tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19614114316116313672024-11-13T00:33:36.699-08:00JOSH MARQUISCriminal justice and the nature of the relationship between popular culture, media, and the law.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger199125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961411431611631367.post-13847427442970955702021-02-04T15:11:00.000-08:002021-02-04T15:11:03.391-08:00<script type="text/javascript">
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</script>Before I quit the American Bar Association out of total frustration, I will concede they gave me ONE paragraph to articulate the support many of us in Oregon had to avoid the tyranny (and racism and misogyny of the majority in jury trials)....
"Joshua Marquis, a former prosecutor and criminal defense attorney, was one of the most vocal supporters of split verdicts in Oregon. He notes that the split verdicts rule not only allows jurors to vote to convict but also to acquit. Despite Ramos, the law is still unsettled on that matter, he says.
“The other big question is, what does it mean for the 10-2 verdict for not guilty cases—should that still be available?” Marquis says.
February 2021
Oregon and Louisiana grapple with past criminal convictions made with split verdicts"
ABAJOURNAL.COM
Joshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14728143147134919263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961411431611631367.post-31785885050287312312019-01-06T18:08:00.008-08:002020-10-23T18:17:56.236-07:00<p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><script type="text/javascript">
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</script></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"> <b><br /></b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoEre7VdOOSy1B3PPRxstyEkf9Ye5xE5yQYa5XOytzdJPLqes-GH_YrWYdHNXdNnQkuyW3DJY3wGi2_p7VDJ3vuMpJekJsnt5_zvXjPtnGle-_7MF0W-xJzG9jp-YGzr8KGTkkCOABtNE/s1280/supreme+court+2017.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1126" data-original-width="1280" height="563" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoEre7VdOOSy1B3PPRxstyEkf9Ye5xE5yQYa5XOytzdJPLqes-GH_YrWYdHNXdNnQkuyW3DJY3wGi2_p7VDJ3vuMpJekJsnt5_zvXjPtnGle-_7MF0W-xJzG9jp-YGzr8KGTkkCOABtNE/w640-h563/supreme+court+2017.JPG" title="Supreme Court, Aug 2017" width="640" /></a></div><b> </b></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b> </b></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"<a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2018/11/opinion-we-trust-oregonians-with-non-unanimous-juries.html" target="_blank">We trust Oregonians with non-unanimous juries</a>"</b><br />
Guest column by Joshua Marquis, William B. Porter and Steve Leriche<br />
Saturday, November 17, 2018</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>>>>2020 UPDATE: The U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a similar but unconnected law in Louisiana. As expected. juries must now vote unanimously to convict. Defense attorneys, who complained that Oregon was "different," now want Oregon to be the only place in America where you must be <b>convicted</b> by a jury of 12, but you can be<b> set free</b> by just 10. Hopefully the state courts will rule the right way.<<<</i><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
Oregon has a long history of reform and experimenting with new ideas. Whether it was requiring deposits on soft drink bottles or decriminalizing marijuana, both are changes in the law that just 40 years ago were considered revolutionary.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
But in a misleading op-ed, John Hummel, who has spent his career defending criminals and is about to begin a second term as the Deschutes County District Attorney, argued that when Oregon voters overwhelmingly voted in 1934 to allow 10-to-2 jury votes on verdicts in all felony cases (except murder) that was because of the influence of the Ku Klux Klan. And yet at the exact time when this racist, xenophobic movement was supposedly happening, Oregonians voted in the state’s first independent, Jewish governor.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
Unanimous juries can empower singular racist jurors, and allow them to prevent an acquittal just as much as non-unanimous juries can minimize the impact of a few minorities who might prevent an acquittal. Why is the assumption that minorities will only vote to acquit and not convict? In our experience, minority jurors are just as fair to prosecutors as all other jurors. Oregon has a very small African-American population, for example, less than 2 percent statewide versus 13 percent nationally.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
The only thing non-unanimous juries do is reduce hung juries. And the only thing unanimous juries do is increase hung juries. Each is true regardless of race. So the only question is do we want more hung juries or not?<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
The Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyers Association has been trying to attack our current non-unanimous jury system for the past 20 years. Until the last couple of years, that organization never publicly claimed it was racist. Now they are doing it as a tactic and it should only be recognized as such.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
Hummel has been the Deschutes County DA for four years. His prosecutors have been convicting criminals in jury trials under our current law all that time. If he thinks our current law is racist, has he ordered his prosecutors to insist upon unanimous jury trials in all cases? Is he now saying all those convictions that were not unanimous were done in a racist manner? Is he moving to reverse them? Is he calling out his own prosecutors as racist? If not, it is the height of hypocrisy for him to get on his high horse now.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
To claim that Oregon was in the grip of the KKK at that point in our state’s history is laughably ignorant or deliberately deceptive. The law passed by voters granted defendants the exclusive right to decide that a judge -- not a jury -- decide whether the prosecution had proven their guilt. To this day, most states require both sides to “waive jury,” but in 1934 Oregon voters gave criminal defendants that exclusive right. They also required that an overwhelming majority of jurors agree as to guilt or innocence. Except in murder cases, where an accused killer must convince just 10 jurors that the evidence isn’t strong enough and he walks.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
To compare Oregon with Louisiana, which allowed murder convictions and life sentences on a 10-to-2 vote, is historically inaccurate. Louisiana passed its law as part of its rejection of reconstruction in 1880, and resulted in nationally high conviction rates for black defendants. Oregon passed its law half a century later in the context of reforms that may seem modest today, like separating adult and juvenile prisoners.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
As prosecutors who have argued hundreds of jury trials -- and lost our share -- we trust Oregon jurors to listen to the evidence and render a just verdict. Clearly others don’t have the same confidence in their fellow Oregonians.<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Joshua Marquis is the Clatstop County District Attorney; William B. Porter is the Tillamook County District Attorney and Steve Leriche is the Jefferson County District Attorney.</i><br /></span>
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</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961411431611631367.post-21388355868922377312018-11-14T11:08:00.001-08:002020-10-23T18:01:10.573-07:00Hammond fisherman convicted<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dept DA Dawn Buzzard</td></tr>
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<div> </div><div> </div><div> <span style="font-size: medium;">The wheel of Justice is always turning. Sometimes it turns slowly.</span></div><div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
<b>"<a href="http://www.dailyastorian.com/Local_News/20181113/well-known-hammond-fisherman-convicted-of-sex-abuse" target="_blank">Well-known Hammond fisherman convicted of sex abuse</a>," Jack Heffernan for The Daily Astorian, November 13, 2018.</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">>>>A well-known Hammond fisherman was found guilty Tuesday of sex abuse and bribery charges stemming from a day of drinking and drug use with a young woman in 2015.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">Dennis Lee Sturgell, 66, was convicted of four counts of first-degree sodomy, two counts of first-degree unlawful sexual penetration and one count of second-degree sex abuse after jurors found that the woman did not or was unable to give consent. . . .</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">Daniel Wendel, an attorney with the Oregon Department of Justice, and Clatsop County Deputy District Attorney Dawn Buzzard prosecuted Sturgell. Wendel was the lead prosecutor due to a number of direct or indirect relationships local police have with the victim.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;">“The DA’s office is very proud of the fine work of Senior Deputy DA Dawn Buzzard and Assistant Attorney General Dan Wendel and the hard work of all the jurors,” District Attorney Josh Marquis said in a statement. “Nobody is above the law.” <<<</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961411431611631367.post-20902422868155637432018-11-10T10:55:00.001-08:002020-10-23T18:03:45.647-07:00The DA DJ<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/akjp7R8Kehs/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/akjp7R8Kehs?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div> in studio at <a href="https://coastradio.org/">KMUN</a>, 1995<br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I'm still there, first and third Mondays, 6:00-8:00pm, and am honored to have been recently elected to serve on the Board of Directors of the governing body, the Tillicum Foundation.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961411431611631367.post-12678934090143753442018-10-05T11:22:00.001-07:002020-10-23T18:07:18.553-07:00New jail a necessity<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYU1Bl5lKPx19vs3r2dAJtMMsBq0JueZVNGZM-a2jnCHoOFGDAwjd2HLWNJZMUsTTKd6_ILn87vX7bZNsyWmD5PDaqVooeUz8G1N_JM6WmupCD19uKH41NzPQDjCeyu6xsYBs7Kiwco58/s750/jail+new.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="614" data-original-width="750" height="524" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYU1Bl5lKPx19vs3r2dAJtMMsBq0JueZVNGZM-a2jnCHoOFGDAwjd2HLWNJZMUsTTKd6_ILn87vX7bZNsyWmD5PDaqVooeUz8G1N_JM6WmupCD19uKH41NzPQDjCeyu6xsYBs7Kiwco58/w640-h524/jail+new.jpg" width="640" /></a></div> North Coast Youth Correctional Facility, Warrenton -- New Jail?<br /><b><br /> </b></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: custom-font, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>"Jail is a necessity, not a luxury"</b><br />
Guest column for the Daily Astorian<br />
October 5, 2018<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
[UPDATE November 7, 2018: The jail bond passed with 55% voter approval.]<br /></span>
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In many ways jails are orphans. Most of its “users,” or those directly affected by them, are confined to the victims of more serious crime, the officers who arrest those accused, and the people accused of crimes.<br />
<br />
On the November ballot coming soon to your mailbox is Clatsop County Measure 4-195, which would authorize bonds to remodel the mothballed Oregon Youth Authority detention facility in Warrenton into a much-needed county jail.<br />
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The cost to families with a house assessed at roughly $200,000 would be about $43 a year, a fraction of what is being asked for by local school districts and other local districts. The difference, of course, who does a jail actually serve?<br />
<br />
As your elected district attorney for the last quarter century, I can say without hesitation, a jail is there to protect you, your family and your neighbors. Oregon has one of the lower incarceration rates in the nation and criminals need to really outdo themselves to actually get locked up. Even in more serious felony crimes, only 30 percent of convicted felons go to prison. That means 70 percent of convicted felons stay in the community, may do some local jail time and hopefully learn stealing, selling drugs, or driving under the influence are not good ways to live.<br />
<br />
But even if you or your family don’t “use” the jail, it is as necessary to a safe and livable community as a hospital. You probably don’t want to go there, either, but you sure want it there if needed.<br />
<br />
Some might say that as a career prosecutor, of course I advocate for a jail. However this winter, after 40 years in law enforcement, 38 years as a lawyer, and 25 years as your DA, I will become a private citizen, who hopefully has no more personal need for the jail as most of you.<br />
<br />
There are many reasons this bond needs to pass. This is the third try in 15 years. It is a likely one-time use of an existing state facility that might otherwise cost taxpayers twice as much. But most importantly it is because for the entire justice system to work, from police to probation, prosecutors to judges, drug treatment to restraining orders, there has to be an empty jail bed available if a judge determines it is appropriate.<br />
<br />
Most people arrested, even for their third drunk driving offense, do not await trial in jail. At a cap of 60, the jail is one-third its needed capacity and dangerous felons are released every week. A few years ago one of those men murdered two young women just a few weeks later in Portland. That should never happen.<br />
<br />
Some people have claimed that the sheriff’s political views should be punished by rejecting a desperately needed public building. That is spiteful and short-sighted. If I had a dollar for every time a crime victim or family member tearfully asked me why the abuser of someone’s spouse or child was walking free, I’d be a rich man. Immigration cases have not been held in the county jail for at least a decade. It’s far too full of people charged with violent felonies who are citizens.<br />
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There are a limited number of times the county is willing to go to the voters for a need like this, which many think will never impact them. Women will be abused if their abusers are not held in jail, children will be beaten or worse. This is not a scare tactic. This is actual experience, in this county.<br />
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Measure 4-195 is a modest proposal, using the Oregon Youth Authority facility the state abandoned. I doubt it will be usable in the same way in four to five years.<br />
<br />
Many people claim the jail does not affect them because 1) their family or friends aren’t locked up, 2) they haven’t been the victim of a serious crime, or 3) if we don’t build a jail crime will magically decrease. That’s called “magical thinking” for a reason.<br />
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Do not be misled by emotion or a lack of empathy for the victims of crime, who tend to be women, children, and the poor, far more than people like me.<br />
<br />
Please join me in voting “yes” on Measure 4-195.<br />
<br />
<i>Joshua Marquis is Clatsop County’s district attorney</i>.<br />
</span><br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961411431611631367.post-70083596285736251792018-07-29T09:14:00.000-07:002018-07-29T09:14:01.246-07:00<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Op-Ed printed on 7/29/18 in the BEND BULLETIN about House Democratic leader Jennifer Williamson's hostility to public safety </span></div>
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In its editorial on July 22, The Bulletin’s editorial board was entirely correct to highlight the current epidemic of car theft in the Bend-Redmond area. It is even worse in other parts of the state, such as Portland, where car theft has increased by more than 50 percent. And the board is also entirely correct to place the blame for this at the feet of our Court of Appeals for the 2014 and 2015 decisions that made it extremely difficult to legally prove car theft, “to the point of absurdity” as they put it.</div>
