Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

In 1989, defendant Dayton Rogers was found guilty of multiple counts of aggravated murder in six consolidated cases and sentenced to death. In his initial appeal, the Oregon Supreme Court affirmed his convictions but reversed his death sentences and remanded for resentencing.The Court reversed sentences of death in this case and remanded for resentencing on two subsequent occasions, most recently in 2012. In his fourth penalty-phase trial, in 2015, defendant again received a sentence of death in each of the consolidated cases. Appeal to the Supreme Court was automatic. Finding that defendant’s death sentences were unconstitutional, the sentences were reversed and the case remanded to the trial court for resentencing. View "Oregon v. Rogers" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs were landlords that rented property in the City of Portland. Plaintiffs filed a declaratory judgment and injunction action against the city contending, as relevant here, that ORS 91.225 preempted an ordinance passed requiring landlords to pay relocation assistance to displaced tenants in certain circumstances. Plaintiffs argued the ordinance impermissibly created a private cause of action that a tenant could bring against a landlord that violates the ordinance. On review, the Oregon Supreme Court concluded ORS 91.225 did not prevent municipalities from enacting other measures that could affect the amount of rent that a landlord charged or could discourage a landlord from raising its rents. The Court further held that ORS 91.225 did not preempt the city’s ordinance. The Supreme Court also rejected plaintiffs’ contention that the ordinance impermissibly created a private cause of action. View "Owen v. City of Portland" on Justia Law

Officers unlawfully seized defendant Kristi DeJong’s residence. Based, in part on information learned during the seizure, they obtained a warrant to search the residence where they discovered evidence of unlawful delivery of methamphetamine. Defendant moved to suppress the evidence obtained from the search, contending that it was inadmissible under Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution. The trial court denied defendant’s motion to suppress that evidence, and the Court of Appeals affirmed, relying on the Oregon Supreme Court’s decision in Oregon v. Johnson, 73 P3d 282 (2003). In this case, the Court of Appeals concluded that defendant’s challenge failed at the first step announced in Johnson: that defendant failed to establish the requisite factual nexus between the unlawful seizure of her residence and the evidence the state discovered during the warranted search. On review, the Supreme Court disagreed with that conclusion and held that defendant established the necessary factual nexus. Further, the Supreme Court concluded the record in this case was legally insufficient to support a finding that the state met its burden at the second step of the Johnson analysis. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals' and circuit court's judgments were reversed, and the matter remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings. View "Oregon v. DeJong" on Justia Law

Defendant David Bartol was sentenced to death for aggravated murder; review by the Oregon Supreme Court was direct and automatic. Defendant made numerous challenges to both his conviction and sentence. The Court rejected all but one challenge to his sentence, based on Article I, section 16, of the Oregon Constitution, which prohibited disproportionate punishments. After defendant was convicted and sentenced, the legislature enacted Senate Bill 1013 (2019), which, among other things, reclassified the criminal conduct that had constituted “aggravated murder,” which could be punished by death, to “murder in the first degree,” which could not be punished by death. Given that determination, the Supreme Court concluded that, although the legislature did not make SB 1013 retroactive as to sentences imposed before its effective date, maintaining defendant’s death sentence would violate Article I, section 16. Therefore, the Court affirmed defendant’s conviction but reversed his death sentence and remanded the case for resentencing. View "Oregon v. Bartol" on Justia Law

After defendant Randall Kragt pled guilty to three counts of first-degree sodomy (Counts 1, 3, and 5), the trial court sentenced him: for Count 1, 60 months in prison; for Count 3, 100 months in prison, concurrent with Count 1; and, for Count 5, 100 months in prison, consecutive to Count 3. For all three counts, the court initially imposed a single post-prison supervision (PPS) term of 240 months, minus the time defendant served in prison. As a result, defendant was effectively sentenced to 200 months in prison and, assuming he served the full term, 40 additional months of PPS. After defendant was released from prison, the trial court amended the part of the judgment of conviction that had imposed a single PPS term. Defendant appealed, arguing the trial court had erred by amending the judgment without notice and a hearing. The Court of Appeals agreed with that argument and reversed. On remand, defendant argued that ORS 144.103(1) required the trial court to impose a single PPS term for all three counts, as the court had done initially, before amending the judgment. The trial court disagreed and entered a judgment that imposed three PPS terms: 180 months for Count 1, 140 months for Count 3, and 140 months for Count 5. Defendant appealed again, arguing that ORS 144.103(1) required a single term of PPS regardless of the number of counts. In a per curiam opinion, the Court of Appeals rejected that argument, relying on its decisions in Norris v. Board of Parole, 238 P3d 994 (2010), rev den, 350 Or 130 (2011), and Delavega v. Board of Parole, 194 P3d 159 (2008). Defendant petitioned for review by the Oregon Supreme Court, which was allowed. The question presented was whether, when sentencing a person convicted of multiple qualifying sex offenses, ORS 144.103(1) requires a trial court to impose a separate term of PPS for each count or whether that statute, instead, requires the trial court to impose a single term of PPS that covers all counts. The Supreme Court agreed with the appellate court. As did the Court of Appeals, the circuit court's judgment was vacated based on a different sentencing issue than the one presented on review, and the matter remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings consistent with the Court of Appeals decision in Kragt II (467 P3d 830 (2020)). View "Oregon v. Kragt" on Justia Law

