Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Ann Sacks Tile and Stone, Inc.; Canac Kitchen US Limited; and Koehler Rental Power, Inc. appealed a general tax judgment against them directly to the Supreme Court. The Department of Revenue responded with a motion to determine jurisdiction, asking the Court to determine whether a defect in the manner in which the companies had served their notice of appeal on the department deprived the Supreme Court of authority to decide the appeal. The companies asserted that the defects did not deprive the court of jurisdiction. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded it indeed lacked jurisdiction over the case, and accordingly dismissed the appeal.

ORS 742.061 authorizes an award of attorney fees to an insured who prevails in "an action * * * in any court of this state upon any policy of insurance of any kind or nature * * *." A later enacted statute, ORS 742.001, provides that ORS chapter 742 "appl[ies] to all insurance policies delivered or issued for delivery in this state * * *." The question in this case was whether ORS 742.001 precluded awarding attorney fees to an insured who prevailed in an action in an Oregon court on an insurance policy that was issued for delivery and delivered in the State of Washington. The trial court concluded that it did and entered a supplemental judgment to that effect. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Considering the text, context, and legislative history of Chapter 742, the Supreme Court concluded that the legislature did not intend that ORS 742.001 would limit the scope of ORS 742.061. "For us to hold otherwise, we would have to turn an expansion of the state's authority to impose substantive regulations on insurers transacting business in Oregon into a limitation on the remedial and procedural rules that affect insurers appearing in its courts. * * * we would have to read a limitation into the text of that section that the legislature did not include. We may not do that." The Court reversed the appellate court and remanded the case for further proceedings.

The issue before the Supreme Court in this case was whether defendant filed his notice of appeal from a supplemental judgment awarding restitution within the time allowed by ORS 138.071(4), which requires that the notice of appeal be filed not later than 30 days after "the defendant receives notice that the judgment has been entered." The Court of Appeals concluded that defendant's notice of appeal from the supplemental judgment was untimely and dismissed that appeal for lack of jurisdiction. Upon review, the Supreme Court also concluded that defendant's notice of appeal was not timely filed, and therefore affirmed the decision of the Court of Appeals.

Defendant Terry Haynes was charged with murder and manslaughter. Defendant filed two pretrial motions to exclude evidence, the first seeking to exclude evidence of five allegations of prior bad acts, and the second seeking to exclude his interview with the police. The trial court granted Defendant's motion to exclude his prior bad acts in its entirety, and granted in part and denied in part Defendant's motion to exclude the police interview. The State sought direct review of both rulings. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded that the state did not adequately preserve any of the arguments that it advanced on appeal with regard to the admissibility of the prior bad acts. In addition, the Court declined to consider the State's argument with regard to the partial exclusion of the interview because it assigned error to an order that the trial court did not make. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the trial court's orders and remanded the case to the trial court for further proceedings.

The issue on appeal before the Supreme Court concerned the meaning of "aggrieved person" as that term was used in ORS 133.721(1), the statute that defines the class of persons who may seek suppression of evidence obtained pursuant to an order for a body wire or wiretap. Defendant was charged with various crimes arising from the murder of Asia Bell. Before trial, defendant filed motions to suppress certain evidence intercepted pursuant to a body wire order and a wiretap order. Specifically, through the body-wire order the police had obtained conversations that referred to defendant and indirectly suggested that he was involved in Bell's death. Based on that information, the police obtained the wiretap order, and, through the wiretap, intercepted conversations in which defendant made incriminating statements. The trial court denied defendant's motions to suppress. A jury convicted defendant of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and two counts of attempted aggravated murder. On appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed. It held that defendant could not challenge the body-wire order because he was not an "aggrieved person" within the meaning of ORS 133.721(1). As to the wiretap order, the Court of Appeals acknowledged that defendant was an "aggrieved person" who could challenge that order, but noted that defendant's only argument to exclude the incriminating communications obtained pursuant to that order was that the order was based on information obtained through the allegedly invalid body-wire order. It rejected that argument. The Court of Appeals also rejected defendant's argument that the trial court committed prejudicial error in excluding certain evidence that defendant sought to introduce. Upon review, the Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the Court of Appeals.