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In 2008, the last time property crime was skyrocketing, voters overwhelmingly passed Measure 57, which included the felony crime of auto theft.</div>
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It carries the possibility of a prison sentence if the criminal is a repeat offender. Common sense told the voters (and they were right) that incarceration reduces crime because while in prison an active property criminal cannot victimize the public.</div>
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[Oregon House] Majority Leader [Jennifer] Williamson is the second most powerful politician in the House of Representatives and an avowed “anti-incarceration” zealot. She has opposed the ballot measure which targeted career felony property offenders (Measure 57) and has made repeated attempts to take serious felony property crimes out of Measure 57.</div>
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In the 2017 and 2018 legislative sessions Oregon district attorneys attempted to fix the law. It was Majority Leader Jennifer Williamson who led the effort to remove auto theft from Measure 57 by reducing it to a misdemeanor, thereby stopping the legislation from passing. During the past two years, hundreds, if not thousands, of victims have suffered needlessly while car theft rates have skyrocketed. Any suggestion that Majority Leader Williamson has not been the biggest roadblock to fixing the law is simply not accurate.</div>
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Despite all these difficulties, we stand ready and eager to work with legislative leadership to restore crimes, such as auto theft, under Measure 57 and honor the will of Oregon voters.</div>
<div class="Newstext_tagline" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.425em; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.625em; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 650px;">
— John Foote is the district attorney for Clackamas County. Josh Marquis is the district attorney for Clatsop County.</div>
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</script>Joshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14728143147134919263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961411431611631367.post-16819965369950708112018-06-11T12:11:00.000-07:002018-06-11T12:11:16.781-07:00Steve Duin: Josh Marquis, unleashed<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9LZSOMXWiuGDXVrS4UXqyiEM1S8ZPjx5US3MsU4fONp9gcV0JqipZ164QMLV2gMyx4cfomIMiwnyh5iIeYzrrjTaKf3GtZkr59auLul0tVsqkV61MVTR_Ta9vMiRSDDsNj9rJAv1gr8o/s1600/ORLive.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="120" data-original-width="419" height="56" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9LZSOMXWiuGDXVrS4UXqyiEM1S8ZPjx5US3MsU4fONp9gcV0JqipZ164QMLV2gMyx4cfomIMiwnyh5iIeYzrrjTaKf3GtZkr59auLul0tVsqkV61MVTR_Ta9vMiRSDDsNj9rJAv1gr8o/s200/ORLive.png" width="200" /></a></div>
By Steve Duin</div>
For The Oregonian/OregonLive<br />
Updated Jun 8; posted June 8 <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: Steve Duin</td></tr>
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Since Oregon voters enthusiastically restored the death penalty in 1984, no one has brought more urgency and clarity to the debate over capital crime and punishment than Josh Marquis, Clatsop County's district attorney.<br />
<br />
Few appreciate that advocacy more than Doug Houser.<br />
<br />
In 1987, Rod Houser - Doug's brother - and his wife, Lois, were murdered at their Terrebonne home by Randy Guzek, Mark Wilson and Donald Ross Cathey. Guzek, a dark, vicious soul, was sentenced to death, Wilson and Cathey to life sentences with a slim possibility of parole.<br />
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Over the last 30 years, the Oregon Supreme Court has three timesoverturned Guzek's sentence on procedural grounds. Each time Marquis took charge of the prosecution and convinced another jury that Guzek deserves Death Row.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fan mail from the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Photo: Steve Duin</td></tr>
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"He kept his promises," says Houser, 83, a Portland attorney. "Even when he left Deschutes County and became district attorney in Clatsop County, he said that if necessary he would use family vacation time to retry the murder case of the guy who killed my brother and sister-in-law.<br />
<br />
"He always found a way to come back and, at great personal sacrifice, fulfill his promise to our family. I admire Josh greatly. He was constant and steady and loyal to Oregon taxpayers and to our family."<br />
<br />
Marquis retires at year's end. In early 1994, then-Gov. Barbara Roberts sent him to the Oregon coast, asking him to salvage an office that his predecessor, Julie Ann Leonhardt, disgraced en route to indictment and recall.<br />
<br />
He'd never set foot in Astoria before the fall of '93, but he landed well, successfully winning election to the DA's office in 1994. Marquis was never challenged in his five subsequent re-election campaigns.<br />
<br />
He was, however, quoted. Interminably. Often by me.<br />
<br />
"Lawyers are trained to deliberately obfuscate," Marquis says. That's not his style. He understands how media operates, having worked for the Daily Emerald at the University of Oregon. He knows the case is best served when he patiently, exhaustively frames it.<br />
<br />
"He talks, and he explains things," says Steve Forrester, the retired publisher of The Daily Astorian and chief exec of the EO Media Group. "Our papers in eastern Oregon have had DAs that are the reverse, and it's not fun for them."<br />
<br />
"I like to think reporters call me because I'm an easy date," Marquis says. "I'll talk on the record. I'll give them a definite viewpoint."<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yes,but an uncluttered mind. Photo: Steve Duin</td></tr>
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On the evolving reaction to the victims' rights movement and the lack of prosecutors on Oregon's high courts. On Lars. On local drunken driving cases. On his dogged affection for the nearest stray cat.<br />
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"He's a political gadfly and a gossip," says state Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose. "He's an idiot savant who can remember how a precinct in Portland voted during the Eisenhower administration. I refer to him publicly as the DA from hell."<br />
<br />
If you know Johnson, you recognize this as high praise. "You can have spirited disagreements with him," Johnson adds, "and it never gets personal."<br />
<br />
Marquis takes many things personally, especially animal rights and his national prominence in the death-penalty debate. "I'm probably the most quoted DA in the United States on the subject of capital punishment," he notes.<br />
<br />
But the Guzek case aside, he admits to increased ambivalence on the subject as "the absolute certitude that often comes with youth and inexperience" ages on the vine.<br />
<br />
"If you're involved in this business and you're not ambivalent about it," Marquis says, "something is wrong." He credits Richard Dieter at the Death Penalty Information Center for reformulating the arguments against capital punishment, focusing on racial disparities and the quality of legal representation rather questions of morality.<br />
<br />
"My plaintive cry has always been, 'Let's be honest.' If you think it's morally wrong for a state to kill, I'm never going to convince you otherwise. My morality doesn't trump your morality."<br />
<br />
And if you believe families like the Housers deserve your trust, you battle to the end, without compromise or disdain.<br />
<br />
"In debating the death penalty around the world, I've always been struck by the high level of civility," Marquis says. "What scares the hell out of me, as the son of a political-science professor who lived through the Nixon era, is that I've never seen anything as toxic as the way Washington is now.<br />
<br />
"I'm frightened by the absence of civility. I admire passion. I try not to let that get in the way of civility."<br />
<br />
In the months to come, Ron Brown, Marquis's deputy and the prosecutor in Guzek's original aggravated murder trial, will take command of the Clatsop DA's office.<br />
<br />
Marquis will exit gracefully, but not quietly, especially if Oregon's governor moves to commute the sentences of those on Death Row. He wonders if his opinion will matter as much when he retires, and he shouldn't.<br />
<br />
The man speaks his mind. He revels in spirited disagreements. He keeps his promises. The impassioned discourse on the nature of justice in Oregon wouldn't be the same without him.<br />
<br />
-- Steve Duin<br />
<br />
stephen.b.duin@gmail.com<br />
<br />
Read the Opinion piece on the Oregonian website.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961411431611631367.post-47563883141798853832018-05-08T12:39:00.000-07:002018-06-27T09:33:37.942-07:00Fallen officers honored<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I had the honor of being the keynote speaker at the annual memorial ceremony for fallen officers at the Oregon Police Academy. In attendance were several hundred uniformed police officers and the families of those men and women killed on duty, including the family of Seaside Police Sgt. Jason Goodding, whose end of watch was February 5, 2016.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh579HwGvtqlD1ll7IbIeqkp94PCJFxjQc-Khkuh5HmdoGviK_s5he1EwsgKmHyDXlnntCjrAfDWKVWuYPjqDPxJ5mKxlYcNl9SGNBmNV2obuz5fiNOvgyOVzER_Hze6QYVsi0CANVWlAw/s1600/sj.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="100" data-original-width="509" height="62" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh579HwGvtqlD1ll7IbIeqkp94PCJFxjQc-Khkuh5HmdoGviK_s5he1EwsgKmHyDXlnntCjrAfDWKVWuYPjqDPxJ5mKxlYcNl9SGNBmNV2obuz5fiNOvgyOVzER_Hze6QYVsi0CANVWlAw/s320/sj.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="asset-metabar-author asset-metabar-item" style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #222222; display: inline-block; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 14px; margin: 6px 0px 5px; padding: 2px 10px; position: relative;"><a href="http://www.statesmanjournal.com/staff/10052938/lauren-hernandez/" rel="author" style="color: #4ec4ff; text-decoration-line: none;">Lauren Hernandez</a>, Statesman Journal</span><span class="asset-metabar-time asset-metabar-item nobyline" style="background-color: #fafafa; border: 0px; color: #999999; display: inline-block; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 14px; margin: 6px 0px 5px; padding: 2px 10px; position: relative;">Published 8:01 p.m. PT May 8, 2018</span><br />
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Hundreds of city, county and state officers gathered to honor the Oregon law enforcement officers who died in the line of duty since the 1880s at the annual Fallen Law Enforcement Officers' Memorial Ceremony Tuesday afternoon. <br />
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While uniformed officers stood in the sun, dozens of family members of fallen officers found refuge under a white canopy at the fallen officers' memorial at the Oregon Public Safety Academy in Salem.<br />
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While there were no new names carved into the granite this year, officials announced there will be another name added next year. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: MOLLY J. SMITH / Statesman Journal)</td></tr>
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Ashland Police Officer Malcus Williams, who was the most recent Oregon officer to die in the line of duty on March 2, is scheduled to be honored in the 2019 ceremony. <br />
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"Williams was one of thousands of men and women who took an oath to serve and protect, and wear a badge and a uniform to ensure we live in safe communities," said Heidi Moawad, the public safety policy adviser to Gov. Kate Brown. "The process is underway to add his name to this memorial that already has too many."<br />
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He is the 184th Oregon officer to die in the line of duty.Williams was responding to a report of a domestic violence call when he experienced a "major medical event" and later died.<br />
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It is customary not to add names of a fallen officer to a memorial during the same year of their death, according to the Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training.<br />
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The annual ceremony honors officers from city, county, state, tribal and federal law enforcement agencies who have served as law enforcement officers, corrections officers and parole and probation officers.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo: MOLLY J. SMITH / Statesman Journal)</td></tr>
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Clatsop County District Attorney Joshua Marquis delivered the keynote address, saying it is important to honor fallen officers everyday and not just with annual ceremonies. <br />
<br />
"Most societies going back thousands of years believe that if people’s names were remembered, their souls lived on," Marquis said. "The day that no one ever spoke their name again is the day they truly died."<br />
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Officials placed two wreaths at the closing of the ceremony, with one wreath representing the loss of a loved one by the families, and the other representing the loss of colleague by the broader law enforcement family. <br />
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Eriks Gabliks, the director of Department of Public Safety Standards and Training, or DPSST, said the memorial serves as a daily reminder of the sacrifices Oregon officers have made to protect residents and the state's natural resources. <br />
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"Each morning, officers attending basic training at the academy honor our nation, our state, and our fallen during the morning color ceremony," Gabliks said. "We gather here today for a purpose, we gather here to honor, we gather here to remember."<br />
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The ceremony was hosted in partnership with the Oregon Law Enforcement Memorial Fund, Oregon Concerns of Police Survivors (C.O.P.S.), Oregon Fallen Badge Foundation and other state law enforcement agencies. <br />
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The annual service comes a week ahead of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Ceremony in Washington, D.C., where 21,541 law enforcement officers who have died in the line of duty will be honored. <br />
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For more information on the Oregon Fallen Law Enforcement Officer Memorial, visit: http://www.oregon.gov/DPSST/AT/pages/olememorial.aspx<br />
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Email Lauren Hernandez at lehernande@statesmanjournal.com, call 503-399-6743 or follow on Twitter @LaurenPorFavor<br />
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<i><a href="https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/2018/05/08/fallen-oregon-officers-honored-annual-memorial-ceremony-salem/590222002/" target="_blank">More photos and a short video of the ceremony on the Statesman Journal website</a>.</i><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961411431611631367.post-55759835821057556872018-03-19T22:27:00.003-07:002018-03-19T22:30:07.755-07:00Your Voice, Your Vote appearance<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Thanks to long-time KATU-TV anchor <a href="http://katu.com/station/people/steve-dunn" target="_blank">Steve Dunn</a> for affording me the opportunity on <a href="http://katu.com/news/your-voice-your-vote" target="_blank">Your Voice, Your Vote</a> to say "Goodbye and thanks for all the fish!" (See: Douglas Taylor, <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy" target="_blank">Hitchicker's Guide to the Galaxy</a>.)</i><script type="text/javascript">
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<a href="http://katu.com/news/your-voice-your-vote/clatsop-county-da-josh-marquis-on-leaving-the-job-im-going-to-miss-it-terribly" target="_blank">Click here for the 10-minute video clip.</a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961411431611631367.post-14701207812019506092018-03-19T22:20:00.001-07:002018-03-19T22:32:42.215-07:00Address to Columbia Forum<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Many thanks to Graham Nystrom, station manager of <a href="http://coastradio.org/" target="_blank">Coast Community Radio</a> (KMUN 91.9 Astoria, KTCB 89.5 Tillamook, KCPB 90.9 Astoria), for recording my address to the Columbia Forum on March 6th. This is not my version of David Sanborn's "The Long Goodbye," which I play at the end of my jazz shows, 6:00-8:00pm Pacific, first and third Mondays.<br />
