The opinion
790 December 11, 2024 No. 899
This is a nonprecedential memorandum opinion
pursuant to ORAP 10.30 and may not be cited
except as provided in ORAP 10.30(1).
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE
STATE OF OREGON
JOSE HERNANDEZ PUGH,
Petitioner,
v.
BOARD OF PAROLE
AND POST-PRISON SUPERVISION,
Respondent.
Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision
A181646
Argued and submitted November 8, 2024.
Richard D. Cohen argued the cause and filed the opening
brief for petitioner. Also on the reply brief was Schaleger
Philpott PC.
Robert Wilsey, Assistant Attorney General, argued
the cause for respondent. Also on the brief were Ellen F.
Rosenblum, Attorney General, and Benjamin Gutman,
Solicitor General.
Before Aoyagi, Presiding Judge, Egan, Judge, and Joyce,
Judge.
AOYAGI, P. J.
Reversed and remanded.
Nonprecedential Memo Op: 336 Or App 790 (2024) 791
AOYAGI, P. J.
Petitioner seeks judicial review of a 2023 order of the
Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision, in which the
board, applying the current versions of OAR 255-085-0005
and OAR 255-085-0020, set his Sex Offender Notification
Level (SONL) at Level 3 (High). In his first assignment of
error, petitioner contends that the board erred by failing to
take into account (1) the nine years since release that he has
lived in the community without reoffending; (2) his youth at
the time of his sex offenses and the fact that, as to some of
the offenses, the victims were close to him in age and con-
sented factually (albeit not legally); and (3) his completion of
sex-offender treatment. In his second assignment of error,
petitioner raises a constitutional challenge. As explained
below, we agree that the board erred in failing to take into
account petitioner’s offense-free time in the community and
reverse and remand on that basis. We need not address peti-
tioner’s other arguments given that disposition.
After the parties briefed this case, we decided
Thomsen v. Board of Parole, 333 Or App 703, 554 P3d 308
(2024), and Allen v. Board of Parole, 334 Or App 447, 557 P3d
178 (2024). Relying on the reasoning of Thomsen, we held in
Allen that the current versions of OAR 255-085-0005 and
OAR 255-085-0020 “are invalid.” 334 Or App at 449. That is
so “because ‘the board’s methodology for initial classification
of an individual’s SONL does not measure what the legisla-
ture has charged it with measuring under ORS 163A.100
(i.e., present risk), but instead measures “the registrant’s
risk as it was at the time of their release from their index
offense.” ’ ” Id. (quoting Thomsen, 333 Or App at 715 (quot-
ing OAR 255-085-0005)). As the board now acknowledges,
Thomsen and Allen are dispositive as to petitioner’s first
assignment of error. The board erred in applying invalid
rules to set petitioner’s SONL without taking into account
his nine years of offense-free time in the community.
The only remaining consideration is whether there
is any procedural hurdle to correcting that error. In his writ-
ten objections to the board, petitioner argued that the board
had improperly failed to consider his offense-free time in the
community, albeit raising that argument as part of a request
792 Pugh v. Board of Parole
for the board to modify its scoring of Item 1, Age at Release,
rather than as an objection to reliance on the Static-99R
total score, as he now asserts. See generally Watson v. Board
of Parole, 329 Or App 13, 19, 540 P3d 20 (2023) (explaining
that the board’s rule governing objections to SONL classifi-
cation requires arguments to be directed solely to the scor-
ing of individual Static-99R items). The board rejected that
argument.
On judicial review, petitioner contends that, to the
extent that he failed to administratively exhaust the issue
regarding offense-free time in the community, we should
relax the administrative exhaustion requirement and cor-
rect the board’s error, as we did in Watson, 329 Or App at 20.
We agree. See id. (relaxing the administrative exhaustion
requirement in light of the facts that (1) it was at least unclear
that a registrant was allowed to raise the issue before the
board; (2) “the issue is one of public interest, in that inaccu-
rate classification of sex offenders undermines the purpose
of the SONL statute, which is to help law enforcement pre-
vent future sex crimes by enabling them to direct resources
toward past sex offenders who present the highest risk of
committing new sex crimes”; and (3) “raising the issue to
the board would have been futile,” as the board had rejected
it in other cases); see also Tuckenberry, 365 Or 640, 654-55,
451 P3d 227 (2019) (discussing the parameters of relaxing
the issue-exhaustion requirement “as a prudential matter”).
To the extent that relaxing the administrative-exhaustion
requirement puts us in a plain-error posture, see Watson,
329 Or App at 21, the error is plain in light of Thomsen and
Allen, and we exercise our discretion to correct it.
Reversed and remanded.