The Oregon Supreme Court decided today that Measure 11’s mandatory minimum sentences were unconstitutional in two specific cases.
In cases against Veronica Rodriguez and Darryl Anthony Buck, the court upheld their convictions but deemed their mandatory 75-month sentences for first degree sexual assault to be unconstitutional. In Rodriguez’s case, she was convicted of sexual assault for standing behind a 13-year-old boy so that her breasts rested on the back of his head in a room with 30 to 50 other people.
The court found that sentencing a person with no prior convictions to 75 months in prison for sexual assault to be “so disproportionate as to shock the moral sense of all reasonable persons as to what a right and proper sentence should be.”
But while the decision doesn’t strike the law from the books, it does raise interesting questions for future cases.
“I think it clearly raises the question of how many other people are slipping through the cracks of Measure 11,” says David Rogers, executive director of Partnership for Safety and Justice.
For Rogers, the decision confirms what polls done by PSJ show: that Measure 11 is unreasonably harsh and should be scaled back and eventually overturned.
“It’s costing the state too much, it’s problematic, it’s not good public safety policy,” Rogers says.
But he’s not looking for another ballot measure, which he says are often used to confuse voters. Instead, he thinks the legislature should take up Measure 11’s faults.
“That’s the job of legislators is to create public policy.”
Wow, nice to see the Supremes taking on the bullshit that is measure 11, but Rogers is right: it’s up to the political processes to do the right fucking thing and repeal this bullshit, or at the very least amend it so juries know the full consequences of a guilty verdict (which of course, will never happen because of jury nullification concerns).
ugh… mandatory sentencing is disgusting. It completely takes the power out of the judge’s hands.
Ah to be 13 again.
Jul 9th, 1992 – Dear diary. I was in this room today and I felt some boobs touch the back of my head. Just right there in the room with like 30 people around. This is the best summer vacation ever. – Jarvitron
Was’nt measure 11 supported in a big way by the idiot known as Kevin Mannix? Just wondering..Ol’ Kev is real supporter of privatizing the prison industrial prison complex for his corporate buddies who pay him big bucks to sponsor their bills agenda. We need to dump Ol’ kev for sure…
Someone I know was just convicted of a measure 11 crime. He had thrown the kid out (I believe he’s 20 now)of our house 2 or 3 years earlier. A couple of years later the kid accused him of brutally raping him for years. The kid had asked to come live with us instead of his mother. There was NO physical evidence, no witnesses, no evidence of any kind. Just the kids story. The judge sentenced the person to 17 years in prison and 12 years probation when he gets out. No scaring of any kind. No witnesses. No proof. Got to love our justice system (I call it a justice system, what a laugh), and good old measure 11.