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<a href="http://coastradio.org/columbia-forum-josh-marquis/"><br /></a></div>
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<a href="http://coastradio.org/columbia-forum-josh-marquis/">Click here for the audio</a>.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961411431611631367.post-22562501756112599322018-03-01T10:15:00.003-08:002018-03-01T10:16:19.281-08:00Columbia Forum rescheduled<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I hope you'll join me this coming Tuesday, March 6, for the Columbia Forum, rescheduled from February 20. 6:00pm social hour, 6:30pm dinner, talk starts at 7:00. CMH Community Center (formerly OSU Seafood Lab), 20th and Exchange. Do you think I'll give up pushing criminal justice policy when I'm no longer DA?<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961411431611631367.post-81059074148932398762018-02-28T13:15:00.003-08:002018-02-28T13:17:34.255-08:00Why Clatsop County must have a new jail<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>Guest column: A new county jail is absolutely necessary</b></div>
<b>Failure to fund jail will put lives at risk</b><br />
By Joshua Marquis<br />
Published on February 28, 2018 10:24AM<br />
Last changed on February 28, 2018 10:44AM<br />
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In a guest column published last week, Richard Elfering, who identifies as a mental health advocate, claims the proposed new jail is utterly unnecessary, and instead argues Clatsop County should fund a massive treatment center, the cost of which is not discussed.<br />
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After 25 years I am leaving public office as your district attorney, so I have no personal or professional benefit that would accrue from the county finally having enough jail beds. I’m weighing in because, as a citizen, the failure to fund a new jail will mean our failure to appear rate will dramatically increase above the current 33 percent, and worse — more critically — vulnerable lives will be put at risk.<br />
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This isn’t political hyperbole. I invite anyone to come to court any weekday at 1:15 p.m. I, or one of my deputies, will be arraigning in-custody defendants and you’ll see the court forced to release people accused of felony domestic violence and other crimes, even many with lengthy histories of convictions. I’ll be happy to explain what and why we’re doing what we have to that day.<br />
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A jail is not a prison. It has completely different goals and design and it certainly is not “only punitive.” A jail is used primarily as a safe place to hold people not yet tried for serious crimes who’ve shown they are either unlikely to appear in court voluntarily or pose an immediate and serious risk to victims and the community. The claim that “the state and nation are trying to get out of the prison system” makes little sense. Oregon has no private prisons or jails, nor should it. It would be a utopian goal to “abolish prisons,” and I suppose by extension even jails. But that would be a massive abdication of responsibility.<br />
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We already spend millions of dollars on mental health services and while it’s still not enough (as I have repeatedly publicly advocated) the idea that we could — or should — involuntarily detain mentally ill people to force help on them simply won’t fly legally. There is no legal way to “briefly hold and detoxify” someone without due process. Beyond that it is extravagantly expensive, far beyond the jail proposed to be adapted from the recently closed Oregon Youth Authority facility.<br />
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It was hard enough — it took years and special outside funding — to open the crisis respite center in Warrenton and that only offers about a dozen nonsecure beds. In a better world we’d have a custodial psychiatric unit — essentially what the writer suggests — but that is far more expensive, takes far more staffing and requires a different funding stream.<br />
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Let’s start with our most immediate need and what we actually can afford. I’d like a brand-new Jaguar, but I can’t afford it. Few counties 10 times our size can afford a large treatment center.<br />
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The staff of the jail goes to great lengths to avoid keeping people whose primary issue is mental illness, not serious criminal behavior. We have an elaborate and expensive process for involuntary mental commitment. We spend additional millions in Clatsop County through the Oregon Health Plan. People in jail are not there because they’re depressed or addicted — they’re in for burglary, assault and child molestation.<br />
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Oregon, including Clatsop County, has a much lower incarceration rate than most of the United States. Jail is used to leverage cooperation by the 75 percent of those convicted felons on probation. At 60-bed maximum capacity, our jail is at about 30 percent of what the judges need. More importantly, nobody in Oregon — even someone in “full psychosis” — can be detained without a lawyer and a hearing.<br />
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Voters have turned down two previous jail bonds that would have required entirely new construction. This proposal about to be discussed on March 14 at the county commission uses an existing facility and will be partly funded by county timber revenues. Let’s not sink the jail proposal before it’s even proposed.<br />
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Come to the county commission meeting at 6 p.m. March 14 at the Judge Guy Boyington Building in Astoria to hear what we have to say about the proposal to relocate the county jail to a larger facility in Warrenton. We desperately need more jail beds, which would be accomplished much more economically by this than any other plan.<br />
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<i>Joshua Marquis is the Clatsop County district attorney.</i><br />
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<a href="http://www.dailyastorian.com/columns/20180228/guest-column-a-new-county-jail-is-absolutely-necessary" target="_blank">Read the OpEd on the Daily Astorian website.</a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961411431611631367.post-28716934333550176092018-02-18T11:18:00.003-08:002018-02-18T11:20:38.145-08:00Columbia Forum, Feb 20, 2018<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
For the third, and likely last, time in the 25 years I’ve been DA, I'll speak Tuesday night, February 20, at the Columbia Forum. I hope to enlighten and entertain. Come and AMA (ask me anything). I hope you'll join me. Appetizers at 6. Dinner at 6:30. Reservations required: hlarkins@dailystorian.com or 503-325-3211.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961411431611631367.post-86919841811957410882018-02-05T10:10:00.000-08:002018-02-05T10:12:33.267-08:00Retirement piece by Cindy Yengst, Columbia Press, Jan 30, 2018<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Not easy to read here, so probably no one will. I post it to remind me of what a good writer Cindy Yengst is. She captured my time as DA better than most.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961411431611631367.post-30984026750944423702018-01-05T10:29:00.000-08:002018-01-05T10:29:27.421-08:00Thanks for all the fish<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Guest Column</div>
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By Joshua Marquis</div>
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Published on January 5, 2018 8:42AM</div>
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<a href="http://www.dailyastorian.com/columns/20180105/guest-column-clatsop-county-district-attorney-gives-thanks" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="156" data-original-width="992" height="50" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAkDrV_9WDLepb1MON9MxPZh_rkQAFUO-cNEy0tnK4nFek3j08sHf4Woggy1_vZ3Ee77k04jLkRIv70NN1DE3BLjqWFdzENnKV2H1nDc_cHOUel7Xv1QXH5WJQci-NxitFgAHwHHPIjOk/s320/DailyAnew.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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In 1994 I was appointed by Oregon’s first woman governor, Barbara Roberts, to complete the term of a disgraced, disbarred and convicted Clatsop County district attorney. I’ve had the honor since then to be elected six consecutive times. After 25 years as chief prosecutor, I’ve decided not to stand for what would be my seventh full term. Jan. 7, 2019, will be my last day as your district attorney.<br />
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This decision wasn’t easy to make. I love the job. I work with a truly outstanding staff of lawyers, paralegals and victims’ advocates, all recognized throughout the state for their skills and experience. Office manager Lori Johnson has worked in the district attorney’s office even longer than I have. Fortunately, Lori is much younger than I am, as she is irreplaceable for the proper functioning of the office. Two of my former chief deputies now serve as judges on the Circuit Court bench — Cindee Matyas and Dawn McIntosh. In 2017, deputy David Goldthorpe left the office after being appointed district attorney of Malheur County.<br />
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Given over a dozen county managers and likely twice that number of county commissioners, at times my relationship with management has been … interesting. I’ve not always received the budgets I’ve requested, but I’ve always received the funding I needed to ensure I could attract good people to an office that is adequately staffed and appropriately compensated, in a renovated historic courthouse, in a stellar natural setting. I thank you all.<br />
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I’ve met hundreds, perhaps thousands, of victims and witnesses and their families. Many have humbled me with their grace and eloquence, often in the face of horrific crimes. Even the so-called “nonviolent” crimes, like those involving fraud and drugs, can have enormous impacts that do great and lasting harm. It seems criminal to me that the term “criminal justice reform” has twisted so that it now means reducing jail and prison sentences, rather than truth in sentencing and the rights of victims. I have been and will remain a strong advocate for those and other true reforms.<br />
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I’ll continue also to advocate for laws against animal cruelty, for enforcement of driving while impaired laws, for reasonable and responsible funding for prosecutors and law enforcement. I’ll continue to expose the rampant and epidemic lies told by various media outlets, criminal defense organizations and billionaire philanthropist George Soros about prosecutorial misconduct. For most of us who prosecute for a career — not as a step to six- and seven-figure incomes defending white-collar defendants — the worst possible trial outcome is not an acquittal. Any of us worth our salt have lost cases where the defendant was clearly guilty. No, the worst nightmare of any prosecutor is convicting someone who is innocent of that offense. Those of us who are seen as cutting corners to win usually find ourselves unemployed, as we should.<br />
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The office of district attorney offers a morally luxurious job. I answer to my conscience and the voters. My sole allegiance is not to a paying client, but to the truth. What I hope to be remembered for most is my zealous advocacy for victims and for an office that serves the county without, as early American oaths often required, “fear or favor or hope of reward.” My office has never prosecuted anyone because of a personal beef, or not prosecuted because of a personal relationship. Police officers, government officials, locally prominent citizens, neighbors, have all been through the system. We are, as John Adams said, a nation of laws, not of men.<br />
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So, what next? I expect I’ll be far less cautious and guarded in my public comments on criminal justice than I have been while in office. I enjoy speaking to groups at universities and associations around the country. I particularly enjoy research and writing. I’m active on the board of directors of the National District Attorneys Association, and will continue crafting policy there. I hope to continue for another 24 summers my occasional three-line role as the cowardly sheriff in “Shanghaied in Astoria,” and go into a third decade with a jazz show as the DA DJ on KMUN.<br />
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Until then, until Jan. 8, 2019, I’ll do the job the voters have asked me to do.<br />
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For the first several years as DA, I tried all the murder cases alone. I came to realize that including a deputy not only helped me and gave them experience, but I enjoyed mentoring. As my office grew from seven employees in 1994 to 20 today, more and more of the job has become administrative. Those 20 women and men do 95 percent of the daily work in the office, and will continue to do so well after I’m gone.<br />
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Ron Brown has been chief deputy since 2004. He’s developed a particularly strong skill for prosecuting sexual assault cases, sadly much more common than you might think. He has deep compassion for victims. He has the respect and admiration of the office because of his toughness at trial and his deep commitment to victims. Ron will be filing for the post as my successor, and will be on the ballot in May. I urge you to support him.<br />
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Many people showed me great kindness when I moved here as a largely unknown quantity. The late Hal Snow and his wife and partner, Jeanyse. Then vice chair of the County Commission, Don Haskell, and his wife, Carol. Steve Forrester, then the editor and publisher of The Daily Astorian. The late Randy Bowe, and Debra Bowe, who found me a literal home and threw my first welcoming party. Judy Niland and friends at the Astor Street Opry Company. Former KMUN station manager Doug Sweet.<br />
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I owe a special thanks to my greatest political ally, a force majeure, state Sen. Betsy Johnson, Oregon’s best friend of public safety.<br />
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Cindy Price and I have made Astoria our home for 23 years. I’ve no intention of retiring elsewhere. Cindy wouldn’t leave Astoria even if I did have such ideas, so that’s that. I’ll still be meeting you at the post office, at the grocery store, at the butcher shop, at the restaurants.<br />
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Despite the Douglas Adams reference in the title, I’m not leaving the planet, just the job I have loved. It is the greatest privilege in my life to stand in the well of the courtroom and represent the people of Oregon.<br />
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Thank you from the bottom of my heart for allowing me the pleasures of this fascinating job.<br />
<a href="http://www.dailyastorian.com/columns/20180105/guest-column-clatsop-county-district-attorney-gives-thanks" target="_blank"><br /></a>
<i><a href="http://www.dailyastorian.com/columns/20180105/guest-column-clatsop-county-district-attorney-gives-thanks" target="_blank">Read the column on the Daily Astorian website</a>.</i><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961411431611631367.post-11995590381837054112018-01-04T12:26:00.000-08:002018-01-04T12:39:00.293-08:00Leaving the fair<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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A fair story about my chance to explain why - as Joan Didion would say - it’s time to “leave the fair.” In January 2019 I will be leaving the job I’ve loved the most, representing the People of the State of Oregon from the well of the courtroom. Following the story is the Daily Astorian's editorial.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></b> <b><span style="font-size: large;">Clatsop County District Attorney Marquis</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">will not seek </span></b><b><span style="font-size: large;">re-election</span></b><br />
