Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

This case involved the State’s appeal of a pretrial order suppressing evidence in a pending murder prosecution. The trial court determined that, near the beginning of a custodial interrogation, defendant equivocally invoked his right against compelled self-incrimination under Article I, section 12, of the Oregon Constitution, but law enforcement failed to clarify defendant’s intent as to that invocation and, instead, continued the interrogation. The court concluded that the failure to clarify was unconstitutional, and it therefore suppressed defendant’s invocation and all the statements that he had made thereafter. After review, the Supreme Court affirmed, but on different grounds: that defendant unequivocally invoked his right against compelled self-incrimination and, therefore, the interrogation should have ended when defendant made that invocation. View "Oregon v. Nichols" on Justia Law

At issue in this case was whether police officers violated the prohibition against unreasonable seizures in Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution, when they responded to a report that a named man was threatening to break things in a house, they saw defendant walking away from the house, and they ordered him to stop and return for questioning. The trial court concluded that the officers had reasonable suspicion to stop defendant to investigate whether he had committed a crime; thus, it denied defendant’s motion to suppress evidence resulting from the stop. The Court of Appeals reversed. The Supreme Court granted the State's petition for review to consider whether the Court of Appeals "erroneously heightened the standard" that the State must establish that an investigatory stop was supported by reasonable suspicion. The State contended that the Court of Appeals required the state to show that, before stopping defendant, the police had confirmed that he had committed a crime. Although there has been some variation in the Supreme Court’s articulation of the standard, the established standard for reasonable suspicion supporting an investigatory stop of a defendant is met when an officer can point to specific and articulable facts that give rise to a reasonable inference that the defendant committed or was about to commit a specific crime or type of crime. The Court of Appeals correctly applied the reasonable-suspicion standard to the facts established at the suppression hearing, which concerned whether it was reasonable for the officers to infer that defendant had committed a crime. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the decision of the Court of Appeals and reversed the judgment of the trial court. View "Oregon v. Maciel-Figueroa" on Justia Law

Defendant’s boyfriend dropped off defendant and the couple’s child at a department store. Defendant entered the store and took clothing into a fitting room to try it on. Recognizing suspicious behavior, security officers began to monitor defendant’s actions and noticed that, after defendant had left the fitting room, two items of clothing were missing. Soon thereafter, the boyfriend returned to the store and held the child while defendant continued to try on clothing. Defendant left the fitting room a second time, and the security officers noted that two additional items were missing. Two officers and the store manager waited for defendant and the boyfriend to pass all points of sale and leave the store, and then followed them to the parking lot. Defendant would ultimately be arrested and convicted on shoplifting charges. In this case, the Supreme Court held that, to establish that defendant was “aided by another person actually present” and therefore was guilty of second-degree robbery under ORS 164.405(1)(b), the state was required to prove that the person who aided defendant acted with the intent to facilitate the robbery. Because the state proffered evidence from which a rational trier of fact could have reached that conclusion, the Court affirmed the trial court’s judgment. View "Oregon v. Morgan" on Justia Law

Defendant Donovan Carlton was charged with three counts of first-degree sexual abuse for putting his hands down the pants of a 7-year-old girl ("A") in multiple incidents. One of the counts also charged defendant with touching A’s breast. While investigating defendant’s conduct, police discovered that he had been using an alias and actually was a convicted sex offender from California. Defendant had three prior convictions for violating California Penal Code section 288, two in 1986, and one in 1993, by subjecting a victim under the age of 14 to “sexual contact.” The issue in this case was whether defendant’s previous convictions the California criminal statute were for “comparable offenses” to a qualifying Oregon offense under ORS 137.719(3)(b)(B), for purposes of the imposition of life sentences on his current convictions for the Oregon offense of first-degree sexual abuse. The trial court imposed life sentences for defendant’s current offenses after concluding that they were comparable to defendant’s prior California offenses, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. The Oregon Supreme Court concluded that the prior offenses were not comparable to a qualifying Oregon offense, so it reversed the decision of the Court of Appeals, affirmed defendant’s convictions but reversed his sentences and remanded to the circuit court for resentencing. View "Oregon v. Carlton" on Justia Law

