Oregon v. Ice
Case Date: 07/10/2025
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Oregon v. Ice, 555 U.S. 160 (2009),[1] was a legal case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution doesn't inhibit States from assigning to judges, rather than juries, the finding of facts necessary to the imposition of consecutive, rather than concurrent, sentences for multiple offenses.
Ice, a supervisor of an apartment complex, twice entered a residence and, on each occasion, touched the breasts and vagina of an 11 year old girl. For each incident, a jury found him guilty of first-degree burglary for entering with the intent to commit sexual assault, as well as two counts of sexual abuse. The statute under which Ice was sentenced, Oregon Revised Statutes 137.123, generally provided for concurrent sentences. However, it allowed for consecutive sentencing when the offenses didn't arise from the same course of conduct. The statute also allowed for such sentencing when the offense was indicative of a willingness to commit more than one offense, or the offense caused or created a risk of greater or qualitatively different harm to the victim. The trial judge found that Ice's conduct satisfied these criteria, and ordered that his sentences for the two burglaries and the two sexual assaults in which he touched the girl's vagina to be served consecutively. The judge allowed the two sexual assault sentences for touching the girl's breasts to be served concurrently. Thus, the judge's action nearly quadrupled his sentence from 7.5 years to over 28 years.
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