Veteran prosecutor will leave office after nearly 25 years<br />
By Jack Heffernan <a href="http://www.dailyastorian.com/Local_News/20180104/clatsop-county-district-attorney-marquis-will-not-seek-re-election" target="_blank">The Daily Astorian</a><br />
Published on January 4, 2018 12:01AM<br />
Last changed on January 4, 2018 10:40AM<br />
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Clatsop County District Attorney Josh Marquis, a local prosecutor who built a national reputation as an advocate for the death penalty, truth in sentencing and crime victims’ rights, will not run for re-election.<br />
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The courtroom veteran informed his staff on Wednesday he will retire when his four-year term ends in January 2019, nearly 25 years after his appointment to restore an office tainted by corruption.<br />
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“A graceful exit is as important as a graceful entrance,” Marquis said. “I’ve sort of been thinking about this for a year or two or maybe longer.”<br />
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Voluble and combative, Marquis was elected six times since Gov. Barbara Roberts appointed him in 1994.<br />
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Marquis, 65, remembered the unusual circumstances that brought him to Astoria in the first place. His predecessor, Julie Leonhardt, was recalled and convicted of framing two police officers for drugs in an attempt to clear her fiancée of criminal charges.<br />
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A chief deputy in Deschutes County before Leonhardt was removed, Marquis drove to and from the North Coast for six weekends in anticipation that he might get the job.<br />
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“I didn’t know if it was the kind of place I would like, and I wanted to talk to people,” he said.<br />
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Marquis’ first election — his only contested one — came just two months after being sworn in.<br />
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“It was a very odd way to enter elected office,” he said. “That was very challenging.”<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Colin Murphey / The Daily Astorian</td></tr>
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<b>Top prosecutor</b><br />
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As the county’s top prosecutor, Marquis handled many of the most high-profile trials over the past few decades. But he also delegated cases to deputies such as Dawn McIntosh — now a Circuit Court judge — and Chief Deputy District Attorney Ron Brown.<br />
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Brown is expected to run for district attorney in the May election.<br />
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“As much as I enjoyed it, I was never going to give others in my office the chance to learn how to do it and, frankly, two brains are better than one,” Marquis said. “Part of that, I think, is just growing up as a manager, particularly of a DA’s office.”<br />
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He most clearly recalled the cases over his career where he developed a relationship with the victim’s family.<br />
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The most recent example came in the case of Jessica Smith, a Washington state woman who was sentenced in 2016 to life in prison for drowning her infant daughter and attempting to kill her teenage daughter at a Cannon Beach hotel.<br />
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Marquis was giving a lecture to law students in Chicago in 2014 when he received the call about the case. He hurried home and spent the next few days in Cannon Beach as authorities searched for Smith. Over the course of the two-year case, he developed relationships with the daughter who survived the attack as well as the father, he said.<br />
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<b>Vocal district attorney</b><br />
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Marquis, who describes himself as a centrist Democrat, has cultivated a reputation as one of the most vocal district attorneys in Oregon and across the country.<br />
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He has been a leader in prosecuting animal abuse and elder abuse crimes. He has spoken out against marijuana legalization and the reclassification of heroin and methamphetamine possession from felonies to misdemeanors. He has advocated for truth in sentencing and the death penalty. He has also been among the biggest skeptics of reform initiatives intended to reduce prison use for drug and property crimes.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Colin Murphey / The Daily Astorian</td></tr>
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His columns have been published in newspapers from The Daily Astorian and The Oregonian to The New York Times, and he has made a host of national television appearances. A frequent voice on criminal justice issues at the state Capitol in Salem, Marquis has also testified before Congress five times.<br />
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“I’ve seen Josh on just about everything,” Brown said. “He’s been on Court TV and you name it. He enjoys that kind of thing.”<br />
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David Rogers, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, has challenged Marquis on a number of issues. But his ability to convey his viewpoints is not one of them.<br />
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“Mr. Marquis likes attention and puts himself out there,” Rogers said. “There’s probably much more knowledge of where he stands than of other district attorneys in the state.”<br />
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Marquis, a former journalist, shrugs off the suggestion that he courts publicity.<br />
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“The thrill of being in The New York Times sort of wore off about 10 years ago,” he said.<br />
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Marquis said the only higher office he’s considered was U.S. attorney in Oregon. After campaigning for Barack Obama for president in 2008, he was a finalist for the job but eventually passed over, he said.<br />
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“In reflection, I’m probably glad I didn’t get it. You don’t have as much autonomy as I do as district attorney,” Marquis said. “I’ve never sought any other political office and, frankly, being the DA is a terrible way to do it. You piss off too many people either by prosecuting them or not prosecuting them.”<br />
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<b>Local duels</b><br />
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Marquis has long supported a new county jail and fought to move drunken-driving cases from Astoria Municipal Court to Circuit Court.<br />
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The Clatsop County Board of Commissioners briefly revoked his stipend in 2007 before it was reinstated, a move that Marquis maintains was a political jab.<br />
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“I’m sure people feel like it’s playing whack-a-mole to shut me up sometimes. I was annoying.” Marquis said. “I have never withdrawn from public debate out of concern that this is going to bite me in my political ambitions, and I’m sure I’ve paid a price for it as a result.”<br />
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Most recently, he has battled the ACLU, which raises a stern eyebrow to what it views as Marquis’ tough-on-crime policies. The organization also launched a campaign last year to inform voters about district attorneys in the hopes that it will lead to criminal justice reform. Marquis has criticized the campaign, saying it has been led by out-of-state interests.<br />
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As a core example of what it says is a lack of accountability among district attorneys, the ACLU has pointed to a number of top prosecutors in the state, like Marquis, who often run unopposed. Marquis said, though, that the campaign did not influence his decision not to seek re-election.<br />
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“If it was up to that, I’d run again just to prove to them that I can get elected for a seventh term,” Marquis said.<br />
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Rogers doesn’t doubt that.<br />
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“Josh Marquis is a strong-minded person,” Rogers said. “It would be great if we had that ability and power with him, but he seems stuck in his ways.”<br />
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Rogers points to that tendency as a possible reason why opponents have rarely challenged Marquis around election season.<br />
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“He certainly doesn’t hesitate to show harsh words with those he’s disagreed with. People may not be willing to get involved with that.” Rogers said. “Voters in Clatsop County haven’t had much of a choice.”<br />
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<b>‘Fortunate’</b><br />
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Marquis credits his upbringing for his ability to juggle multiple things at once.<br />
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His mother came from a Mormon family, and his great-grandfather was a polygamist. His father was a refugee from Nazi Germany. They did not have a television in the house until he was 17 years old, forcing him to read books night and day.<br />
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“I was very fortunate who my parents were,” Marquis said.<br />
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The curiosity from reading led him to pursue a career in journalism in college. Even after attending law school, he spent time in the early 1980s both as a reporter for the Los Angeles Daily Journal — a legal newspaper — and as a speechwriter for then-California Attorney General John Van de Kamp. “I really thought I was going to be a journalist when I was an undergraduate,” Marquis said. “Most of my friends were journalists, most of the women I was dating were reporters until, in fact, I married Cindy in 1995.”<br />
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His wife, Cindy Price, serves on the Astoria City Council.<br />
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Journalism offered Marquis a glimpse into a number of realms, including district attorneys’ offices.<br />
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“I just found what they did in the DA’s office absolutely fascinating,” Marquis said. “My time as a reporter made me learn that if I wanted to defend the poor and the helpless and the vulnerable, it wasn’t going to be as a defense attorney. It was going to be as a prosecutor.”<br />
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Marquis does not plan to run for political office, he said. He also vowed not to try to run the district attorney’s office from the outside.<br />
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“If they want my counsel, they’ll ask for it,” he said. “I don’t plan on thinking that I can continue running or influencing that office any more than any other citizen.”<br />
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But don’t expect him to back away from public debate. In retirement, he will have more time to read, to write and to talk. He will also have more freedom to express his opinions.<br />
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“I intend to be more outspoken — not to be the shy, soft-spoken, cautious individual I’ve been for the last 24 years,” Marquis said.<br />
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He was only half-joking.<br />
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<i><a href="http://www.dailyastorian.com/Local_News/20180104/clatsop-county-district-attorney-marquis-will-not-seek-re-election" target="_blank">Read the story on the Daily Astorian website</a>.</i><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Our view: Marquis leaves a legacy of competence</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">as district attorney</span></b><br />
The prosecutor also pioneered on animal abuse and elder abuse<br />
Published on January 4, 2018 8:58AM<br />
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Josh Marquis has been Clatsop County district attorney so long that few of us remember what brought him to office. It was the utterly disastrous, brief career of Julie Leonhardt that opened the way for Gov. Barbara Roberts to appoint Marquis.<br />
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The short version of the Leonhardt fiasco was that she was indicted and convicted of lying to a grand jury. She was recalled from office, convicted and disbarred.<br />
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Marquis, who announced Wednesday that he will not seek re-election, brought competence to the job. He was experienced at prosecuting murders. His instinct about animal abuse was humane and wise. He broke ground in prosecuting elder abuse.<br />
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This newspaper has appreciated Marquis because of his openness. He has been eager to explain aspects of criminal justice and accessible to our reporters. Grasping those sometime arcane elements is essential to writing about the criminal courts.<br />
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This county has witnessed some seven murders during Marquis’ tenure. His office handled them competently. And if we did not appreciate that, we only had to look across the Columbia River into Pacific County, Washington, where a weak prosecutor, David Burke, dropped the ball.<br />
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For years and for very good reason, Marquis argued against prosecuting drunken-driving cases in Astoria Municipal Court. Astoria Mayor Willis Van Dusen and his City Council allies protected that flawed system. Once Van Dusen was out of office, the new mayor and council moved the city’s drunken-driving cases to Circuit Court.<br />
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The case of an animal collector, Vikki Kittles, who arrived with a school bus full of cats, prompted Marquis to make animal abuse a state legislative issue.<br />
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When the late Hal Snow brought Marquis evidence of an elder abuse case out of Warrenton, the DA seized the moment. The testimony of accountant Jim Lanzarotta was a critical element in the prosecution. It was a complicated case, and the prosecution prevailed. Meanwhile, elder abuse unfortunately has become predictable in our local culture, as it has nationally.<br />
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The good news in Marquis’ retirement is that competent candidates will emerge. After 24 years of having a well-run district attorney’s office, the voters expect it. And that is Marquis’ best legacy.<br />
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<i><a href="http://www.dailyastorian.com/editorials/20180104/our-view-marquis-leaves-a-legacy-of-competence-as-district-attorney" target="_blank">Read the editorial on the Daily Astorian website.</a></i><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961411431611631367.post-77098837174693804782018-01-03T17:13:00.000-08:002018-01-03T17:13:08.071-08:00PBS Newshour on felony conviction rates<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I was asked to comment about why, with the incidence of some violent crimes decreasing, there is an increase in felonies. Maybe because we take some crimes, like domestic violence, more seriously? [This story was produced by Stateline, an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts, and broadcast on the PBS Newshour on January 2, 2018. You can view the original report on <a href="http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2018/01/02/felony-conviction-rates-have-risen-sharply-but-unevenly" target="_blank">the Stateline website</a>.] </div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>When crime is a major concern in a community, elected district attorneys are especially sensitive to public pressure to file more felony charges, Marquis said.</i> </span></blockquote>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">“We are not rewarded for the number of felonies filed,” Marquis said. “But we do face election and accountability to our neighbors who are also our bosses.”</span></i></blockquote>
