SALEM, Ore. – It may have been a borderline call, but it was still a third strike. The Oregon Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld a ruling that sent Nicholas Meyrovich to life in prison under a 2001 three-strikes law. Meyrovich got his third strike, a felony sex offense, for delivering an unwanted kiss.

Meyrovich, in his appeal, claimed that a life sentence for the kiss violated the Oregon Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Meyrovich, 60, an exterminator, was inspecting the home of a Salem woman in October 2003 when he suddenly grabbed her and kissed her. The woman pushed Meyrovich away, but he took hold of her again and sucked her on the neck, stopping when a neighbor walked in.

Meyrovich was later convicted of first-degree sexual abuse, which under Oregon law requires the forcible touching of the “sexual or other intimate parts” of another person.

Meyrovich argued that the neck is not an intimate part of the body; the court disagreed.

“In ordinary social intercourse, one adult does not touch the neck of another adult outside of intimate relationships, at least not without some unusual but reasonable justification,” Judge David Schuman wrote for the panel that decided the case.

The court also disagreed that the sentence was cruel and unusual, noting that the three-strikes law was not aimed at the gravity of a particular crime but at habitual offenders. Schuman wrote that Meyrovich had been convicted of nine prior sex offenses before the kiss.

Meyrovich is one of only four inmates serving life sentences under Oregon’s sex offender three-strikes law.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Not only did Mayor Bill Bunten miss a tree while throwing a snowball at it, he also violated a city ordinance.
Kristen Aberle, of Thawville, Ill., wrote to Bunten after the little-known Topeka ordinance was pointed out as a “Dumb Law” in her government class.

“I thought somebody was pulling my leg,” the mayor said. “But I checked, and she’s actually right.”

Bunten admitted his fastball missed the tree by about 30 feet, but he said that didn’t make his crime any less serious.

“After I write to you, I am going to the police station and report myself and throw myself on the mercy of the court,” Bunten said in a letter dated Dec. 27. “After that, I’m going to have an ordinance drawn up to repeal this Dumb Law lest our already-crowded prisons are filled up with children who, while making a snowman, got carried away and had a snowball fight.”

Violators could be fined up to $499 and jailed for 179 days for breaking the rule, which also prohibits stones and “other missiles.”

Bunten said he asked the city’s attorney “to draw up an ordinance to delete that part of it about snowballs.