Court Opinion

ID: 9536727
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:05:53.584468+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:55:08.688187
License: Public Domain

*425ROSSMAN, J.,
specially concurring.
Article I, § 10, Constitution of Oregon, provides: “* * * every man shall have remedy by due course of law for injury done him in his person, property, or reputation.”
The following is ORS 1.160:
“When jurisdiction is, by the constitution or by statute, conferred on a court or judicial officer, all the means to carry it into effect are also given; and in the exercise of the jurisdiction, if the course of proceeding is not specifically pointed out by the procedural statutes, any suitable process or mode of proceeding may be adopted which may appear most conformable to the spirit of the procedural statutes.”
The basic problem in this case, according to my belief, is this: Does the complaint disclose that Huffman has suffered an injury “in his person, property, or reputation.” If it does not, it is unnecessary to proceed further, but if the complaint reveals an injury of the kind for which the constitution says that “every man shall have remedy”, Huffman must be given redress. The courts cannot fail to right a wrong regardless of their attitude toward some procedural provision which a litigant submits as appropriate for his case. ORS 1.160, above quoted, enables the courts of this state to devise a suitable form of procedure for the redress of a wrong whenever they face the situation that “the course of proceeding is not specifically pointed out by the procedural statutes”.
Let us now determine whether Huffman has shown that he has sustained an injury within the contemplation of Art I, § 10, Constitution of Oregon. The opinion written by Mr. Justice Bband projects this question: “Whether a trial court will exercise its jurisdiction *426in cases in which the granting of the requested relief would have no direct effect upon the defendant’s legal position requires consideration of other matters.” In that way his opinion questions whether Huffman has suffered an injury within the purview of Art I, § 10. After stating the question just quoted, Justice Brand sets forth an analysis of several decisions in which coram nobis was sought after the petitioner had served his sentence and in which the appellate courts refused to strike the sentence from the record without a showing that “further penalties or disabilities can be imposed on him as a result of the judgment which has now been satisfied.” The words just quoted were taken from St. Pierre v. United States, 319 US 41, 87 L ed 1199. The inference from this portion of the opinion is that the petitioner must show that an immediate substantial penalty or disability will necessarily result from the challenged judgment under which the sentence has been served.
Two previous convictions for felonies are on record against Huffman. If the challenged judgment stands and if Huffman is brought before the criminal bench again, he will, upon conviction, receive a life sentence. OES 168.031. It is true that a fourth sentence is a necessary prerequisite to imposition of the life sentence and, accordingly, the imminence of such a penalty is conditional and, presumably, remote. Nonetheless, if the petitioner were now facing the fourth sentence, the threatened penalty would be sufficiently substantial to constitute the foundation for coram nobis directed to the third judgment. Since the issue as to whether the constitutionality of that judgment may be attacked is now before us, I believe that we should resolve the issue. It is my belief that if Huffman’s averments are true, he has shown that a substantial penalty may *427result from the judgment which he challenges. I, therefore, conclude that the complaint (assuming its verity) discloses an injury done him within the purview of Art I, § 10, Constitution of Oregon.
Since the complaint discloses that Huffman is entitled to a remedy, the remainder of our problem should be simple. I believe that OBS 1.160 was enacted for the purpose of enabling the courts to deal effectively with situations such as the one now before us. Mr. Justice Brand, in seeldng the procedural machinery which will enable individuals such as Huffman to secure redress, embraces today’s modified form of coram nobis. Mr. Justice Tooze prefers to resort to the inherent power which all courts possess to award a remedy for an injury inflicted, and to employ in so doing any practical procedural device whether or not it be coram nobis. It is apparent from Mr. Justice Brand’s exhaustive analysis of coram nobis that today’s remnant of that common-law procedural device is enmeshed with many pitfalls. Bather than overrule State v. Rathie, 101 Or 368, 200 P 790, it might be better to make a fresh start by embracing the power recognized in OBS 1.160 or by doing the same thing, that is, resort to the inherent power of the courts.
I concur in the opinion written by Justice Tooze.
Tooze, J., concurs in this opinion.