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ORS 153.008

Applied in 53 court decisions — leading case State v. Sawatzky (2005)

Most recently applied in State v. Marshall-Lautt (November 2025)

1999 c.1051 §3

How often courts cite this section

200120102020202580
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(1) Except as provided in subsection (2) of this section, an offense is a violation if any of the following apply:

(a) The offense is designated as a violation in the statute defining the offense.

(b) The statute prescribing the penalty for the offense provides that the offense is punishable by a fine but does not provide that the offense is punishable by a term of imprisonment. The statute may provide for punishment in addition to a fine as long as the punishment does not include a term of imprisonment.

(c) The offense is created by an ordinance of a county, city, district or other political subdivision of this state with authority to create offenses, and the ordinance provides that violation of the ordinance is punishable by a fine but does not provide that the offense is punishable by a term of imprisonment. The ordinance may provide for punishment in addition to a fine as long as the punishment does not include a term of imprisonment.

(d) The prosecuting attorney has elected to treat the offense as a violation for purposes of a particular case in the manner provided by ORS 161.566.

(e) The court has elected to treat the offense as a violation for purposes of a particular case in the manner provided by ORS 161.568.

(2) Conviction of a violation does not give rise to any disability or legal disadvantage based on conviction of a crime.

Official source: Oregon State Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Oregon statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.