradition, is criminal punishment. We have responded to that argument at length in our analysis of defendant's former jeopardy claim under Article I, section 12, of the Oregon Constitution. We reject the argument here for the same reasons that we rejected it in that context.
The third of the seven factors asks whether imposition of the sanction at issue is dependent on a finding of scienter. It seems clear that, with respect to exclusion under the PFZ ordinance, the answer is yes: Under that ordinance, if a person challenges an exclusion notice, the exclusion will be sustained only if the state proves, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the person committed one of the prostitution-related crimes listed in PCC section 14.150.030, all of which require some proof of intent. PCC § 14.150.160(1)(c). The question remains whether that fact alone marks the PFZ scheme as a criminal proceeding. Ultimately, we are persuaded that it does not. Although it is true that some level of intent is required before an actor may be held criminally liable, a scienter requirement is not necessarily inconsistent with liability under some civil, remedial scheme. Here, the scienter requirement is part of a larger requirement that the exclusions be directed at persons who have committed the specified criminal acts. But exclusion is not imposed to punish those crimes. Rather, it seeks to prevent further crime by keeping persons who have been identified either as probable prostitutes or their customers away from their customary marketplaces. In that respect, the ordinance is remedial and, unless there is some prohibition against applying both civil and criminal consequences to the same act (and the United States Supreme Court has indicated that there is not, Helvering v. Mitchell, 303 U.S. 391, 399, 58 S.Ct. 630, 82 L.Ed. 917 (1938)), we cannot accept the mere fact that the ordinance contains a scienter requirement as a clear indication that the scheme is criminal in nature.
Despite its persistent inclusion in the list of factors to be considered at the second stage of the analysis, it is clear that the United States Supreme Court considers the fact that the targeted conduct already is a crime to be all but irrelevant. See Ursery, 518 U.S. at 292, 116 S.Ct. 2135 (fact that forfeiture statutes are tied to criminal activity insufficient to render statutes punitive); see also Helvering, 303 U.S. at 399, 58 S.Ct. 630 (Congress may impose both a criminal and a civil sanction in respect to the same act or omission). We give that factor little weight.
Defendant argues that the PFZ exclusion ordinance serves a punitive purpose, because it seeks to incapacitate individuals from committing future crimes. Defendant also argues that the PFZ ordinance serves the punitive goal of retribution, because it goes far beyond what is necessary for any remedial purpose. Finally, defendant argues that the ordinance is intended to be a deterrent to further criminal conduct and is therefore punitive in that respect. Even if defendant were correct that exclusion serves as a deterrent, that fact is of little value to our analysis. Deterrence is a legitimate remedial purpose and its presence is perfectly compatible with a conclusion that a proceeding and sanction is civil. See Hudson, 522 U.S. at 105, 118 S.Ct. 488 (stating that deterrence may serve both civil and criminal goals). The same can be said of defendant's contention that exclusion under the ordinance serves to incapacitate persons from committing further crimes. Incapacitation, in that sense, is a remedial goal. Defendant does not suggest that that PFZ ordinance states a retributive purpose, and does not offer evidenceassuming such evidence would be pertinentthat the City Council had a hidden retributive agenda when it enacted the ordinance. As to defendant's contention that exclusion is retributive because it goes far beyond what is necessary for any remedial purpose, that argument properly belongs under the seventh factor in the federal test, i.e., whether the sanction is excessive in relation to the alternative purpose assigned, and we shall consider it under that topic. In summary, we do not find that the PFZ ordinance is punitive, as opposed to remedial.
Defendant concedes that exclusion under PCC section 14.150.030 serves the remedial purpose of improving quality of life in areas that have become notorious for their high level of prostitution activity. In addition to that conceded purpose, it is clear from the record that the exclusion serves an even more basic remedial purposethat of preventing prostitution activity by keeping prostitutes and their customers out of areas that have evolved into marketplaces for such activities.
We already have considered, and rejected, defendant's argument that exclusion under the PFZ ordinance is excessive in relation to its remedial purposes, in the context of our analysis under the state constitution's former jeopardy provision.