Court Opinion

ID: 9544047
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:51:35.695198+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:11:52.284192
License: Public Domain

FADELEY, J.,
dissenting.
I agree with the majority that a sentencingjudge may consider prior behavior of the convicted person, including behavior as a juvenile, before determining what sentence is appropriate. However, I agree with the dissent that a prior juvenile adjudication, entered without the constitutional safeguards required for criminal cases, may not be treated as the equivalent of an adult conviction. Thus, I think it is the law that prior behavior as a juvenile may be used in sentencing, but only as it represents an individual feature of an individual’s past, not as if it were a prior criminal conviction.
There would be no necessary conflict between the majority and the dissent had the majority stopped with deciding “the only question” before us. A footnote in the majority opinion states:
*11“We note here that defendants have based their entire argument on a single theory, viz., that it is impermissible to consider at all their earlier juvenile court adjudications. Therefore, that is the only question that we consider.” 321 Or at 7 n 5 (emphasis in original).
With that “at all” point, and the bare bones of its resolution by the majority, I have no quarrel. However, the majority goes leagues further, across a stormy sea, to permit use of a juvenile adjudication as, in every respect, the equivalent of a criminal conviction. The juvenile court adjudication was not a criminal conviction. State ex rel Juv. Dept. v. Reynolds, 317 Or 560, 857 P2d 842 (1993).
I cannot join in any implication that the law regarding the future effect of a jury-less adjudication permits that adjudication to be used as a criminal conviction. Nor can I join in the holding that all adjudicated juveniles are to be viewed forever as ex-convicts in the eyes of the law.
This dissent expresses my separate views, and I concur in the dissent of Unis, J.