In State v. Vasquez-Rubio, the defendant was charged under ORS 166.272 with unlawful possession of a machine gun after officers seized the weapon during a search of his home. The trial court convicted the defendant without requiring the state to prove that the machine gun was not registered as required under federal law, treating that aspect as a matter for the defense rather than an element of the offense. On appeal, the Court of Appeals reversed, and the Oregon Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the statutory text makes non-registration part of the crime's definition. The court reached this conclusion through textual analysis of the statute and application of longstanding interpretive rules requiring the prosecution to prove exceptions that are descriptive of the offense.
In State v. Dahl, police responded to an anonymous report of a man waving a gun and ordered the defendant to exit his house with his hands raised; after he complied, officers observed signs of intoxication, obtained his admission to driving, and charged him with driving under the influence of intoxicants. The defendant moved to suppress the evidence, arguing that the order amounted to an unlawful seizure inside his home without probable cause under Article I, section 9, of the Oregon Constitution and the Fourth Amendment. The trial court denied the motion, finding no forced entry and upholding the arrest, and the Court of Appeals affirmed without opinion. The Oregon Supreme Court reversed, holding that the defendant's compliance with the police command constituted a seizure that required probable cause, which the officers lacked at the time of the order, and remanded the case for further proceedings.
The case concerned whether the Oregon Court of Appeals had jurisdiction to review a local apprenticeship committee's cancellation of a non-probationary apprentice pipefitter's agreement under the state Administrative Procedures Act (APA). The Supreme Court held that the committee's decision constituted a final order in a contested case, granting the Court of Appeals jurisdiction and reversing its dismissal of the petition for review. The court reached this conclusion after noting respondents' concession that the cancellation implicated the apprentice's legal rights and privileges under ORS 183.310(2)(a)(A) and (B), finding no statutory exemption from contested-case procedures in ORS 660.060(7) or elsewhere in the APA, and determining that the written cancellation notice was not merely preliminary agency action.
In Double Eagle Golf, Inc. v. City of Portland, the plaintiff sued the City of Portland under ORS 279.067, alleging that the City violated ORS 279.029(1) by awarding a concession contract to operate concessions at a municipal golf course to a bidder other than the lowest responsible bidder. The trial court granted partial summary judgment to the City, the Court of Appeals affirmed, and the Oregon Supreme Court affirmed on different grounds. The court held that ORS 279.029(1), which requires public contracting agencies to award contracts to the lowest responsible bidder, does not apply to the award of concession contracts at municipal golf courses. The core reasoning was that the statute's text and purpose address situations where an agency purchases goods or services and seeks to minimize costs, whereas concession contracts involve leasing to raise revenue, so the agency properly seeks the highest responsible bidder.
This case involves the automatic review of a death sentence imposed on Randy Lee Guzek after his 1988 convictions for aggravated murder. On remand for a new penalty-phase trial, the trial court admitted victim impact testimony from the victims' family members describing their personal characteristics and the effects of the deaths. The Oregon Supreme Court vacated the death sentence, holding that such evidence was not admissible under ORS 163.150 because it was irrelevant to the three statutory questions the jury was required to answer regarding the defendant's deliberateness, future dangerousness, and mitigating circumstances focused on the defendant and the offense. The court reasoned that the statute's text and history limit the sentencing inquiry to factors concerning the defendant's character, record, and the circumstances of the crime, without authorizing consideration of victim impact evidence, and that this conclusion is a matter of state statutory law following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Payne v. Tennessee.
The case concerned a petition for post-conviction relief after the petitioner was convicted of second-degree sexual abuse based on allegations by a 12-year-old girl with a learning disability. The petitioner argued that his trial counsel provided inadequate assistance under Article I, section 11, of the Oregon Constitution by failing to interview school staff and classmates who could have impeached the complaining witness's account of reporting the incident and her behavior afterward, and by not obtaining a medical examination to assess whether the petitioner was impotent at the time. The court held that the petitioner was entitled to relief because the case turned on credibility, and counsel's omissions in investigation would have had a tendency to affect the outcome. The decision rested on the standard that inadequate assistance includes acts or omissions with a tendency to affect the result, without requiring proof that the outcome would have changed.