Appeals

We worked with the Oregon ACLU to protect the constitutional rights of criminal defendants to a jury trial, the assistance of counsel, and proof beyond a reasonable doubt. During the Occupy Portland movement, police and prosecutors adopted a strategy of arresting protestors for misdemeanors, booking them, posting their mugshots online, and then, at arraignment, downgrading the charges to violations. An Oregon statute authorized this procedure, which allowed the state to clear the streets and parks (because of the criminal charges at arrest) and yet avoid the cost and risk of criminal trials (because the constitutional protections afforded criminal defendants do not apply to violation charges). We argued the protestors’ case in the Oregon Supreme Court, which unanimously held the statute unconstitutional …

When we took on our client’s appeal, the Oregon Court of Appeals had just affirmed the dismissal of her claims under the statute of limitations, because our client had not discovered the theft of a treasured family heirloom for several years.  Her only hope was the Oregon Supreme Court, which accepts review in only a fraction of the cases brought to it.  We delved into the history of Oregon’s statutes of limitations, including statutes adopted in 1843 by the provisional government, landmark precedent from the 1960s, and recent Court of Appeals cases that had strayed from that precedent.  We took our client’s case to the Supreme Court, which not only accepted the case but reversed and unanimously held that our …