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<b>Felony conviction rates are up nationwide. These states are reconsidering how they classify crimes.</b><br />
<a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/author/tim-henderson-stateline" target="_blank">Tim Henderson, <i>Stateline</i></a><br />
January 2, 2018<br />
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In recent decades, every state has seen a dramatic increase in the share of its population convicted of a felony, leaving more people facing hurdles in finding a job and a place to live and prompting some states to revisit how they classify crimes.</div>
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In Georgia, 15 percent of the adult population was a felon in 2010, up from around 4 percent in 1980. The rate was above 10 percent in Florida, Indiana, Louisiana and Texas.</div>
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Less than 5 percent of the population in Maine, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, Utah and West Virginia were felons, but every state had a large increase between 1980 and 2010, when the felony population ranged from 1 to 5 percent, according to a University of Georgia study published in October.</div>
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The new estimates only go through 2010, before many states began to reclassify some crimes, scale back sentencing and take other steps to lower incarceration rates and ease ex-offenders back into society. But they are the first attempt to gauge the state-by-state buildup of felons during a nationwide, decades-long surge in punishment: Less than 2 million people were in prison or jail or on parole or probation in 1980, compared with more than 7 million in 2007.</div>
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John Pfaff, a law professor at Fordham University, called the study “incredibly important,” but noted that with many gaps in information provided by states, further study may be needed to ensure an accurate picture. Nonetheless, he said, some of the state differences make intuitive sense.</div>
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“Georgia has been trying to get people out of prison with probation, but we’re seeing that even with probation they’re still getting that record,” Pfaff said. It’s possible that in states with relatively small black populations like West Virginia and New Hampshire, “without that racial divide between a white correctional system and a poor black population, it may be no coincidence that there’s a lower felony rate,” he said.</div>
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Proponents of more lenient sentencing tend to focus on imprisonment, where Louisiana and Oklahoma have the highest rates, but probation is more common.</div>
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There were 1.9 million people on felony probation in 2015, compared to 1.5 million in prison. In 2010, the two figures were about the same, at 1.6 million, according to the latest federal statistics.</div>
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Many view probation as a more humane alternative to imprisonment, said Michelle Phelps, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota. But in some states probation has become a “net widener” that draws more nonviolent criminals into the stigma and harsh supervision of a felony conviction.</div>
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Phelps pointed to Minnesota, which has one of the lowest rates of imprisonment, but ranked 16th for felon population in 2010. That year felons were about 9 percent of Minnesota’s population, or nearly quadruple the rate in 1980.</div>
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“Though it’s frequently dismissed as a slap on the wrist, probation can entail onerous requirements,” Phelps said. For instance, probation can require a job and good housing as a condition for staying out of prison, but the felony conviction itself can make it hard or impossible to get that job.</div>
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Gary Mohr, who heads Ohio’s Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said a felony conviction can have lifelong consequences, no matter whether the punishment is imprisonment or probation.</div>
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“Even probation or a six-month sentence is really a life sentence because it affects jobs, it affects housing, it affects everything in their lives,” Mohr said.</div>
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<b>Easing the Path</b></div>
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Several states have moved in recent years to ease the path for convicted felons, including restoring voting rights and prohibiting employers from asking job applicants if they have a criminal record.</div>
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Even some red-state conservatives support moves to erase the stigma and help people with felony convictions rejoin their communities.</div>
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Marc Levin, vice president of criminal justice policy at the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, said his group supported legislation in Texas and elsewhere to ease the way for felons to return to the community.</div>
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He cited a Texas bill that would have allowed some felons to seal their criminal records, though the final law that took effect in September only extended to misdemeanors. A 2015 Texas law provided legal immunity to landlords who rent to felons, and a 2009 law made it easier for felons to get occupational licenses.</div>
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In 2010, Texas was tied with Louisiana for the fourth-highest percentage of population with a felony conviction, at about 10.5 percent. That was triple Texas’s 1980 rate.</div>
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The findings may help put probation reform on the front burner in some states.</div>
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In Georgia, a February 2017 report by a state commission called for shorter probation sentences and lighter caseloads for probation officers. (The Pew Charitable Trusts, which also funds Stateline, assisted with the paper.) Almost 3 percent of Georgia’s adult population was on felony probation as of 2015 — far more than any other state and a 12 percent increase from 2010, according to the latest federal figures from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.</div>
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Georgia already has taken action to reduce felony convictions. For example, as part of sentencing and classification changes enacted in 2012, the state raised its felony theft threshold from $500 to $1,500.</div>
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Felony thresholds vary widely from state to state, from $200 in Florida to $2,500 in Texas. In recent years, many states have raised them to reflect inflation and reduce felony convictions.</div>
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<b>Racial Disparities</b></div>
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When crime rates rose in the 1980s and early 1990s, local and state leaders hired more police and they made more arrests, including felony arrests, Phelps said.</div>
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In addition, many states elevated nonviolent crimes like drug possession to felony status, and many district attorneys adopted a get-tough strategy, seeking felony charges whenever possible. Police focused drug enforcement on high-crime neighborhoods, which were often predominantly African-American, Phelps said. As a result, felony convictions rose much faster among blacks than among whites.</div>
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In 2010, about 23 percent of the black population had a felony conviction. The number of African-American felons increased more than fivefold between 1980 and 2010, while the number increased threefold for other felons. The University of Georgia study did not calculate separate rates for Hispanics or other minority groups.</div>
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In left-leaning states such as Massachusetts, Minnesota and Oregon, one contributor to the growing share of the population with a felony conviction was an increased awareness of new crimes like domestic violence, sexual abuse and animal abuse, said Josh Marquis, a district attorney in Oregon and a 20-year board member of the National District Attorneys Association.</div>
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When crime is a major concern in a community, elected district attorneys are especially sensitive to public pressure to file more felony charges, Marquis said.</div>
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“We are not rewarded for the number of felonies filed,” Marquis said. “But we do face election and accountability to our neighbors who are also our bosses.”</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961411431611631367.post-53516289421600520112017-12-06T10:36:00.001-08:002017-12-06T10:39:16.356-08:00ACLU demonizes District Attorneys<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"> Guest column: ACLU’s national campaign demonizes district attorneys</span></h1>
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The belief that one possesses the only way to redemption is an extremely dangerous concept<br />
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By Joshua Marquis<br />
Special to <a href="http://www.dailyastorian.com/columns/20170915/guest-column-aclus-national-campaign-demonizes-district-attorneys" target="_blank">The Daily Astorian</a><br />
Published on September 15, 2017 12:01AM<br />
Last changed on September 15, 2017 8:48AM<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The American Civil Liberties Union began a national campaign titled “They Report to You” designed to help elect different people to the office of district attorney across America.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The point of the clever and well-designed ads is that prosecutors are 1) unknown to their constituents 2) omnipotent in the justice system 3) unaccountable and 4) the gunk that prevents social justice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">As with most things, there is a little truth there. In most of the country voters have no idea who their elected DA is. That has not been the case at any time in the almost quarter century I have been the district attorney of Clatsop County. From my first contested race to the many controversies into which I have inserted myself in the ensuing two decades, some voters might not agree with me, but they have never had to look far to find out my viewpoint or engage me in a discussion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">What about the other claims? If being DA was such a great job and I have so much power, one would guess people would be chomping at my ankles to wrest the job from me?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In another aspect, the ACLU is correct, like judges and congresspeople, most people don’t pay enough attention to who is in office.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">As a colleague says, “the most important person in the justice system is whoever has control over you at a given point … when being arrested it’s the police officer, when charged it is the DA, when being judged it’s your neighbors/jurors, and when being sentenced it’s the judge.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Of course as comedian Chris Rock famously said to avoid being hassled, “Obey the Law!” Most people manage to get through life without stealing their neighbors’ cars, breaking into their houses or molesting their children.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The ACLU video claims that a minor shoplifting in 1980 would be “a felony today” — impliedly because of nefarious lobbying by people like me. That is just nonsense. In 1980, it was a felony to steal something worth $150. Today you’d have to steal something worth at least $1,000. In other ads, the ACLU shows a cartoon DA furtively trashing evidence into the garbage.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This kind of demonization is one of things degrading political discourse in America. It’s no better for an august organization like the ACLU to make such claims as it is for the current president to tell outrageous stories he’s told by his core of dedicated zealots. The belief that one possesses the only way to redemption is an extremely dangerous concept.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The district attorney’s job is to represent the people of the state of Oregon in all criminal proceedings. That means making sure people are treated fairly and equally. That certain people, or groups of people are neither indulged or targeted. It means that the relatively scarce resources of the justice system are made to work for justice when the social contract is violated in the worst ways possible — the molestation of a child, a drunken driver injuring or killing a passer-by, or, in the worst circumstances, a murder.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The measure of a prosecutor is not how well-loved they are by the people they are prosecuting, but by the community and the people who find themselves victims of crime. Often the former find themselves the latter in the course of a short period of time. As my late father was fond of quoting Italian anti-fascist writer Ignazio Silone, “Never make fun of a man in jail.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have never forgotten that I serve at the pleasure of the voters of Clatsop County.</span></div>
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<em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Joshua Marquis is the Clatsop County district attorney.</span></em></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961411431611631367.post-23601160811331335782017-10-22T16:15:00.000-07:002017-10-30T09:44:54.445-07:00Speech to Parents of Murdered Children<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">For the second time in five years, <a href="http://www.pomc.com/portland/index.htm" target="_blank">Parents of Murdered Children</a>, the</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"> non-partisan support group for the families of the murdered, invited me to speak at their remembrance ceremony. It was an honor to be with the families, and to discuss accountability and forgiveness. The talk was given in Oregon City on September 25, 2017.</span></i><br />
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Thank you for inviting me back for this solemn memorialization of this wall and the sad task of adding names to the wall of remembrance.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMfogR-GU5oGObBHJsnryTKVrSZ0_NfjyCzz2rKH_dptZ6repGrv5BpOD_D-3h6vlB8H1BbCTRbdYq-DEynVKQVmdqsNYRFZTNTCiQob6F2GYqsRSdL41Nao34WGnOEnxnJRdwHNAvC3o/s1600/2017+murder+victims.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMfogR-GU5oGObBHJsnryTKVrSZ0_NfjyCzz2rKH_dptZ6repGrv5BpOD_D-3h6vlB8H1BbCTRbdYq-DEynVKQVmdqsNYRFZTNTCiQob6F2GYqsRSdL41Nao34WGnOEnxnJRdwHNAvC3o/s320/2017+murder+victims.jpeg" width="240" /></a>I need to say a word of remembrance for possibly the greatest pioneer of victims’ rights in this state - Dee Dee Kouns, who died last week at 89. Dee Dee and her late husband Bob never ceased fighting for murder victims -- their daughter and the all too many other victims represented on these walls and by those of you here today. I remember Dee Dee from the tough political days of the mid-1980s, when those who stood up for victims’ rights were accused of trying to undercut civil rights. Times have changed.<br />
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Since I last spoke to you we also lost Hardy Myers, long-time Attorney General and champion of victims’ rights. Bob and Dee Dee had a great deal to do with changing Hardy's view of the rights of victims, so thank you Dee Dee, for all your work.....for all those years.<br />
