State v. Webb

• Decision Date: 14 January 1997
• Citation: 927 P.2d 79,324 Or. 380
• Parties: STATE of Oregon, Petitioner on Review, v. Robert Leland WEBB, Jr., Respondent on Review. DC DCR93-13043; CA A83199; SC S42828.
• Court: Oregon Supreme Court

Page 79

927 P.2d 79

324 Or. 380

STATE of Oregon, Petitioner on Review, v. Robert Leland WEBB, Jr., Respondent on Review.

DC DCR93-13043; CA A83199; SC S42828.

Supreme Court of Oregon,

In Banc.

Argued and Submitted Sept. 9, 1996.

Decided Nov. 29, 1996.

Reconsideration Denied Jan. 14, 1997.

Jonathan H. Fussner, Assistant Attorney General, Salem, argued the cause for petitioner on review. With him on the petition were Theodore R. Kulongoski, Attorney General, and Virginia L. Linder, Solicitor General.

Eric M. Cumfer, Deputy Public Defender, Salem, argued the cause for respondent on review. With him on the brief were Sally L. Avera, Public Defender, and Hari Nam S. Khalsa, Deputy Public Defender.

GRABER, Justice.

The issue before us is whether district courts lost jurisdiction over Class A misdemeanors in 1993 when the legislature raised the maximum fines for such misdemeanors from $2,500 to $5,000 through an amendment to ORS 161.635, but did not amend ORS 46.040, which provided in part that district courts have jurisdiction over misdemeanors "where the punishment prescribed does not exceed * * * a fine of $3,000." ¹ The district court convicted defendant Webb of a Class A misdemeanor in 1994. The Court of Appeals reversed his conviction on the basis that the district court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction. State v. Rudder/Webb, 137 Or.App. 43, 52, 903 P.2d 393 (1995). We allowed review and now reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals and reinstate the judgment of the district court.

On review, the relevant facts are not in dispute. A $100 gift certificate from Sears was stolen from the home of the Ericksons in September 1993. On September 20, 1993, Mrs. Erickson notified Sears of the theft and canceled the certificate. That afternoon, defendant tried to use the gift certificate to purchase items from Sears. Sears employees notified store security, which in turn contacted the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office. That sequence of events culminated in defendant Webb's arrest.

Following a bench trial, the trial court convicted defendant of theft in the second degree under ORS 164.045, for theft of the gift certificate, and of attempted theft in the second degree under ORS 161.405, for attempting to redeem the certificate at Sears. Theft in the second degree was at the time a Class A misdemeanor, subject to a fine of up to $5,000. ORS 164.045, 161.635. ² Although defendant did not object at trial to the district court's jurisdiction, he raised the issue on appeal. Lack of subject-matter jurisdiction properly may be raised for the first time on appeal. Ailes v. Portland Meadows, Inc., 312 Or. 376, 383, 823 P.2d 956 (1991); State v. Swikert, 65 Or. 286, 288, 132 P. 709 (1913).

In 1993, the legislature amended ORS 161.635 to raise the maximum fine for a Class A misdemeanor from $2,500 to $5,000, effective August 18, 1993. ³ Or. Laws 1993, ch 680, § 30. However, the legislature did not amend the $3,000 limit in ORS 46.040 (1993). The Court of Appeals addressed the resulting issue of district courts' jurisdiction over Class A misdemeanors in two recent cases: State v. Rudder, 133 Or.App. 174, 889 P.2d 1367 (Rudder I ), opin modified and adhered to on recons 137 Or.App. 43, 903 P.2d 393 (1995); and State v. Rudder/Webb, 137 Or.App. 43, 903 P.2d 393 (1995) (Rudder II ).

In Rudder I, the state appealed from a pretrial order dismissing the accusatory instrument that had charged the defendant with a Class A misdemeanor, on the ground that the district court lacked jurisdiction. 133 Or.App. at 176, 889 P.2d 1367. The Court of Appeals held that, under the 1993 amendment to ORS 161.635, the district court lacked jurisdiction over Class A misdemeanors. It therefore affirmed the district court's dismissal of the accusatory instrument. Id. at 178, 889 P.2d 1367.

In response to Rudder I, the legislature in 1995 amended ORS 46.040 by eliminating the $3,000 limit on district court jurisdiction and purporting to grant jurisdiction retroactively to district courts over all misdemeanors committed on or after August 18, 1993. ⁴ Or. Laws 1995, ch. 16, §§ 1-3. Based on that statutory change, the state filed a motion for reconsideration of Rudder I. The Court of Appeals allowed the state's motion.

