Opinion
A178368 A178369
02-22-2024
STATE OF OREGON, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. CHRISTOPHER MICHAEL WHITE, Defendant-Appellant.
Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate Section, and Sarah De La Cruz, Deputy Public Defender, Office of Public Defense Services, filed the brief for appellant. Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General, and E. Nani Apo, Assistant Attorney General, filed the brief for respondent.
This is a nonprecedential memorandum opinion pursuant to ORAP 10.30 and may not be cited except as provided in ORAP 10.30(1).
Submitted January 22, 2024.
Lincoln County Circuit Court 18CR26741, 19CR31169; Amanda R. Benjamin, Judge.
Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate Section, and Sarah De La Cruz, Deputy Public Defender, Office of Public Defense Services, filed the brief for appellant.
Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General, and E. Nani Apo, Assistant Attorney General, filed the brief for respondent.
Before Powers, Presiding Judge, Hellman, Judge, and Armstrong, Senior Judge.
POWERS, P. J.
In this consolidated criminal appeal, defendant advances a single assignment of error, arguing that the trial court denied him eligibility for sentence reduction programs or early release under ORS 137.750 based on reasons that were not sufficiently exceptional to be "substantial and compelling." See State v. Messer, 317 Or.App. 803, 805-06, 507 P.3d 337 (2022) (remanding for resentencing where the trial court's articulated reason for denying eligibility was "not sufficiently exceptional to amount to a substantial and compelling reason to deny her eligibility"). Although defendant's argument on appeal proceeds from the proposition that he raised that challenge before the trial court, we agree with the state's contention that defendant's argument is unpreserved. To be sure, defendant asked the trial court to articulate the reasons for departure on the record as ORS 137.750(1) requires. He did not, however, object to the denial of eligibility or argue that the court's articulated reasons for denial were not sufficiently exceptional to be "substantial and compelling." Therefore, defendant's argument is not preserved for appellate review. See, e.g., State v. Wyatt, 331 Or. 335, 343, 15 P.3d 22 (2000) (outlining the preservation requirements); State v. Walker, 350 Or. 540, 552, 258 P.3d 1228 (2011) (explaining that one of the purposes of the preservation requirement is to ensure that the opposing party and the trial court were given enough information "to be able to understand the contention and to fairly respond to it"). Finally, defendant has neither asked for plain-error review, nor has he demonstrated that the trial court's reasons for denying eligibility were plainly erroneous under ORS 137.750.
Affirmed.