# State v. Stewart/Billings

> Oregon Supreme Court · April 21, 1995 · 321 Or. 1

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9544047

## Case

- **Full name:** STATE OF OREGON, Respondent on Review, v. MATTHEW WAYNE STEWART, Petitioner on Review; STATE OF OREGON, Respondent on Review, v. JESSE ALLEN BILLINGS, AKA Running Deer, Petitioner on Review
- **Court:** Oregon Supreme Court
- **Decided:** April 21, 1995
- **Citations:** 321 Or. 1; 892 P.2d 1013; 1995 Ore. LEXIS 27
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Fadeley
- **Judges:** Hoomissen, Carson, Gillette, Van Hoomissen, Fadeley, Unis, Graber
- **Cited by:** 24 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9544047

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- explaining that sentencing courts traditionally have considered a range of case-specific factors that bear on both the offense and the offender in determining the appropriate sentence within legislative limits
- discussing when parties may bring a collateral attack on prior judgments

## Opinion text

FADELEY, J.,
dissenting.
I agree with the majority that a sentencingjudge may consider prior behavior of the convicted person, including behavior as a juvenile, before determining what sentence is appropriate. However, I agree with the dissent that a prior juvenile adjudication, entered without the constitutional safeguards required for criminal cases, may not be treated as the equivalent of an adult conviction. Thus, I think it is the law that prior behavior as a juvenile may be used in sentencing, but only as it represents an individual feature of an individual’s past, not as if it were a prior criminal conviction.
There would be no necessary conflict between the majority and the dissent had the majority stopped with deciding “the only question” before us. A footnote in the majority opinion states:
*11 “We note here that defendants have based their entire argument on a single theory, viz., that it is impermissible to consider at all their earlier juvenile court adjudications. Therefore, that is the only question that we consider.” 321 Or at 7 n 5 (emphasis in original).
With that “at all” point, and the bare bones of its resolution by the majority, I have no quarrel. However, the majority goes leagues further, across a stormy sea, to permit use of a juvenile adjudication as, in every respect, the equivalent of a criminal conviction. The juvenile court adjudication was not a criminal conviction. State ex rel Juv. Dept. v. Reynolds, 317 Or 560 , 857 P2d 842 (1993).
I cannot join in any implication that the law regarding the future effect of a jury-less adjudication permits that adjudication to be used as a criminal conviction. Nor can I join in the holding that all adjudicated juveniles are to be viewed forever as ex-convicts in the eyes of the law.
This dissent expresses my separate views, and I concur in the dissent of Unis, J.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9544047. Public record. Not legal advice.