Background
Crystal Brook Shellenbarger pleaded guilty to felony attempting to elude a police officer. The Clackamas County Circuit Court sentenced her to 18 months of supervised probation and imposed a one-year driver’s license suspension.
The written judgment included a probation condition requiring Shellenbarger to obey state law when state and federal law conflict. She challenged that condition under the federal Supremacy Clause and also argued that the court should have suspended her license for 90 days rather than one year.
The Court’s Holding
The Oregon Court of Appeals first held that Shellenbarger’s constitutional challenge was preserved for appellate review. Although supervised probation may have put her on notice of the statutory general conditions, the trial court did not discuss probation conditions at sentencing, and the written judgment first presented the challenged requirement as a special condition.
On the merits, the court rejected the preemption challenge because Shellenbarger did not identify any specific conflicting federal and state laws or any federal statute whose objectives the condition obstructed. The condition did not compel conduct violating federal law; it meant that she could not be found in violation of probation so long as she obeyed state law and any nonconflicting federal law.
The court also upheld the one-year license suspension. Following State v. Farnham, it concluded that the 90-day suspension applies to misdemeanor attempting to elude, while the one-year suspension applies to the felony offense. The judgment was affirmed.
Key Takeaways
- A defendant need not object at sentencing to a special probation condition that was not announced there and first appeared in the written judgment.
- A generalized assertion that state and federal law might conflict is insufficient to establish federal preemption without identifying the relevant laws and explaining the conflict.
- In Oregon, felony attempting to elude carries a one-year driver’s license suspension; the 90-day period applies to the misdemeanor offense.
Why It Matters
The opinion distinguishes notice of statutory general probation conditions from notice that the same requirement will be imposed as a special condition. It also illustrates the need for a concrete, statute-specific analysis when raising impossibility or obstacle preemption.
The decision is a nonprecedential memorandum opinion under ORAP 10.30 and may be cited only as that rule permits.