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Criminal Justice Commission presents sentencing-rule updates to Senate Judiciary; senators ask about person-crime designations
Summary
The Oregon Criminal Justice Commission presented rules changes for criminal seriousness scores and person-crime designations resulting from recent legislation; senators sought clarification about why certain marijuana-related offenses were marked as person crimes and how age distinctions affect sentencing recommendations.
The committee opened a public hearing on House Bill 2933 A, an agency bill that approves modifications to administrative rules adopted by the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission (CJC) related to sentencing guidelines.
Ryan Keck, interim executive director of the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission, summarized the CJC's role in assigning crime-seriousness scores and person-crime designations used in the state's sentencing-guideline grid (ORS 137.667 was cited by Keck as the governing statutory reference for the guidelines). Keck described the commission's biennial review process: after each legislative session the commission reviews new or modified crimes to determine whether a crime seriousness score or a person-crime designation is needed in the administrative rules that feed the sentencing grid.
Keck listed groups of crimes that the commission reviewed and designated during the last session, including new offenses created by legislation (for example, statutes related to domestic-terrorism offenses and certain large-scale marijuana manufacturing/possession offenses). For some statutes the legislature set a seriousness score; for others the commission evaluated proportionality and recommended scores or a person-crime designation when statutory language or criminal elements warranted it. Keck said the commission sometimes designates a crime as a "person" crime when the conduct as written places a person at risk of harm or when statutory elements reference harms tied to coercion, labor trafficking, or similar conduct.
Several senators pressed the commission on specific choices. Senator McLean asked whether Senate Bill 326 explicitly required a category-8 score for unlawful manufacture of a marijuana item; Keck said the statute provided the seriousness score but not the person-crime designation, which the CJC then addressed. Senators also questioned why offenses tied to possession or manufacture of large quantities of marijuana were designated person crimes; CJC staff pointed to statutory language that links certain manufacturing or trafficking offenses to labor- or environmental-harm elements and to conduct that can involve coercive or exploitative acts. Senators noted that, under the guideline grid, two different-age cohorts can receive the same recommended guideline if the crime's score is the same; they asked the commission to revisit whether age-differentiated offenses should result in identical guideline recommendations.
Keck closed by noting the proposed rules package implements the commission's statutorily required reviews; the committee heard testimony but took no committee vote during this session. House Bill 2933 A was read into the record as having passed the House with 33 aye, 18 nay, and 6 excused.