Because both Rudder I and Webb raised the issue of the trial court's jurisdiction over Class A misdemeanors, the Court of Appeals consolidated the cases for opinion only and decided them together in Rudder II. On reconsideration of Rudder I, the Court of Appeals held that, because the district court had dismissed the accusatory instrument against the defendant before trial, there was no exercise of jurisdiction by that court that could be validated by the 1995 statutory change. Id. at 47, 903 P.2d 393. Therefore, the court did not reach the constitutionality of the retroactivity provision in that legislation. Ibid.

As to defendant Webb, the Court of Appeals concluded that its holding with respect to defendant Rudder in Rudder II required reversal of Webb's conviction on the basis that the district court lacked jurisdiction. Id. at 52, 903 P.2d 393. The court further stated that the retroactivity provision of S.B. 66 was unconstitutional, because it violated the separation of powers provision in Article III, section 1, of the Oregon Constitution. Id. at 48, 903 P.2d 393.

The state petitioned this court for review of the Court of Appeals' decision reversing defendant Webb's conviction. We allowed review. ⁵

Because this case presents a question of statutory interpretation, we apply the template laid out in PGE v. Bureau of Labor and Industries, 317 Or. 606, 859 P.2d 1143 (1993), to determine the legislature's intent in enacting the jurisdictional statute. The first level of analysis under the PGE template requires that we examine the text and the context of the statute. 317 Or. at 610, 859 P.2d 1143.

Before the 1995 amendment, the text of ORS 46.040 (1993) provided:

"District courts shall have the same criminal and quasi-criminal jurisdiction as justices' courts, [ ⁶ ] and shall have concurrent jurisdiction with the circuit courts of all misdemeanors committed or triable in their respective counties where the punishment prescribed does not exceed one year's imprisonment in the county jail or a fine of $3,000, or both such fine and imprisonment. District courts shall have concurrent jurisdiction with municipal courts of all violations of the charter and ordinances of any city wholly or in part within their respective counties, committed or triable within their respective counties." (Emphasis added.)

We note three important preliminary points:

(1) The above-quoted version of ORS 46.040 (1993) was in effect at the time of defendant's crimes and trial. Defendant committed the crimes on September 20, 1993, and his trial occurred on February 1, 1994.

(2) The first sentence of ORS 46.040 (1993) is the only provision that is relevant here, because defendant was charged with violating a state statute, not a municipal ordinance. Therefore, we do not address the meaning of the latter sentence of the statute.

(3) A justice court would have had jurisdiction over the crimes charged. ORS 51.050(1) provides that, "in addition to the criminal jurisdiction of justices' courts already conferred upon and exercised by them, justices' courts have jurisdiction of all misdemeanors committed or triable in their respective counties." (Emphasis added.) Although ORS 51.040 lists specific crimes over which justice courts have jurisdiction, ORS 51.050(1) is a broader grant of jurisdiction and gives justice courts jurisdiction over all misdemeanors, "in addition to" the criminal jurisdiction conferred elsewhere.

ORS 46.040 (1993) contains two grants of jurisdiction. District courts have (1) the same criminal and quasi-criminal jurisdiction as justice courts and (2) concurrent jurisdiction with circuit courts over misdemeanor cases. The disputed issue is whether the clause "where the punishment prescribed does not exceed * * * a fine of $3,000" limits both grants of jurisdiction or only the latter. Thus, in our textual analysis of the statute, we must determine whether that key clause modifies both antecedent clauses or only the antecedent clause that immediately precedes it.

Defendant argues, and the Court of Appeals agreed, Rudder I, 133 Or.App. at 176-77, 889 P.2d 1367, that the quoted limitation modifies both antecedent clauses and that, therefore, district courts do not have jurisdiction in any misdemeanor case in which the maximum punishment prescribed exceeds a $3,000 fine, even though a justice court would have such jurisdiction. By contrast, the state argues that the clause modifies only the immediately preceding antecedent clause. Under that reading, only the second grant of jurisdiction (concurrent jurisdiction) is subject to the $3,000 limit.

"In trying to ascertain the meaning of a statutory provision, and thereby to inform the court's inquiry into legislative intent, the court considers rules of construction of the statutory text that bear directly on how to read the text." PGE, 317 Or. at 611, 859 P.2d 1143. The "doctrine of the last antecedent" is a long-recognized grammatical principle used in interpreting the text of statutes. One expert on statutory construction describes the doctrine this way:

"Referential and qualifying words and phrases, where no contrary intention appears, refer solely to the last antecedent. The last antecedent is 'the last word, phrase, or clause that can be made an antecedent without impairing the meaning of the sentence.' Thus a proviso usually is construed to apply to the provision or clause immediately preceding it. The rule is another aid to discovery of intent or meaning * * *.

"Evidence that a qualifying phrase is supposed to apply to all antecedents instead of only to the immediately preceding one may be found in the fact that it is separated from the antecedents by a comma." Norman J....