State v. Acevedo

No. 46              January 23, 2025                  487

   This is a nonprecedential memorandum opinion
    pursuant to ORAP 10.30 and may not be cited
         except as provided in ORAP 10.30(1).

         IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE
                 STATE OF OREGON

                STATE OF OREGON,
                 Plaintiff-Respondent,
                           v.
           SAMUEL FRANCO ACEVEDO,
             aka Samuel Acevedo Franco,
                 Defendant-Appellant.
            Malheur County Circuit Court
   23CR04114, 23CR05499; A182619 (Control), A182620

  Erin K. Landis, Judge.
  Submitted November 21, 2024.
  Ernest G. Lannet, Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate
Section, and Laura A. Frikert, Deputy Public Defender,
Oregon Public Defense Commission, filed the brief for
appellant.
   Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Benjamin
Gutman, Solicitor General, and Rebecca M. Auten, Assistant
Attorney General, filed the brief for respondent.
  Before Shorr, Presiding Judge, Powers, Judge, and
Pagán, Judge.
  POWERS, J.
  Remanded for resentencing; otherwise affirmed.
488                                         State v. Acevedo

        POWERS, J.
         In this consolidated appeal, defendant challenges
the imposition of $200 fines as part of the judgments following his guilty pleas in Case No. 23CR04114 and Case
No. 23CR05499. He asserts that the trial court erroneously
imposed those fines in each case under the mistaken belief
that they were mandatory rather than discretionary fines
under ORS 137.286. He acknowledges that he did not object
when the court announced that it was imposing the “mandatory minimum fine of $200,” but he argues that the error is
plain and that we should exercise our discretion to correct it
and remand for resentencing as we have in similar circumstances. See, e.g., State v. Cid, 

, 

 (2021) (exercising discretion to correct the court’s plain
error where it “mistakenly thought that it was required to
impose the fines” under ORS 137.286 and misunderstood
its discretion to waive the fines in whole or in part). The
state concedes that the trial court plainly erred; however,
it contends that, based on the record in this case, we should
not exercise our discretion to correct that error. We agree
with defendant’s argument that the error is plain, see Cid,

, and we exercise our discretion to correct
the error in light of its gravity, viz., an additional $400 in
fines on top of a $2,500 restitution award against an indigent defendant, where there is little evidence of defendant’s
ability to pay the fines.
        Remanded for resentencing; otherwise affirmed.