In the Oregon Supreme Court's first decision in this case (393 P3d 224 (2017) (Hightower I)), it determined the trial court had erred when it denied defendant’s midtrial request to dismiss counsel and represent himself based on a mistaken belief that it did not have the authority to grant such a request. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded the case to the trial court for “further proceedings.” On remand, the trial court did not order a new trial. The court instead stood by its prior denial of defendant’s midtrial request to self-represent because it stated that it would have reached the same conclusion - based on defendant’s trial disruptions - had it understood it had the discretion to do that. On appeal, defendant argued that the Supreme Court's decision to reverse and remand the initial case for “further proceedings,” without issuing specific limiting instructions, did not permit the trial court to simply provide an alternative explanation for its denial of the request for self-representation, without affording defendant a new trial. The Court of Appeals agreed that defendant was entitled to a new trial on remand and reversed. The State petitioned for review of that decision, and the Supreme Court allowed the petition. Because it agree with the Court of Appeals that defendant was entitled to a new trial on remand, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Oregon v. Hightower" on Justia Law

Petitioner Ronald Strasser, whose direct appeal of his conviction, was dismissed by the Court of Appeals as untimely filed, argued in a subsequent post-conviction proceeding that appellate counsel was constitutionally inadequate in failing to request leave to file a late notice of appeal within the applicable 90-day window (although counsel had only been appointed four days before that window closed). Thus petitioner contended he was entitled to a delayed direct appeal. Alternatively, petitioner argued that, insofar as the Court of Appeals had not acted on his request for appointment of appellate counsel until four days before the 90-day deadline for filing a request for late appeal, it had effectively failed to appoint appellate counsel and, therefore, the ordinary bar on bringing claims in a post-conviction proceeding that could have been raised on direct appeal was inapplicable. The post-conviction court rejected both arguments and denied post-conviction relief, and the Court of Appeals affirmed without opinion. On review, the Oregon Supreme Court agreed with the post-conviction court’s determination that appellate counsel was not constitutionally inadequate or ineffective in failing to meet the 90-day deadline in these circumstances. The Supreme Court concluded, however, that the post-conviction court’s determination that petitioner was barred from raising what could have been direct appeal claims in post-conviction was based on an incorrect assumption about the applicable statute, and that it erred in declining to consider those claims. Accordingly, judgment was reversed and the matter remanded to the post-conviction court to consider and decide defendant’s claims of constitutional error by the trial court, without regard to the fact that they could have been raised in an appeal. View "Strasser v. Oregon" on Justia Law

The primary question this case presented for the Oregon Supreme Court’s review was whether a defective waiver of a preliminary hearing deprived a circuit court of jurisdiction. The Court of Appeals accordingly considered defendant’s unpreserved challenge to his waiver, found the waiver defective, and reversed his conviction. The Supreme Court allowed the state’s petition for review to consider whether a defective waiver of a preliminary hearing was a jurisdictional defect. The Court held that Huffman v. Alexander, 251 P2d 87 (1952) stood for a more limited proposition than defendant perceived, and that the state constitutional provision on which he relied did not establish that a defective waiver of a preliminary hearing deprived a circuit court of subject matter jurisdiction. The Supreme Court accordingly reversed the Court of Appeals decision and remanded this case to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings. View "Oregon v. Keys" on Justia Law

The issue this case presented for the Oregon Supreme Court’s review centered on whether the trial court erred by ruling that defendant Damon Naudain, a Black man, could not pursue a line of questioning on cross-examination that was intended to show that the witness was racially biased against Black people. Defendant sought to ask about the witness’s relationship with the victim, who was the witness’s fiancée at the time and with whom the witness had a child and shared a home. Specifically, defendant wanted to ask questions that touched on the victim’s racial prejudices and refusal to allow Black people in the home that the couple shared. The trial court granted the state’s motion in limine to prevent such questioning, ruling that information about the victim’s racial bias was not probative of the witness’s own bias and, to the extent it had any relevance, it was unfairly prejudicial and inadmissible under OEC 403. Defendant was convicted and appealed. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the trial court erred in its ruling on the evidentiary issue because defendant’s proffered evidence of bias was relevant and not unfairly prejudicial. Concurring with the Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court reversed the circuit court, and remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings. View "Oregon v. Naudain" on Justia Law

Petitioner Michael Evans raised a claim for inadequate assistance of counsel based on the performance of his appellate counsel, who had represented him in his direct appeal of multiple sexual-assault convictions. The post-conviction court denied that claim, concluding both that counsel had not acted unreasonably and that no evidence showed that petitioner had suffered any prejudice. Petitioner appealed, and the Court of Appeals affirmed, but on different grounds than those at issue before the post-conviction court or raised by the parties in their briefing on appeal. The Oregon Supreme Court found the Court of Appeals, in effect, affirmed the post-conviction court’s judgment by invoking the “right for the wrong reason” principle. In Outdoor Media Dimensions Inc. v. Oregon, 20 P3d 180 (2001), the Supreme Court explained that an appellate court may affirm a lower court based on that principle, but only if certain conditions are met. One condition was that, if the question was not purely one of law, then the record had to “materially be the same one that would have been developed had the prevailing party raised the alternative basis for affirmance below.” Perhaps even more significantly for the Supreme Court: neither party had any opportunity to develop an argument regarding the appropriateness of the evidentiary burden that the Court of Appeals described. The Supreme Court therefore reversed the Court of Appeals decision and remanded to that court, to resolve the issue framed by the parties. View "Evans v. Nooth" on Justia Law