Court Opinion

ID: 9552899
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:19:03.711263+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:29:19.194560
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, J.,
dissenting.
I dissent. I disagree with the majority that the determinative issue in committing defendant to the custody of the PSRB for 30 years is whether defendant was, at the time of sentencing, "suffering from a severe personality disorder indicating a propensity toward criminal activity.” ORS 161.327(1) authorizes a court to commit a defendant to PSRB’s jurisdiction for a period equal to the maximum sentence the court finds the person could have received if responsible. The proper inquiry, therefore, is whether the defendant, if he were responsible, would have been subject to the maximum sentence as a dangerous offender, i.e., that he would have suffered from the personality defect indicating a criminal propensity if he had been responsible. This requires more than a finding that the mental disease which rendered defendant not responsible and the personality defect manifesting dangerousness co-existed at the time of the psychiatrists’ examinations.
At sentencing, the court said it had "submitted to the psychiatrists who had examined him the question of whether or not he was a dangerous offender as defined in ORS 161.725.” It seems certain to me, therefore, that the question the court posed to the doctors, which was not noted in the record, was not the proper one. We do know that as a result of the confusion caused by the question, and the psychiatrists’ responses to it, the court’s first order found defendant to be a dangerous offender. Then, realizing its error, the court issued an amended order finding that defendant would have been a dangerous offender if he *451had been responsible for the crime. There is no indication the court took any new evidence to get to the second conclusion.
In my view, defendant’s commitment to PSRB could not be enhanced under ORS 161.735, unless the psychiatrists who examined him testified similarly as follows:
"This defendant has a major mental illness which renders him not responsible for his actions. He also has a severe personality disorder indicating a propensity toward criminal activity. If defendant did not have the mental illness and, therefore, was responsible for his actions, he would still have the criminal propensity.”
There was no such testimony in this case.
I respectfully dissent.