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Thanks to Clackamas County DA John Foote, who was Dee Dee’s good friend for many years, right up to her sudden death this week. John has been an outspoken leader in the prosecution community on behalf of victims’ rights. You here in Clackamas County are lucky to be represented by him, but I suspect you don't need me to tell you that......!<br />
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As I approach the end of my career in trying to hold accountable those who tear and attempt to destroy the lives of others, I am reminded of the advice I gave a newly hired Deputy District Attorney, something that happens less often as the profession of prosecution becomes much more of a career and a lifelong mission and less of a stop-over en route to seven-figure salaries and second homes.<br />
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That advice is never to say to a family member 'I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE GOING THROUGH.” Unless she or he has had the have horrible experience of losing a family member to murder, they cannot say "I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GOING THROUGH."<br />
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Over the 32 years I have been prosecuting homicide cases I have come to form deep, long-lasting relationships with the family members of murder victims. I never cease to be amazed by their grace, their dignity, and most of all their incredible eloquence.<br />
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But sitting through trials with family members, explaining the decades-long appeals process, or attending the scene of a brutal murder when the smell of blood, like copper, never seems to leave, is NOT the same as what you and other family members have been through.<br />
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I detest the phrase "closure" and find myself snapping back at legislators or attorneys who use the expression too easily, implying that like an expiration date on a bottle of prescription medicine, the family can expect to have resolved all their feelings by some arbitrary date or juncture in the justice process. The criminal justice system can...sometimes....achieve a measure of FINALITY, but never "closure."<br />
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For over 20 years I prosecuted a brutal killer named Randy Guzek. The name Guzek matters little. The good people he gunned down in the summer of 1987 were Rod and Lois Houser. Like virtually all murder victims for whom it has been my honor to speak as the prosecutor of their killers, I never knew Rod or Lois in life. In the strange world of homicide investigation and prosecution I only came to know them through the stories, photos, and memories of their surviving family members...in their case their two adult daughters, their brother and nieces and nephews.<br />
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Guzek had already been tried and sentenced to death when I became Chief Deputy DA in Bend, in 1990. I was hired, in large part, to re-try Guzek after all of Oregon's death sentences were overturned in 1989. In 1991 I slowly gained the trust of the Houser family during the second trial, where a second jury gave a second sentence of death. I moved on in 1994 to the job I hold now, as DA of Clatsop County, in Astoria, but I made a promise to the Houser family that if they needed me, I'd come back.<br />
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It was sooner than I thought. In 1995 the case was overturned again. I moved back to Bend for a few months to prosecute Guzek for a third time. Again the jury sentenced Guzek to death and again the Houser family endured with dignity and gave the testimony that shone the little light the law allows on the lives (not the deaths) of Rod and Lois Houser. Doug Houser, Rod's brother and one of the most prominent lawyers in this part of the nation, had the jury - and me - in tears as he told how as kids he and his brother made a pact that whoever died last would take the ashes of the other to a remote but beautiful lake in the Willamette National forest -- Duffy Lake.<br />
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But the 1995 trial brought neither closure NOR finality. In 2005 the Guzek case went to the US Supreme Court, where our side won unanimously. That did not stop a FOURTH trial, held in 2010 - 22 years after the first trial. At that point about $3 million had been spent defending the murderer Randy Guzek. Many of the original witnesses and even some members of the Houser family had died, but Doug Houser and Sue Shirley, the victims' daughter, were there every day.<br />
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The fourth trial resulted in a fourth death penalty. Of course the case went to the Oregon Supreme Court, who finally have denied Guzek's direct appeal. This last February the United States Supreme Court denied cert - meaning they declined to review the conviction or sentence.<br />
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Of course most of you know that is NOT the end of the case. Guzek will now claim Post Conviction Relief, that one of his five teams of lawyers rendered so-called "inadequate assistance of counsel"<br />
But last summer the family of Rod and Lois Houser asked me to hike with them the three miles off the trail head in the Cascades that leads to the silent but beautiful Duffy Lake, where Doug Houser said a few words in memory of Rod and Lois.<br />
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I recall another homicide prosecution of a driver who was drunk and high on drugs when he came around a corner on the Sunset Highway in Clatsop County and slammed into a van driven by a father whose wife and two children were in the car. As all too often happens, the drunk was essentially unhurt while the father and mother died instantly. One of the children died shortly after at the hospital in Portland. The sole survivor was the young son, Ben. I went to his relatives’ home outside Portland to discuss a possible resolution of the case with his guardians – his aunt and uncle, and to assess whether the boy could handle getting on the witness stand, if necessary. I’m not a father and I’m honestly not great with kids so I was trying to find a common point of reference with Ben. It turned out we both loved cats. He explained he couldn’t have a cat because his relatives were allergic, and his cat lived in the house where nobody lived any more. I had not really considered the enormity of his loss until that moment. I realized that before he was in 7th grade his entire family was stolen from him, violently and without cause.<br />
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Ben’s family did not particularly want to go through a trial, but I was able to secure a 15-year prison sentence under Measure 11. Most cases do resolve by plea, not trial, saving a family the anguish and uncertainty that comes with a trial. The sentencing was – nonetheless – very emotional. The victims played a memorial video in court and gave the defendant a fancy bible into which a family photo had been embossed. The Portland TV stations were all in court and afterwards they asked me if I was surprised by the Christian forgiveness the family expressed for the man who killed three members of their family. I replied that I was moved by their willingness to forgive, and I didn’t think I would be so generous. Buta criminal trial isn’t about forgiveness, it’s about accountability. To quote the Bible at MATTHEW 22:21 “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's".<br />
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The drunk driver received their forgiveness, in the personal and spiritual sense, but it is not the State of Oregon’s place to grant forgiveness. <br />
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I come from a family who have been pursued by governments meaning to do ill to my ancestors. My mother’s grandfather was a Mormon polygamist chased into the wilderness of southern Utah by the US Army during the “Mormon Wars” of 1858. More recently my father and his entire family fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s to avoid persecution and death for being ethnically Jewish.<br />
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Today is part of what an observant Jew (I am not a religious person of any denomination) would call the “DAYS OF AWE” –5 days after Rosh Shonna, Jewish New Year and 4 days before YOM KIPPUR, the “Day of Atonement.” In that faith God keeps “books” on a person’s life and the ledger can be altered by particular acts of atonement during these “days of awe.” Events like these always remind me of a tale recounted by Canadian writer Anne Michaels in her book FUGITIVE PIECES. She tells the parable of a rabbi, renowned for his wisdom and great knowledge, who is invited to travel to a nearby, wealthier congregation to speak. For reasons known only to the Rabbi, he dresses as a poor peasant on the train journey and is treated poorly by some of the passengers, who turn out to be members of the congregation that invited him.<br />
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After the rabbi’s speech , members of the congregation come to him and ask his forgiveness for their thoughtlessness and poor behavior. He smiles sadly and tells them he cannot. As the Day of Atonement approaches they re-engage the rabbi and ask him how, he – a holy man – can deny them forgiveness on of all day this Day of Days, YOM KIPPUR.<br />
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He shakes his head and tells them the only person who can forgive them is the man on the train, and he no longer exists.<br />
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As Anne Michaels writes: “Nothing erases the immoral act. Not forgiveness. Not confession. And even if the act could be forgiven, no one could bear forgiveness on behalf of the dead. No act of violence is ever resolved.”<br />
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But if you can find it in your heart to forgive, I applaud you. That is your choice, morally and spiritually. Sometimes it can be a healing act, not just for them but for you. But don’t let anyone or any institution bully you into thinking you are required to give that forgiveness. It is yours to give or with-hold. In a society that increasingly finds ways NOT to hold people accountable for their thoughtless, even cruel acts, you have the freedom and right to give or with-hold.<br />
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It has been my honor to work for over 35 years as someone who helps support victims, demand accountability on their specific behalf in court, and in the community in policy discussions. Join me today in remembering all those whose names were added to the wall, the names already there and those who just left us, like Dee Dee Kouns.<br />
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Joshua Marquis<br />
Clatsop County District Attorney</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961411431611631367.post-35997429696088217952017-10-02T16:28:00.001-07:002017-10-02T16:29:02.023-07:00History Matters<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>In 1934, Oregonians passed Measure 302 which made several changes to felony trials : (1) It allowed a defendant to not have a jury trial; (2) It allowed a jury in most (but not all) felony trials to render a verdict of either guilty or not guilty with the concurrence of only 10 out of 12 jurors; and (3) a unanimous verdict remained a requirement for conviction, but a not guilty verdict could be reached with the concurrence of only 10 of 12 jurors.</i></div>
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<i>In the last year, some "activists" have spread the claim that 1934's Measure 302 was a "racist and unfair" law mainly because Louisiana had similar laws. But Louisiana's law differed in an important way: </i>Guilty<i> </i><i>verdicts for Murder are allowed on jury's 10-2 vote.</i></div>
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<i>Several lazy journalists have </i><i style="background-color: transparent;">simply </i><i>been taking dictation from the activists. They've written articles claiming that the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) was set in this year's session to hear a case from Louisiana that would "change Oregon law." Except it would not have, because the case was about a man who had been convicted of murder on a 10-2 verdict which, as noted above, is not and never has been allowed in Oregon.</i></div>
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<i>SCOTUS validated Oregon's Measure 302 most recently in 1972, and many times since has declined to consider cases challenging the 10-2 not guilty verdicts. Including today. The Supremes did not include the Louisiana case on its list for their new term beginning today.</i></div>
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<i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">What follows is my response to an article published in the University of Oregon Law Review, which simply shrugged off my many criticisms about the author's historical deceptions about Oregon in the 1930s</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">.</span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">History Matters: A Response to Prof. Aliza Kaplan</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">Joshua Marquis</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif;">November 27, 2016</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;">In an <a href="https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/22247" target="_blank">article prepared for the Oregon Law Review</a>, Professor Aliza Kaplan paints a picture of Oregon, from its beginnings to the later years of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, as a cesspool of racism and bigotry, a society and government of the 1920s and 1930s dominated by a powerful Ku Klux Klan, anti-immigrant, overwhelmingly white, Protestant, and religiously bigoted, Thus Professor Kaplan sets the stage for another in a long line of heretofore unsuccessful attacks on non-unanimous jury verdicts in Oregon criminal cases.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> Also being used to provide some academic veneer for a motion in a pending case of Prof. Kaplan’s, the article repeats cliches about how non-unanimous verdicts deny critical due process rights to defendants and are particularly susceptible to unfairly targeting racial and ethnic minorities. Conveniently enough, Louisiana is the only other state to allow non-unanimous verdicts, and so Prof. Kaplan smears Oregon prosecutions with the chronicle of racism and injustices in Louisiana’s genuinely dark history.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> In 1972, in Apodaca vs. Oregon, the US Supreme Court affirmed the right of the states to allow non-unanimous verdicts. Oregon’s rule was the result of a process of progressive reform over a couple of decades, leading to its adoption by popular initiative in 1934. But this history eludes any comment by Prof. Kaplan. Then again, the professor chooses throughout her article not to cite the findings of the majority of the court, instead choosing to cite those dissenters who agree with her position, along with a highly dubious series of inside websites run by the same Criminal Defense Bar of which Ms. Kaplan is such an outspoken member. (In a serious law review article that would be like me quoting <i>other </i>articles I had written as proof of an underlying fact in a footnote.)</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> Professor Kaplan's obvious lack of knowledge about the history of Oregon populism and progressive reform at the beginning of the 20th century can only be the result either of poor scholarship or of an attempt to deliberately mislead the reader. This gets even worse as the article progresses, where Kaplan grossly misstates a number of voter-driven criminal justice reforms, once again citing her own organization, the Oregon Innocence Project, as the authoritative source.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> <span style="color: black;">Prof. Kaplan recounts a little-known case involving Jacob Silverman, a Portland man who was charged in April of 1933 with first-degree murder for the deaths of a man and a woman. One “hold-out” kept the jurors from unanimously agreeing on either first-degree or second-degree murder, so the jurors agreed on the lesser charge of Manslaughter, for which Silverman received a three-year prison sentence.