In this case, a trial court found that defendant's statements to private investigators were induced by the investigators' promises of leniency and other benefits and therefore suppressed those statements and a second set of inculpatory statements that defendant made to a police officer on the same subject. The state appealed the suppression order. Upon review, the Supreme Court affirmed the trial court: "the state [had] the burden to produce evidence that the coercive influence under which the prior confession was made had sufficiently dispelled to render the subsequent confession [to police] voluntary. . . .The trial court did not err in reaching that conclusion or in suppressing those statements."

The state charged Defendant Ronald Leistiko with, among other things, three counts of first degree rape. Each count involved a different victim and arose out of a separate incident. The state offered evidence that defendant had forcibly compelled a fourth woman to engage in sexual intercourse with him. The trial court ruled that the fourth woman's testimony was admissible, and the jury convicted Defendant of two of the three counts of rape. On appeal, the Court of Appeals upheld the admission of the fourth woman's testimony, relying in large part on The Supreme Court's decision in "Oregon v. Johnson" (131 P3d 173 (2006)). The Supreme Court allowed Defendant's petition for review and reversed the Court of Appeals decision in part. "[The Court] recognize[d] that inferring a plan or design from prior similar acts to prove that a defendant acted consistently with that plan is vulnerable to the claim that the prior bad acts are merely propensity evidence. . . .[T]he fourth woman's testimony was not sufficiently similar for it to be admissible to prove intent. It necessarily follows that her testimony also was not sufficiently similar for it to be admissible to prove a plan that would permit the jury to infer that defendant acted consistently with that plan - namely, that he forcibly compelled each of the victims to engage in sexual intercourse with him. None of the grounds that the state has advanced justified admission of the fourth woman's testimony. The trial court erred in admitting it."

This tax case arose on direct review of a Tax Court decision that awarded attorneys' fees to the taxpayer, Village at Main Street Phase II, LLC after its successful challenge to the Clackamas County Assessor's property tax assessment on improvements to its property. The Tax Court issued an order and supplemental judgment naming the county as the judgment debtor, but requiring the Department of Revenue to pay the attorney fees. Both the County and the Department appealed that decision. Upon review, the Supreme Court found that the Tax Court erred in its interpretation of Oregon case law in awarding attorneys' fees to the Village and reversed the supplemental judgment.

Claimant Crystal DeLeon sought workers' compensation benefits for a work-related injury to her back, neck and one shoulder. SAIF Corporation, her insurer, accepted the claim but awarded only temporary partial disability; the insurer did not award Claimant permanent partial disability. Claimant sought reconsideration, and the Department of Consumer and Business Services awarded her an eleven percent permanent partial disability for her shoulder. The insurer appealed the Department's award; the ALJ agreed with the insurer and reduced the permanent partial disability award to zero. Claimant appealed the ALJ's decision to the Workers' Compensation Board. The board reversed the ALJ and reinstated the eleven percent disability determination, and awarded attorney's fees. The issue on appeal concerned the authority of the Workers' Compensation Board to award attorney fees. Upon review, the Supreme Court found that the Board indeed has statutory authority to award attorneys' fees.

In 2006, the Supreme Court affirmed Defendant Gregory Bowen's convictions for aggravated murder and the imposition of the death penalty. However, the Court concluded that the trial court erred in failing to merge two aggravated murder verdicts and one intentional murder verdict against Defendant into a single conviction set out in a single judgment that imposed one death sentence. On remand, the trial court denied several defense motions which were at the center of this case before the Supreme Court. Upon review of the trial court's corrected sentence, the Supreme Court affirmed the denial of Defendant's motions and also affirmed Defendant's merged conviction and death sentence. However, the Court reversed the corrected judgment and remanded the case for entry of a new corrected judgment.