Court Opinion

ID: 9797126
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:13:53.922732+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:52:23.618431
License: Public Domain

HUCKLEBERRY, S. J.,
concurring.
While I find myself in agreement with the result obtained on all specifications of error as addressed and set forth in the majority opinion, I nevertheless find myself disagreeing with the approach taken in both the manner and method by which the majority opinion achieves its result on the third assignment of error. When speaking to defendant’s third assignment of error, the majority opinion states:
“[DJefendant argues that the trial court erred when it categorized defendant as a criminal history category B offender without ascertaining whether defendant’s prior convictions in California were the statutory equivalents of Oregon felonies or Class A misdemeanors.”
225 Or App at 396.
The state’s decision to offer into evidence a copy of a Washington County judgment circa 1999 (Exhibit 10), which categorized defendant as a category 2B offender, ostensibly to address defendant’s concerns or otherwise meet his late challenge to his criminal history, did not, in my opinion, create any sort of legal or evidentiary opening into which the Tillamook County court then found itself having some duty to address and decide as a result of the state’s offer of Exhibit 10. By then, the time had already passed for defendant to interpose by way of written challenge concerns he had regarding his criminal history hitherto provided by the state and already made part of the record of the case.
*400The obligation of defendant to file his written objection, a duty required by OAR 213-004-0013(3), was to have taken place before sentencing. Put differently, in the absence of a dispute, something that develops via the procedures found in subsection (3) of the above-referenced administrative rule, subsection (2) controls:
“Except to the extent disputed in accordance with section (3) of this rule, the summary of the offender’s criminal history prepared for the court by the state shall satisfy the state’s burden of proof as to an offender’s criminal history
OAR 213-004-0013(2) (emphasis added).
There was no need at the time of sentencing for the Tillamook County Court to inquire into either the manner or method by which the Washington County Court classified defendant as a category 2B offender. The criminal history worksheet prepared for the trial court within the framework of the record that existed at that point in time had already resolved the issue. Defendant’s third assignment of error does not turn on the evidentiary value or weight given to Exhibit 10 (the judgment taken in Washington County), especially when the Tillamook County Court was effectively relieved of any such obligation when defendant failed to comply with OAR 213-004-0013(3) by not submitting his written objection prior to sentencing.
In addition, even though, under ORS 138.222(4)(b), the appellate court may review a claim that “[t]he sentencing court erred in ranking the crime seriousness classification of the current crime or in determining the appropriate classification of a prior conviction or juvenile adjudication for criminal history purposes[,]” it is my belief that there simply is not any reason for this court to do so in the absence of defendant complying with OAR 213-004-0013(3), essentially a condition precedent to judicial review of such matters, especially where subsection (2) of the same rule has the effect of resolving the matter for this court on the record of the case now before this court.
In short, on these facts, the failure of defendant to interpose a timely written objection and defendant’s insistence that he be sentenced immediately, coupled with the fact *401that he had another opportunity in a previous case in Washington County to interpose his written objection disputing his criminal history but apparently did not, undoubtedly gives the trial judge the option of simply denying defendant’s objection to the then-claimed inaccuracy of the criminal history worksheet and choosing to sentence him on the legally unchallenged criminal history then before the trial court.
Mistakes made by the trial court, if any there be, in dealing with this issue as an evidentiary matter, should mean nothing to this court in the absence of defendant fulfilling his OAR 213-004-0013(3) duty in a timely manner.