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> Prof. Kaplan then claims that a vile, anti-Semitic mob, also known as the Oregon electorate, was so outraged that the one "hold out juror unwittingly became the poster child for Oregon Ballot No. 302-03.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> Much is missing in Prof. Kaplan’s argument. The measure, which passed on a 58-42% margin, allowed Oregon criminal jurors either to convict <i>or to acquit</i> on a 10-2 vote, in all but murder cases. It cannot be much of a leap to assume Prof. Kaplan would be okay with a 10-2 verdict of acquittal.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> Missing also is the most obvious fact: Silverman’s case would have resulted in the same verdict of manslaughter whether he had been tried before or after Measure 302-03. At the time of Silverman’s trial, all criminal verdicts required a unanimous vote to convict. The manslaughter conviction was clearly a compromise to which the one hold-out juror was willing to agree.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> The irony is that Kaplan is claiming that the racist and anti-Semitic mob mentality of 1933 Oregon was so outraged that the verdict in the Silverman case lit the spark that gave rise to Measure 302-03. Ballot measure 302-03 specifically excluded murder, which, as it does to this day, requires a unanimous vote by the jury to convict.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> And what’s more, the measure also expanded criminal defendants’ rights by allowing trial by judge -- avoiding “the mob” of a jury -- with the judge’s consent.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> As bad as the legal "scholarship" is here, what is worse is either the deliberate ignorance or the deliberate omission of the facts of political life in Oregon in the first third of the 20th century. That racism existed in Oregon in 1910, 1938, 1985, 2017 is undeniable. The question is whether it was as pervasive and perverting as Kaplan claims.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> Readers might be interested to learn that the Governor of Oregon during the relevant time period, 1931-1935, was the only person ever to be elected as an Independent: Julius Meier, a Jewish man whose family, along with that of the Frank family, founded the iconic Meier & Frank department stores. (Frank's descendant, Gerry Frank, continues to write about Oregon life and politics in the <i>Oregonian </i>and other venues.)</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> Like <span style="color: black;">many Oregon politicians of the early 20<sup>th</sup> century, including earlier Governor Oswald West (1911-15), Meier was considered to be a progressive and a reformer. Meier organized the Oregon State Police, drawing on the advice of noted Marine General, two-time Medal of Honor winner turned political radical Smedley Darlington Butler, turning it from a rag-time bunch of game wardens into the statewide professional organization it remains almost 100 years later. Meier also advocated for removing partisan politics from the judicial system</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> There’s no question that there was a political resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s across northern states, lasting essentially until the Great Depression. The Klan had advocated boycotting the Meier & Frank stores, and the <i>Oregonian</i> could be a vile newspaper, stirring up racist and anti-Semitic passions; in fact, the editors opposed Meier’s election.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> But if Oregon was such a viciously anti-Semitic place as Kaplan asserts, how on earth did a reformer like Meier get elected?</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> And Meier was not an outlier. His predecessor as Governor was Albin Norblad. Sr., of Astoria, Oregon, considered “too progressive” by his fellow Republicans. Norblad formed a Pardons Board and personally interviewed inmates seeking relief. Norblad was preceded by Gov. I.J. “Ike” Patterson, who directed the state prison system to house adult and juvenile criminals separately.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> In fact, a discussion of the “Progressive” era of American politics must include William U’Ren, a now little-known reformer who served a single term in 1898 as a state representative from Clackamas County. U’Ren invented the direct referendum, the recall, and the direct popular election of U.S. Senators.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> This minutiae may seem irrelevant to Prof. Kaplan, intent on creating a very different Oregon, perhaps cut from the same cloth as D. W. Griffith’s notorious 1915 silent movie <i>Birth of a Nation</i>, which glorified the KKK and slavery, and was originally titled after its source book, <i>The Clansman.</i></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> Context and history matter, so when Kaplan starts speculating about a spate of voter-driven reforms that were passed by voters in the 1980s and 1990s, she mischaracterizes most of those changes as well.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> Kaplan runs the Oregon Innocence Project – the second of such projects after the initial 2005 iteration at the University of Oregon Law School failed -- not for lack of volunteers, willing professors, or earnest law students. It failed because it lacked a critical ingredient: innocent convicts. When the group’s determined effort failed to turn up even one “innocent” over the course of a few years, the group quietly shuttered. The new effort is better funded, and is advertised by advocacy groups as trying to roll back the very “truth in sentencing” and victims’ rights enacted by Oregonians, measures that Kaplan thinks of as mob rule. Some call it democracy.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> As Kaplan describes the very small number of cases in the United States in which DNA advances have freed people who truly did not commit the crime (14 men from death row, 9 of whom had already been released off death row or out of prison entirely; about 340 overall for all crimes), she fails to mention the history of DNA in Oregon and elsewhere. It was prosecutors who fought, courtroom by courtroom through this nation, to get this new and remarkable technology accepted -- over the fevered objection of defense lawyers. In Oregon, a Clatsop County murder case, <u>State vs. Futch</u> , 324 Or. 297 (1996) finally established that DNA evidence met the state’s Daubert-like “Brown/O’Key” scientific standard for admissibility.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> Prof. Kaplan makes short work of a series of voter-passed and Oregon Supreme Court-approved criminal reform measures. She refers to Measure 11 as ”restricting the legislature’s ability to reduce voter approved sentences.” But Measure 11, which requires sentences ranging from 70 to 300 months, depending on the crime, has had the net effect of reducing racial disparities in sentencing by prohibiting judges from considering whether a defendant is from a “good family.” And in 2000, an attempt to repeal Measure 11 was rejected by a 3 to 1 margin, dwarfing the original passage rate of merely 2 to 1.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> <span style="color: black;">Kaplan entirely brushes off Measure 69, which ensconced voter-passed statutory victims’ rights into the Oregon Constitution as Article 1, Section 43. She refers to Measure 71, which requires judges to consider <i>both</i> a defendant’s likelihood of appearing in court <i>and</i> the risk they pose to the community as “limiting a judge’s discretion in pretrial release decisions.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> Perhaps most egregiously, she refers to Measure 57, a complicated sentencing measure jointly sponsored by the state’s Democratic legislative leadership and the state’s district attorneys to head off a mandatory minimum measure as a law that “appeared to be disguised as an anti-drug trafficking bill, [but] established mandatory minimum sentences for repeat property, identity, and mail theft offenders.”</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> Kaplan is either being lazy or deceptive, or both. Measure 57 did not impose a single new mandatory minimum sentence, save one the Democratic leadership insisted on including involving the delivery of huge amounts of methamphetamine, designed to make the measure look “tougher” than a competing measure offered by Kevin Mannix, a former legislator who had authored many crime laws and sought to be seen as “tougher on crime” than others.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> In conclusion, Kaplan deliberately leaves out one important fact: Oregon is likely the <i>only</i> jurisdiction in the nation allowing a <i>not guilty</i> verdict to be reached by only 10 of 12 jurors. The effect of Measure 302-03, passed in 1934, has not increased guilty verdicts. It has simply reduced the number of hung juries.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> As the saying goes “god and the devil are in the details.” </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24px;"> So is the truth.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961411431611631367.post-51185484016562451742017-08-18T15:01:00.000-07:002017-08-18T15:03:20.855-07:00Butane hash oil explosion sentencing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #666666; text-align: justify;">If this had happened in a basement downtown, we could have had a fire of 1922 proportions. The point is...WHERE THE HELL IS THE REGULATION?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Two sentenced in Astoria butane hash oil blast</b></span><br />
By Noelle Crombie ncrombie@oregonian.com<br />
The Oregonian/OregonLive<br />
Updated on August 18, 2017 at 12:32 PM Posted on August 18, 2017 at 11:21 AM<br />
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Two men were sentenced Friday to three years of probation for their roles in a butane explosion last fall in Astoria that injured two people.<br />
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William "Chris" West, 41, and Jason Oei, 45, entered Alford pleas in Clatsop County Circuit Court to third-degree assault, a felony, and reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor. Under such pleas, a defendant doesn't admit guilt, but acknowledges prosecutors have enough evidence for a conviction.<br />
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West and Oei were making butane hash oil for their business, Higher Level Concentrates, when the space filled with the flammable gas and exploded. At the time, the company was on a state-approved list to process marijuana for the medical market.<br />
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A construction worker, Jacob Magley, 34, was working in the building when the blast occurred. He spent a month in a Portland burn unit recovering from his injuries.<br />
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Magley is suing 11 businesses and three people for violations of workplace safety laws. He filed the suit in Multnomah County and is seeking $8.9 million in damages.<br />
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Magley listened in to Friday's court proceedings by phone and declined to give a statement.<br />
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Clatsop County District Attorney Josh Marquis said the case represents the first felony conviction tied to a legal cannabis extraction business.<br />
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But Marquis, who opposed Oregon's marijuana legalization efforts, said the case isn't about cannabis.<br />
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"This is really not a drug case; this is a case about recklessness and an industrial accident," he said after the sentencing.<br />
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Attorneys for the men didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.<br />
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Higher Level Concentrates operated during a transitional period for Oregon's marijuana program when the health authority oversaw cannabis processors. The business wasn't inspected by regulators. Those businesses have mostly transitioned to the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, which has stringent fire and safety requirements in place for those businesses.<br />
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Marquis said the two had what's known as a closed loop extraction system designed to keep butane from escaping into a room, but they abandoned it because it "had sort of fallen apart on them."<br />
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Instead, he said, they used a more primitive and dangerous approach called "open blasting," which allows the gas to fill a room.<br />
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He said investigators found hundreds of butane canisters, all of which were "crudely punctured," despite labels warning not to tamper with the containers, Marquis said.<br />
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They started pouring the butane into the system "and literally throwing (the cans) into the corner," Marquis said.<br />
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It doesn't take much to ignite a butane blast. Something as mundane as a light switch can set off the odorless gas.<br />
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The business was fined $5,300 for a series of workplace safety violations related to the explosion. Oregon OSHA cited it for failing to ventilate the building, failing to have an adequate electrical system and failing to obtain city permits.<br />
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-- Noelle Crombie<br />
<a href="mailto:ncrombie@oregonian.com">ncrombie@oregonian.com</a><br />
503-276-7184; @noellecrombie<br />
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<i><a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/marijuana/index.ssf/2017/08/two_sentenced_in_astoria_butan.html#incart_river_index" target="_blank">Read the piece on the OregonLive website</a></i>.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961411431611631367.post-68150257205062765522017-08-16T14:21:00.000-07:002017-08-16T14:23:56.605-07:00Oregon makes drug possession a misdemeanor<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #333333; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 600;"> </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAkDrV_9WDLepb1MON9MxPZh_rkQAFUO-cNEy0tnK4nFek3j08sHf4Woggy1_vZ3Ee77k04jLkRIv70NN1DE3BLjqWFdzENnKV2H1nDc_cHOUel7Xv1QXH5WJQci-NxitFgAHwHHPIjOk/s1600/DailyAnew.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-style: inherit; font-weight: 600; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="156" data-original-width="992" height="50" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAkDrV_9WDLepb1MON9MxPZh_rkQAFUO-cNEy0tnK4nFek3j08sHf4Woggy1_vZ3Ee77k04jLkRIv70NN1DE3BLjqWFdzENnKV2H1nDc_cHOUel7Xv1QXH5WJQci-NxitFgAHwHHPIjOk/s320/DailyAnew.jpg" width="320" /></a></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 600;">By Andrew Selsky</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 600;">Associated Press</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">Published on August 15, 2017 5:21PM</span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">“The message it sends is this is just not that big a deal,” Marquis said. </span></i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The district attorney called heroin and meth “scourges” in Clatsop County and communities across the nation. “They’re not just a minor problem. They’re a huge problem,” he said. </span></i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Marquis said felony drug possession charges often acted as leverage to steer drug abusers into treatment and drug court. “We know that people don’t seek treatment until they either bottom out or they have no choice,” he said. “By making it a felony, it does threaten people with some consequences.”</span></i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">SALEM — A bill signed by Gov. Kate Brown on Tuesday makes personal-use possession of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and other drugs a misdemeanor, not a felony.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Oregon joined just a handful of other states in defelonizing drugs under the new law, which was supported by some law enforcement groups and takes effect immediately.