An officer stopped defendant Victor Pichardo to investigate whether he was helping another person evade the police. During the stop, the officer asked defendant for consent to a search for drugs. The primary question presented for the Supreme Court's review in this matter was whether the officer's request for consent was reasonably related to the reason for the stop and thus did not extend it in violation of Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution. The trial court ruled that the officer's request for consent did not unreasonably extend the stop. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that an unrelated request for consent extended the stop in violation of Article I, section 9, and that defendant's consent had not attenuated that illegality. The Supreme Court allowed the state's petition for review, vacated the Court of Appeals decision, and remanded the case to the Court of Appeals, which adhered on remand to its decision. The Supreme Court allowed the state's petition for review from the decision on remand and affirmed the Court of Appeals decision. View "Oregon v. Pichardo" on Justia Law

Petitioner Karlyn Eklof was convicted for aggravated murder, for which she received a life sentence without the possibility of parole. He filed this successive action for postconviction relief to appeal the Court of Appeals decision that upheld summary judgment for the State on the ground that petitioner’s “Brady” violation claim was barred as a matter of law under ORS 138.510(3) and ORS 138.550(3).Under “Brady v. Maryland,” (373 US 83 (1963), the United States Supreme Court held that a prosecutor’s withholding of favorable evidence from a criminal defendant violated due process where the evidence was material either to guild or to punishment, irrespective of the good or bad faith of the prosecution. Petitioner argued that she was entitled to pursue her Brady violation claim despite the bars against untimely and successive petitions set out in the Oregon statutes, and that the trial court erred in concluding that her petition was barred as a matter of law. After review, the Oregon Supreme Court agreed that the trial court erred in granting the state’s motion for summary judgment on petitioner’s Brady violation claim. Accordingly, the Court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Eklof v. Steward" on Justia Law

Petitioners sought review of the Attorney General’s certified ballot title for Initiative Petition (IP) 1 (2018), contending that the “yes” and “no” result statements and the summary did not comply with the requirements set out in ORS 250.035(2). IP 1 was a proposed amendment to the Oregon Constitution that, if approved, would prohibit public funding for abortions, “except when medically necessary or as may be required by federal law.” Section 1 of IP 1 set out that general prohibition, and Section 2 set out several related definitions. Section 3 set out two exceptions to the prohibition in Section 1. Section 4 provided that nothing in the proposed amendment “shall be construed as prohibiting the expenditure of public funds to pay for health insurance,” so long as “such funds are not spent to pay or reimburse for the costs of performing abortions.” The Oregon Supreme Court considered petitioners’ arguments regarding the “yes” and “no” result statements in the certified title, and concluded that those statements substantially complied with statutory requirements. However, the Court agreed with one of petitioners’ arguments challenging the summary, and therefore referred the summary back to the Attorney General for modification. View "Jimerson v. Rosenblum" on Justia Law

Defendant Scott Gerhardt was convicted of strangling his wife. At sentencing, the trial court awarded the victim restitution for attorney fees that she incurred to enforce a no-contact order that the court had previously entered while defendant was in jail as well as to obtain a permanent protective order. The issue in this case was whether those attorney fees could be awarded as restitution under ORS 137.106(1)(a), which authorized restitution when a person is convicted of a crime “that has resulted in economic damages.” The Court of Appeals concluded that they may not be awarded and reversed. The Supreme Court concluded that, because defendant conceded that the attorney fees were caused by his conduct and were a reasonably foreseeable result of that conduct, the trial court did not err in awarding restitution for those fees. View "Oregon v. Gerhardt" on Justia Law

Defendant Lane Jesse was indicted in April 2011 on one count of first-degree sexual abuse, based on an allegation that he knowingly subjected his daughter M to sexual contact. The issue on appeal to the Oregon Supreme Court was whether the trial court erred in excluding certain expert testimony at trial on grounds it was not helpful to the jury. Defendant proffered that evidence in support of his theory that certain statements that he had made were not, in fact, actual confessions of guilt. After review, the Supreme Court concluded that the trial court did not err in excluding the proffered testimony and affirmed defendant’s conviction. View "Oregon v. Jesse" on Justia Law

Petitioner Marvin Taylor was an Oregon inmate who was convicted, sentenced, and incarcerated in Oregon, but confined in Colorado pursuant to the Western Interstate Corrections Compact (WICC). Petitioner appeals from a judgment dismissing with prejudice his petition for a writ of habeas corpus under ORS 34.310. This case presented the question of whether petitioner’s transfer and confinement out of state prohibited him from bringing a habeas claim in Oregon. After review, the Oregon Supreme Court concluded that it did not. The Court affirmed the Court of Appeals and reversed the trial court's judgment. View "Taylor v. Peters" on Justia Law