Court Opinion

ID: 9549794
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:24:47.013258+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:20:55.080207
License: Public Domain

ARMSTRONG, J.,
dissenting.
The trial court issued a judgment declaring that section 2 of 1996 Ballot Measure 40 revised the constitution in violation of Article XVII, section 1, of the Oregon Constitution. It also enjoined the Governor and his subordinates and the State of Oregon and its subdivisions from “enforcing or attempting to enforce section 2 of Ballot Measure 40.” Defendants appealed from that judgment and now move this court to stay or modify the injunction issued by the trial court. We should deny the motion.
It should be noted as an initial matter that the relief defendants seek will not remedy the problems that they claim the injunction creates, because the state will still be bound by the legally effective declaratory judgment. We are to assume that the state will conform its conduct to the law as a court declares the law to be in a declaratory judgment. See Burke v. Children’s Services Division, 288 Or 533, 548, 607 P2d 141 (1980). That assumption appears to be well founded because, in this case, defendants’ counsel assured plaintiffs’ counsel prior to entry of the judgment that “[w]here declaratory relief is granted, injunctive relief is not warranted against the State of Oregon or its agencies” because the state has a policy of abiding by declaratory judgments. The result of that policy is that, even if we grant a stay of the injunction, *504defendants still will have to act in accordance with the declaration that Section 2 of Ballot Measure 40 is an unconstitutional revision of the constitution. Thus, the relief sought from us by defendants will not accomplish what defendants apparently seek to accomplish, which is to avoid complying with the declaratory judgment.
Had the state requested a stay of the judgment, the issue would be more difficult. Given its request, however, the issue is comparatively simple. We should deny the stay because granting it will have no effect.
The reason that granting the stay will have no effect can best be illustrated by contrasting the effect of the declaratory judgment in this proceeding with the effect of a trial court ruling on the constitutionality of Section 2 of Measure 40 in a criminal case. Assume, for these purposes, that the state is prosecuting a defendant for a crime and that the defendant moves to suppress evidence in that case on the ground that the state obtained the evidence unlawfully. Assume further that the motion would be granted but for Section 2 of Measure 40 and that the court rules that Section 2 is an unconstitutional revision of the Oregon Constitution. Based on that ruling, the court grants the motion to suppress. That ruling would have whatever preclusive effect on the constitutionality of Section 2 of Measure 40 in other cases that issue preclusion would give it.
The central issue in the hypothetical criminal case is whether the defendant committed the crime of which he is charged. The constitutionality of Measure 40 is simply one of many legal issues that might have to be resolved in the case. In contrast, the constitutionality of Measure 40 is the central issue in our case, and the court resolved that issue by issuing a binding declaration that Section 2 of the measure is an unconstitutional revision of the Oregon Constitution. The effect of that declaration does not depend on whether it is given preclusive effect by courts in other cases. Rather, as long as the state treats the declaration as binding on it, the declaration prevents the state and those acting for it from treating Section 2 of the measure as constitutional and seeking to enforce it. Consequently, for example, if a defendant in a criminal case moves to suppress evidence that would be *505suppressed but for Section 2, the state cannot seek to rely on Section 2 to resist the motion because, based on the declaration, the provision is not available to the state for that purpose. It is as if the provision does not exist.1
I interpret the court’s injunction in this case to do nothing more than require the state to do what it says it will do without the injunction, which is to act in accordance with the declaration as long as it remains in effect.2 Hence, it would serve no purpose to stay the injunction because staying it would not change the obligation that the state has assumed to comply with the declaration. It would remove only a mechanism by which that obligation could be enforced if not honored.3
In summary, the state resisted entry of the injunction by asserting that an injunction was unnecessary because the state would abide by the court’s declaration that Section 2 of Measure 40 violates the Oregon Constitution. Because the injunction does nothing more than require the state to abide by the declaration, there is no reason for us to stay it.

 To the extent that the state and those acting on its behalf act in accordance with the declaration, they will avoid one of the problems that the state has identified as a basis to stay the trial court’s injunction. The state argues that district attorneys have been placed in an untenable position because they do not know how to respond to motions filed in criminal cases in which defendants seek to suppress evidence that would be admissible under Section 2 of Measure 40. It notes that at least one trial court has ordered a district attorney to submit written material and to appear to answer questions about the provision so that the court can rule on those motions. The problem is avoided if the district attorneys inform the courts in those cases that, in accordance with the declaration in this case, the state treats Section 2 as unconstitutional and does not seek to use it to obtain the admission of any disputed evidence in those cases, thereby rendering the issue moot.

 The majority contends that it is appropriate to stay the injunction because the injunction affects people who are not parties to the proceeding. District attorneys properly are subject to the injunction because they act as attorneys for the state in prosecuting crime, so the actions that they take that are controlled by the injunction are actions undertaken by them as agents for the state, which is a party in this case. To the extent that the injunction purports to control the actions of local governments, which do not necessarily act for the state in prosecuting crime, there may be grounds to modify the injunction to exclude them from its reach, but that is not a reason to stay the injunction to prevent its application to the state.

 Perhaps significantly, the state has not restated to us as an argument to stay the injunction the argument that it made below that an injunction is not necessary because the state could be relied on to follow the law as the court declared it to be. That the state now seeks to stay the injunction but not the declaratory judgment calls into question the state’s commitment to abide by the declaration, which is a reason for us to deny the requested stay.