Court Opinion

ID: 9900320
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-18 22:10:58.080422+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:21:04.273288
License: Public Domain

No. 577             November 8, 2023                   53

          IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE
                  STATE OF OREGON

         JERMAINE KEITH LEWIS-TAYLOR,
                        Petitioner,
                             v.
       BOARD OF PAROLE AND POST-PRISON
                     SUPERVISION,
                       Respondent.
       Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision
                         A176795

  Submitted January 24, 2023.
   Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate
Section, and Stephanie J. Hortsch, Deputy Public Defender,
Office of Public Defense Services, filed the briefs for
petitioner.
   Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman,
Solicitor General, and Erica L. Herb, Assistant Attorney
General, filed the brief for respondent.
  Before Aoyagi, Presiding Judge, and Joyce, Judge, and
Hellman, Judge..
  Affirmed.
54                             Lewis-Taylor v. Board of Parole

         AOYAGI, P. J.
         Petitioner seeks judicial review of an August 2021
order of the Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision
that, pursuant to ORS 163A.100 and OAR 255-085-0020(2)
(Nov 25, 2020), set his sex offender notification level (SONL)
at Level 3 (High). Like the petitioners in two other cases
decided today, Sohappy v. Board of Parole, 329 Or App 28,
___ P3d ___ (2023), and Watson v. Board of Parole, 329
Or App 13, ___ P3d ___ (2023), petitioner contends that the
board violated its own rule when it failed to account for sex-
offense-free time in the community in setting his SONL. In
both Sohappy and Watson, we reversed SONL orders based
on the board’s failure to comply with its own rule in that
regard. Sohappy, 329 Or App at 30; Watson, 329 Or App at
14. This case is in a different procedural posture, however,
which leads us to a different result. For the following rea-
sons, we affirm.
         The petitioner in Sohappy raised the issue of sex-
offense-free time to the board, thus exhausting any admin-
istrative remedy. 329 Or App at 33-35. The petitioner in
Watson did not raise the issue to the board, but, relying on
Tuckenberry v. Board of Parole, 365 Or 640, 642, 451 P3d
227 (2019), we concluded that relaxing or setting aside the
exhaustion requirement was appropriate in that circum-
stance. Watson, 329 Or App at 19-21. On the merits, assum-
ing without deciding that we were limited to plain-error
review, we held that the error qualified as plain in light of
Sohappy and exercised our discretion to correct it. Id. at 26.
         Here, petitioner did not raise the issue to the board,
and he asks us to relax or set aside the administrative-ex-
haustion requirement. The board responds that, even if
we were to do so, petitioner would be limited to plain-error
review under Stewart and has not established plain error.
See Stewart v. Board of Parole, 312 Or App 32, 35, 492 P3d
1283 (2021) (“Even if we were to conclude that the exhaus-
tion requirement should be relaxed under Tuckenberry, such
that only preservation-of-error principles were in play, nei-
ther of the first two assigned errors is ‘obvious and not rea-
sonably in dispute’ so as to qualify as plain error.”). Petitioner
Cite as 329 Or App 53 (2023)                                                  55

contends that Stewart was wrongly decided1 and that, under
Tuckenberry, once the administrative-exhaustion require-
ment is relaxed or set aside, the court should simply proceed
to the merits, without the limitations of plain-error review.
See Tuckenberry, 365 Or at 642 (proceeding to regular review
after relaxing the administrative exhaustion requirement);
Forbus v. Board of Parole, 309 Or App 296, 301, 482 P3d 95
(2021) (same). We need not revisit that issue today because,
under either plain-error review or regular review, petition-
er’s arguments would be unavailing.
         Neither party has addressed which version of
OAR 255-085-0020 the board applied in setting petition-
er’s SONL. However, based on the timing of the board’s
order, the board must have applied the version that went
into effect on November 25, 2020. That version of the rule
is materially different from the version that went into
effect on January 10, 2020—at issue in Watson, 329 Or App
at 14—and the version that went into effect on April 29,
2020—at issue in Sohappy, 329 Or App at 30-31 & n 1. In
particular, the version of OAR 255-085-0020 that went into
effect on November 25, 2020, contains a new subsection (6)
that provides:
        “Except for classifications done under OAR 255-085-
    0020(5), classifying agencies shall place registrants into
    Notification Level 3 if an assessment under OAR 255-
    085-0020(2) at the time of release from the index sexual
    offense would place them in the highest risk category, or
    Notification Level 2 if an assessment under OAR 255-085-
    0020(2) at the time of release from the index sexual offense
    would place them in the moderate risk category, without
    considering as part of the risk assessment the reduction
    of risk due to time sexual offense-free in the community.
    For relief from registration or reclassification under ORS
    163A.125, the Board shall consider the registrant’s time
    sexual offense-free in the community after conviction in
    determining whether to grant a petition for relief from the
    registration obligation or reclassification.”
OAR 255-085-0020(6) (Nov 25, 2020).

    1
      See State v. Civil, 283 Or App 395, 416, 388 P3d 1185 (2017) (articulating a
rigorous standard for overruling our own case law when it is “plainly wrong”).
56                           Lewis-Taylor v. Board of Parole

         If we were to relax or set aside the exhaustion
requirement and consider petitioner’s arguments on plain-
error review, we would affirm because the error alleged here
would not qualify as “plain.” Given the differences between
the versions of the rule at issue in Sohappy and Watson and
the version of the rule at issue in this case, the legal point
on which petitioner relies is not “obvious” or beyond rea-
sonable dispute. See State v. Vanornum, 354 Or 614, 629,
317 P3d 889 (2013) (stating requirements for “plain” error,
including that the legal point is obvious and not reason-
ably in dispute). We would also affirm on regular review,
because neither petitioner nor the board has addressed in
their briefing the specific language of the version of OAR
255-085-0020 that went into effect on November 25, 2020.
We could not meaningfully address the board’s interpreta-
tion of OAR 255-085-0020(2) (Nov 25, 2020)—as petitioner’s
claim of error requires—without addressing OAR 255-085-
0020(6) (Nov 25, 2020). The parties’ arguments regarding
subsection (6) are not only undeveloped but nonexistent.
See Cunningham v. Thompson, 188 Or App 289, 297 n 2,
71 P3d 110 (2003), rev den, 337 Or 327 (2004) (“Ordinarily,
the appellate courts of this state will decline to address an
undeveloped argument.”).
        We therefore reject petitioner’s arguments on proce-
dural grounds, without reaching the merits.
        Affirmed.