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March 29, 2015
Oregon Supreme Court to consider constitutionality of LWOP sentence for public pubic promotion
This local article from the Beaver State, headlined "Oregon Supreme Court to consider: Is it 'cruel and unusual' to imprison public masturbator for life?," reports that the top court in Oregon is taking up a notable sentencing issue in a notable setting. Here are the details:
William Althouse is serving a life prison sentence -- but not because, like many in that situation, he killed someone. Althouse, 69, has repeatedly exposed his genitals in public with sexual intent. In 2012, after a Marion County jury found him guilty of that conduct again, a judge sentenced him to life without any hope of being released.
The Oregon Supreme Court, however, announced Thursday that it will consider if that amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. The sentence is disproportionate to the offense, said Daniel Carroll, the defense attorney who represented Althouse at trial, told The Oregonian/OregonLive on Friday. "No one died," he said.
The high court's consideration of the case seems particularly timely given another lengthy sentence -- 18 years -- handed down to a 49-year-old Sherwood man last week who was found guilty of masturbating or exposing himself eight times at the drive-through windows of fast-food restaurants and coffee shops.
In Althouse's case, the state likely will point out that he isn't only a serial flasher -- his life sentence was meant to reflect a long and concerning history of sex offenses. His sex crime convictions include sexual abuse in 1982 and kidnapping, sodomy and sexual abuse in 1993.
Typically, first-time public indecency offenders receive probation and counseling. It's unclear from court records how many times Althouse has been convicted of public indecency, but when he was convicted in 2002 of the crime, court records indicate that he had at least one earlier conviction.
Althouse, who was living in Salem, was arrested in his last case after a female jogger reported seeing him exposing his genitals -- the prosecution contended masturbating -- along a walking path next to the Salem Parkway in October 2011. After a jury found him guilty in 2012, Marion County Circuit Judge Lindsay Partridge sentenced Althouse to the life term under an Oregon law meant to get tough on sex offenders after their third felony sex conviction.
One of many interesting aspects of this case is the import and possible impact of the age of the offender. In recent SCOTUS rulings, some Justices seemed sensibly influenced by the reality that an LWOP sentence for a juvenile offender can be functionally worse than even a no-parole 50-year sentence. But for an offender in his late 60s, an LWOP sentence is arguably functionally no worse than a no-parole 50-year sentence. Whether and how that should matter for constitutionally purposes is an issue still not yet resolved in debates over LWOP sentences that have been described as "living death sentences."
March 29, 2015 at 11:33 AM | Permalink
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Comments
The Supremacy once sat down with someone who could not enjoy sexual pleasure without exposing himself to shocked females, down to little girls. They did some lawyer fourth grade math. He had 7000 victims. He had three convictions. In the case of exhibitionism, each conviction has to stand in for 2000 crimes. The guy found himself morally abhorrent. If one has a highly pleasurable habit, and it is punished once every 2000 times, tough to justify stopping it.
When on a medication with relatively few if any side effects, he did very well, by his own candid self reports, not by legal counts. It was a generic, and cheap. It was administered into a muscle, as a depot shot, once a month, due to the lack of trust, and to reassure the judge of his adherence to her sentence.
At 69, the above will bust the health budget of the prison, and punish the taxpayer the most severely of all. Not fair.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Mar 29, 2015 8:30:42 PM
Should age be a factor for all crimes, I mean couldn't a 10 year sentence for cold blooded murder by an 80 year old then be cruel punishment since he or she has a high chance of being dead.
As for the crime itself, its far cry from many other crimes, he didn't touch anyone, if I flash a porn magazine at you or smartphone video, I think 18 years is too long. People also see folks in the locker room all the time, of course people mind their business, but if women or men or flaunting their genitals should that be a crime, obviously a person is changing, but there are folks who like to "parade around the locker room", there are sex segregated spas where genitals are freely exposed. Granted, the only difference between that and the person above is probably his arousal or erectile state which could occur with little control.
Of course, the general public does not volunteer for either, but most folks in the general public who are okay with same-sex nudity, would probably think to case is excessive. It reminds me of a guy in fairfax who's mom complained that another guy was exposing himself via a window in his own home, just simply being naked, I don't believe there was any masturbation or deliberate flashing. However, he was convicted although later that was reversed.
It is about time LWOP do receive scrutiny, maybe a little bit of scrutiny at a time, since a rush to reform can create a "hysteria", for instance tough sentencing laws were passed as a reaction. Reverse reaction can occur because letting one guy out who is reformed crates a risk in that if 1 out of 100 guys you release does a crime, it's media hysteria aka huckabee.
Posted by: Alex | Mar 30, 2015 12:52:40 AM