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Clatsop County District Attorney Josh Marquis, who spoke out against the idea at the state Legislature, said possession of the dangerous drugs is now as serious as shoplifting or minor vandalism.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">“The message it sends is this is just not that big a deal,” Marquis said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The district attorney called heroin and meth “scourges” in Clatsop County and communities across the nation. “They’re not just a minor problem. They’re a huge problem,” he said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Marquis said felony drug possession charges often acted as leverage to steer drug abusers into treatment and drug court. “We know that people don’t seek treatment until they either bottom out or they have no choice,” he said. “By making it a felony, it does threaten people with some consequences.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Jo Meza, owner of Amazing Treatment, a rehab center in Salem, applauded the new law. She has seen the damage caused by drug addiction in her 30 years in the field.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">“There’s a huge crisis out there, and locking people up is not going to work,” Meza said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Looking to kick their addictions, patients ascended a flight of stairs into Amazing Treatment, located above a Mexican restaurant and a barber shop in downtown Salem.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Inside the center, someone had drawn a syringe on a whiteboard with the words “No more.” Above that was a quote by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: “Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Meza said imprisoning first-time offenders with limited or non-existent treatment opportunities is not a solution. But the goal can be achieved with treatment for six months to a year with support from recovering addicts and training in how to remove oneself from the environment that led to the drug abuse, like a circle of addicted friends or relatives, she said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">“Jailing is not helping the problem,” Meza said. “All you’re doing is putting a Band-Aid on it and ripping it off when they get out of jail.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Among the law’s supporters were the Oregon Association Chiefs of Police and the Oregon State Sheriffs’ Association, which said felony convictions include unintended consequences, including barriers to housing and employment. But the two groups, in a letter to a state senator who backed the bill, said the new law “will only produce positive results if additional drug treatment resources accompany this change in policy.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">“Reducing penalties without aggressively addressing underlying addiction is unlikely to help those who need it most,” the groups warned. Another measure appropriated $7 million that can be used to pay for drug treatment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Linn County District Attorney Doug Marteeny had tried to convince lawmakers to dump the defelonization of dangerous drugs from the legislation, which also targets police profiling.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">“To change the classification of this behavior from a felony to a misdemeanor is tantamount to telling our schoolchildren that tomorrow it will be less dangerous to use methamphetamine than it is today,” he wrote.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Those who have a prior a felony conviction won’t be afforded misdemeanor consideration, nor will people who have two or more prior drug convictions or possess more than user amounts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The new law also directs a state commission to develop methods for recording data concerning police-initiated pedestrian and traffic stops. The measure is aimed at ensuring police aren’t stopping people based on racial or other profiling.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Marquis described the legislation as a “wolf dressed up in lamb’s clothing” because the drug provisions were tacked on to the profiling language, which had broader support.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: custom-font, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; vertical-align: baseline;">
<em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Daily Astorian contributed to this report.</span></em><br />
<em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.dailyastorian.com/Local_News/20170815/oregon-makes-drug-possession-a-misdemeanor" target="_blank">Read the article on the Daily Astorian website</a>.</span></em></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961411431611631367.post-38488114141891976052017-06-19T16:00:00.002-07:002017-06-19T16:00:39.689-07:00Recording Oregon's grand juries is wrong<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="m_-7343048988567926001gmail-m_1855083504046241538gmail-_3m6-">The
bill that would require recording all grand jury testimony is about to
pass, will likely add about $150,000 to Clatsop County costs and will
have a particularly chilling effect on the testimony of domestic
violence and child sexual abuse victims...</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5s4g6PPl3H87KTkarovwL9kdpnvXB1O7rGiG9P1F-4_LMcae6FNBk8PXBtg884Ua7zH3EMMrek9SYz2jKuC8vUfYedUvjjRqCXZlU77BflAtE7pRgaMHg4Lsu7FdC4tsFb0Hg4U_oy0Q/s1600/oregonian.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="34" data-original-width="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5s4g6PPl3H87KTkarovwL9kdpnvXB1O7rGiG9P1F-4_LMcae6FNBk8PXBtg884Ua7zH3EMMrek9SYz2jKuC8vUfYedUvjjRqCXZlU77BflAtE7pRgaMHg4Lsu7FdC4tsFb0Hg4U_oy0Q/s1600/oregonian.gif" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="m_-7343048988567926001gmail-m_1855083504046241538gmail-_3m6-"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Recording Oregon's grand juries is wrong</b></span> </span></div>
By <a href="http://connect.oregonlive.com/staff/oliveguestop/posts.html" id="byline__authorLink" title="Visit Guest Columnist's Author Page">Guest Columnist</a>
<br />
<strong>By Joshua Marquis</strong><br />
Posted on June 18, 2017 at 7:00 AM<strong> </strong><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: small;">Clatsop County District Attorney Josh Marquis argues that recording grand juries will have a chilling effect on justice. </span></b><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWzRmbr7XxMHMuKNDfJL_2bdQ7oumMoQny9k53_YnMCsuNmHhhoUO3yrvEfyeHhEDNGyeyeZaZW4hvMLvkFlP7ipx8IoPr6_a2dSIcn-aarIyNVOsbEZB84d9C8WdBZ6Zai7PLw1hq-Ts/s1600/grand+juries.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="417" data-original-width="620" height="134" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWzRmbr7XxMHMuKNDfJL_2bdQ7oumMoQny9k53_YnMCsuNmHhhoUO3yrvEfyeHhEDNGyeyeZaZW4hvMLvkFlP7ipx8IoPr6_a2dSIcn-aarIyNVOsbEZB84d9C8WdBZ6Zai7PLw1hq-Ts/s200/grand+juries.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><cite>Spencer Weiner/AP</cite></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
When it comes to public safety, Oregon has long led the way on
progressive policies: Allowing small amounts of marijuana in 1973.
Creating some of the nation's first drug courts in 1991. Providing
citizen involvement in grand juries, where criminals are charged. Now
criminal defense attorneys and a phalanx of well-financed lobbyists who
oppose victims' rights are pushing to record grand jury proceedings and
make these secret proceedings public.<br />
<br />
Their clarion call is "transparency," a new buzzword that, ironically
in this case, obfuscates the truth. The fact is that defense attorneys
want a new tool to badger and intimidate witnesses, prolong litigation
and tie up courts with procedural challenges.<br />
<br />
Rather than being honest with the public and the legislature, they enlist surrogates like Irene Kalonji whose commentary "<a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2017/06/police_killed_my_son_and_i_des.html">Police killed my son and I deserve to know the truth</a>,"
was published in The Oregonian's Opinion section on June 6. Kalonji
wrote that 19-year old son barricaded himself in a room with a rifle in
2016 and "told emergency responders that he was going to die, threatened
to shoot children, and said he believed someone had been sent to
torture and kill him." After hours of negotiations with law enforcement
and mental health professionals, the standoff tragically ended with his
death.<br />
<br />
Though not required, the district attorney presented the case to
seven grand jurors. Again per Kalonji's commentary, the grand jury
concluded that a young man who everyone agreed suffered significant
mental health issues "committed suicide by police."<br />
<br />
The outcomes Ms. Kalonji seeks are simply not relevant to the debate
over recording grand jury proceedings. The legal purpose of an Oregon
grand jury is not to bring closure for victims, witnesses or family
members of the accused. The grand jury is a reality check for
prosecutors, who have been known to "fall in love" with a case only to
be told by citizen grand jurors it lacks legal merit. A main reason
grand jury proceedings are "secret" is to protect the reputations of
those who are accused, but not indicted.<br />
<br />
Further, recording grand juries will have a chilling effect on
justice. What domestic violence victim will be willing to share her
story when she knows that a recording of her statement could be handed
over to the man who beat her or her children just days earlier? Even the
most optimistic among us know how tragically that could end.<br />
<br />
For decades, grand juries have operated inexpensively and
efficiently. Adopting recording that would achieve the current judicial
standard could exceed $10 million. Recording equipment would be required
in every county, expert clerks would be required to operate and service
the equipment, and the thousands of hours of recordings would need to
be stored for years.<br />
<br />
Assuming the legislature adopts this dangerous, misguided policy,
most district attorneys, including myself, are likely to reserve grand
juries for unusual cases. Instead, we will conduct preliminary hearings,
the way California, Idaho and more than 20 other states have to bring
cases to trial.<br />
<br />
Preliminary hearings offer the most transparency, yet
take much more time and could cost the state as much as $10 million
annually for a process, which currently isn't required.<br />
<br />
Why "fix" a system that isn't broken? In 1994, I was appointed by
Gov. Barbara Roberts after my predecessor lied to the Clatsop County
grand jury to falsely charge two police officers for crimes they never
committed. Her secret indictment and subsequent conviction reassured
citizens that the grand jury system works.<br />
<br />
There is no chance that recording grand juries will prevent the next
violent interaction between a troubled teenager and law enforcement.
Rather, it could mean the mental health services Christopher Kalonji
desperately needed will be even further out of reach for others. Instead
of sinking millions into a solution for which there is no problem, how
about the legislature invest the millions on desperately needed mental
health services? We might then have a chance to prevent the next
tragedy, instead of just recording its aftermath.<br />
<br />
<em>Joshua Marquis is in his seventh term as the Clatsop County
District Attorney. He also served as president of the Oregon District
Attorneys Association in 2001, as well as vice president of the National
District Attorneys Association.</em><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2017/06/recording_oregons_grand_juries.html" target="_blank">Read the column and its comments on the Oregonian's website</a>.<em> </em><br />
<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1961411431611631367.post-27622449176600857392017-06-19T15:52:00.000-07:002017-06-19T15:52:24.185-07:00Don't surrender to heroin and meth addiction<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The ACLU and it supporters dominated the Wednesday, June 14 hearing on HB 2355-A, chaired by Sen. Jackie Winters. Despite driving 280 miles round-trip and signed up as the only opponent willing to testify, I was not permitted to testify until over an hour into a 90-minute hearing -- and then was reminded the committee's time was too short for me to explain.<br />
<br />
This part of an otherwise not controversial racial profiling bill would reduce virtually all heroin and meth cases to misdem<span class="m_-7343048988567926001gmail-m_1855083504046241538gmail-text_exposed_show">eanors. The "harsh penalties" in Oregon are <i>possible</i> jail sentences of up to 10 days, rarely actually served, for the fourth or fifth PCS Heroin conviction.</span><br />
<br />
Most disturbing, and unmentioned in this story, is the almost certainty that by removing felonies as the coercive lever that drives most addicts into drug court, drug court will simply cease to exist.<br />
Supporters of the bill were candid in their belief that law enforcement has no real role at all in limiting open heroin or meth use and addiction.<br />
<br />
I'm not prepared to abandon all those humans just yet....<br />
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by Lincoln Graves, KATU News</div>
<div class="sd-news-date" data-date="1497501107000" style="text-align: left;">
Wednesday, June 14th 2017</div>
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<h1>
<span style="font-size: large;">Bill in Oregon Legislature would reclassify some felony drug crimes as misdemeanors</span></h1>
<span class="dateline">SALEM, Ore. — </span>A bill being considered in the Oregon Legislature would change the way small-scale drug crimes are treated in Oregon.<br />
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<a href="https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2017R1/Downloads/MeasureDocument/HB2355/Introduced" target="_blank">HB 2355</a> is aimed at reducing unjust profiling in Oregon. However, the part of the bill that deals with drug crime classification has drawn most of the controversy. <br />
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"This bill runs up the white flag," said Joshua Marquis, district attorney for Clatsop County. "It surrenders to heroin and meth addiction. The message we're sending, not only to criminals but the community, by de-felonizing these drugs is, 'it's just that big of a deal.'"<br />
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Marquis says a felony drug crime, simply by the nature of its severity, acts as a deterrent to future drug use. <br />
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"We're talking about providing the incentives, frankly the coercive tools to force people who are in addiction into treatment," said Marquis.<br />
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The ACLU of Oregon fired back at that assumption.<br />
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"The idea that there isn’t still some penalty associated with not going through your treatment and not actually doing the things you’re supposed to do when you get this misdemeanor, that’s just absolutely false," said Kimberly McCollough, policy director for the ACLU of Oregon. "The war on drugs has failed. We need to start treating drug use and addiction as a public health issue." <br />
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The debate over drug crime classification has overshadowed the main goal of the bill -- reducing profiling in Oregon. The bill would require law enforcement agencies collect data on the age, race, ethnicity, and sex of a person contacted during a traffic or pedestrian stop. That data would then be reviewed by 2020 and it would be used to develop strategies for reducing profiling. Drug crime classification became part of the bill during task force discussions. <br />
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"The drug war is inextricably tied up in and intertwined with the issue of profiling," said McCollough. "In order to find out who's using drugs or who possesses drugs there's a real incentive to try to search folks. What we found is that profiling is often amplified, that disparities are often amplified in those discretionary decisions to search someone."<br />
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The bill is still in committee but proponents are optimistic about its eventual passage.<br />
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