State v. Camacho-Garcia

Under Article I, section 16, of the Oregon Constitution, a defendant’s sentence of 75 months under ORS 137.700(2)(a)(P) for repeated, skin-to-skin sexual touching of his live-in girlfriend’s daughter under 14 years of age was not disproportionate, evaluated using the three Rodriguez/Buck factors to find the sentence would not shock the moral sense of a reasonable person.

Defendant plead no contest to first-degree sexual abuse of his live-in girlfriend’s daughter and received a 75-month sentence required under ORS 137.700(2)(a)(P). Defendant appealed his sentence as disproportionate compared to his offense in violation of Article I, section 16, of the Oregon Constitution. The proportionality of the penalty was evaluated by considering whether the imposition of the sentence would shock the moral sense of reasonable people as described in State v. Rodriguez/Buck using three factors. First, the Court analyzed whether the amount of time Defendant must spend incarcerated, his particular conduct, and the general definition of the crime would render the punishment disproportionate, and found the gravity of Defendant’s conduct in comparison to the conduct in Rodriguez/Buck did not render his sentence disproportionate. Second, the touching in the present case was more invasive than that in the Rodriguez/Buck cases and more likely to be psychologically damaging due to the repeated nature and the parties’ relationship; thus, the Court found that the penalty was not disproportionate in comparison to penalties for other, related offenses. Finally, though Defendant had no prior criminal history, he admitted to two separate, escalating incidents of sexual touching, leading the Court to find that his lack of criminal history did not cause the penalty to be disproportionate. The Court held Defendant’s sentence would not shock the moral sense of reasonable people under Article I, section 16. Affirmed.