State v. Hill

No. 444                     May 21, 2025                 591

           IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE
                   STATE OF OREGON

                  STATE OF OREGON,
                   Plaintiff-Respondent,
                             v.
           COLEMAN ORMAND ROBERT HILL,
                  aka Coleman R. Hill,
                  Defendant-Appellant.
             Clackamas County Circuit Court
                  22CR28368; A181147

   Ulanda L. Watkins, Judge.
   Argued and submitted November 25, 2024.
   Emma McDermott, Deputy Public Defender, argued the
cause for appellant. Also on the briefs was Ernest G. Lannet,
Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate Section, Office of Public
Defense Services.
   Christopher A. Perdue, Assistant Attorney General,
argued the cause for respondent. Also on the brief were Ellen
F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, and Benjamin Gutman,
Solicitor General.
  Before Ortega, Presiding Judge, Lagesen, Chief Judge,
and Hellman, Judge.*
   LAGESEN, C. J.
   Reversed and remanded for resentencing.




______________
   * Lagesen, Chief Judge vice Mooney, Judge
592                                              State v. Hill

        LAGESEN, C. J.
         Appealing a judgment of conviction for unauthorized use of a vehicle, defendant assigns error to the trial
court’s imposition of a fine in the amount of $2,600, payable
to the victim as a compensatory fine under ORS 137.101(1).
We reverse and remand for resentencing.
         Defendant purchased a car that had been stolen from the victim seven months earlier. At the time he
purchased it, the steering column, ignition, and door were
damaged. Shortly after purchasing the car, defendant was
arrested for using the vehicle without the consent of the
owner, ORS 164.135, and later charged and convicted of
the same offense. At sentencing, the victim submitted evidence that the repairs for the damage to the car would cost
approximately $2,600. The prosecutor declined to pursue
restitution for those damages, though, because there was no
evidence to support a finding that the damage was attributable to defendant’s criminal conduct of unlawfully using the
vehicle, given the gap in time between the theft of the vehicle
and defendant’s purchase of it, as well as the evidence that it
was damaged when defendant purchased it. The trial court
nonetheless determined sua sponte that, even absent the
evidence that defendant had caused the damage for which
the victim sought repair costs, defendant should nonetheless compensate the victim for that damage. To that end, the
court imposed a fine in the amount of $2,600, to be paid to
the victim as a compensatory fine under ORS 137.101.
          On appeal, defendant assigns error to the imposition of the compensatory fine, contending that the court was
not authorized to order compensation to the victim absent
evidence that defendant’s criminal conduct caused the economic damages for which the victim sought compensation.
The state, correctly, concedes the error. See, e.g., State v.
Alonso, 

, 

 (2017) (discussing statutory prerequisites to impose a compensatory fine);
State v. Kirkland, 

, 

 (2015)
(courts cannot impose compensatory fine for damages not
committed by the defendant).
        The remaining issue is disposition. Defendant
argues that we should reverse with instructions to omit the
Cite as 

 (2025)                            593

compensatory fine. The state argues that we should reverse
and remand for resentencing to allow the trial court to consider whether to impose a punitive fine. We agree with the
state. Where a trial court erroneously imposes a compensatory fine, and “there may be other permissible options the
trial court could adopt on resentencing, the appropriate disposition is to remand to the trial court for resentencing.”
State v. Moreno-Hernandez, 

, 

 (2019). Here, the state is correct that the trial court
could permissibly impose a punitive fine. The state, in fact,
sought a punitive fine in the amount of $560. Because the
trial court sua sponte decided to impose a fine in excess of
that amount based on the victim’s claimed damages and
then directed that the fine be paid as compensation to the
victim, the court never considered the state’s position that
a $560 punitive fine should be included in defendant’s sentence. It is therefore appropriate for us to remand for resentencing for the trial court to make that determination in the
first instance.
         Defendant argues that the state should not be able
to submit additional evidence in support of a compensatory award on remand, pointing to State v. Mann, 

, 

 (2023). We agree that, under Mann,
it would be inappropriate for the trial court to expand the
record on remand. But determining whether to impose the
punitive fine sought by the state will not require expansion
of the record.
        Reversed and remanded for resentencing.