Oregon v. Nix
Annotate this CaseDefendant Arnold Nix was found guilty of 20 counts of second-degree misdemeanor animal neglect. The state asked the trial court to impose sentence on 20 separate convictions. Defendant objected, arguing that the violations “merged” into a single conviction under Oregon’s anti-merger statute, ORS 161.067, when there were multiple violations of a single statute and only one victim. In this case, defendant argued animals were not “victims” within the meaning of that statute, so the trial court should have imposed a sentence on a single, merged, conviction. The trial court agreed and did just that. The state appealed, challenging the lawfulness of the sentence. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for resentencing. The Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Appeals. Shortly after the Supreme Court's opinion was published, however, the state filed a motion to stay the issuance of the appellate judgment and a motion to determine jurisdiction; the state noted that, although it had prevailed on its appeal, it perhaps had lacked authority to file an appeal in the first place, because no statute authorized it to appeal a judgment of conviction for a misdemeanor. Defendant responded by moving to vacate both opinions and dismiss the appeal. The Supreme Court, after review of the state's motion and defendant's response thereto, concluded that the State lacked authority to appeal the judgment of conviction in this misdemeanor case. Both the Court of Appeals and Supreme Courts lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the appeal. As a result, the Court vacated both opinions and dismissed the appeal.
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