State v. Swearingen, A165274
Decision Date | 12 June 2019 |
Docket Number | A165274 |
Citation | 298 Or.App. 56,445 P.3d 948 |
Parties | STATE of Oregon, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. James Richard SWEARINGEN, aka James R. Swearingen, Defendant-Appellant. |
Court | Oregon Court of Appeals |
Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender, and David O. Ferry, Deputy Public Defender, Office of Public Defense Services, filed the brief for appellant.
Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General, and Doug M. Petrina, Assistant Attorney General, filed the brief for respondent.
Before Hadlock, Presiding Judge, and DeHoog, Judge, and Aoyagi, Judge.
Defendant appeals a judgment convicting him of first-degree sodomy with a firearm, ORS 163.405, ORS 161.610(2), unlawful use of a weapon with a firearm (UUW with a firearm), ORS 166.220, coercion with a firearm, ORS 163.275, and fourth-degree assault, ORS 163.160.1 He raises two assignments of error on appeal, the second of which we reject without discussion.2 We write only to address defendant’s first assignment of error, in which he contends that the trial court erred when, pursuant to ORS 137.123(5)(b), it imposed the sentence on his unlawful use of a weapon conviction consecutively to the sentence for his first-degree sodomy conviction.3 It is undisputed that defendant committed both offenses when he threatened the victim with a firearm and used that firearm to forcibly compel the victim to engage in sodomy. The state, for its part, concedes that under existing case law, the trial court erred by imposing the sentences consecutively.4 As the state observes, because both offenses "were committed through identical conduct and the ‘use or threatened use of a firearm’ was an element of both offenses, the trial court lacked authority under this court’s caselaw to impose the consecutive sentence." We agree. See State v. Provancha , 293 Or. App. 169, 176, 428 P.3d 916 (2018) ( ); State v. Edwards , 286 Or. App. 99, 109, 399 P.3d 463, rev den , 362 Or. 175, 406 P.3d 609 (2017) ( ). Here, the evidence is that defendant used a firearm for the single purpose of forcing the victim to engage in sodomy, and there is no evidence to support a determination that the conduct underlying the UUW with a firearm offense caused or risked a different harm than using the offense of using a firearm to compel sodomy. Thus, the trial court erred in imposing defendant’s sentence for UUW with a firearm sentence consecutively to the sentence for sodomy with a firearm.
Remanded for resentencing; otherwise affirmed.
1 As relevant here, a person who "engages in oral or anal sexual intercourse with another person or causes another to engage in oral or anal sexual intercourse commits the crime of sodomy in the first degree" if the "victim is subjected to forcible compulsion." ORS 163.405.
A person commits the crime of unlawful use of a weapon, as charged here, if the person "[a]ttempts to use unlawfully against another, or carries or possesses with intent to use unlawfully against another, any dangerous or deadly weapon as defined in ORS 161.015." ORS 166.220.
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