Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Clatsop District Attorney Files Suit Against City Of Astoria

Well, we've quoted ORS 8.660 and accompanying text over and over and still some of the key players, it seems, continue to ignore it or better yet, just simply deny it exists.
Now, the citizens of Astoria, as of Monday, the 26th of September, are under a law suit by the Oregon Department of justice on behalf of Clatsop County District Attorney to ensure all parties comply with ORS 8.660 in the prosecution, at the least, of all DUII's cited in the City of Astoria.
You can read the full text of the suit by clicking on the text below.

19 comments:

River God said...

This is excellent and exactly what should happen. Decisions on what the law says must be the responsiblity of the court. Now, hopefully, a duly consititued court of law will tell us what the law means rather than a newspaper editor or a blogger. This is the way it is supposed to be in the USA. It is actually a principle reason we have courts in the first place.
Thanks, Attorney General Kroger for filing the petition and thanks, Patrick, for getting it to us.

Tom T. said...

You think Willis' little lap dog, playmate buddy mighta just spent a night in a Holiday Inn Express somewhere and just thinks he's an attorney?

Brian Van Gundy said...

221.339 Jurisdiction of municipal court; prosecutions by city attorney. (1) A municipal court has concurrent jurisdiction with circuit courts and justice courts over all violations committed or triable in the city where the court is located.

(2) Except as provided in subsections (3) and (4) of this section, municipal courts have concurrent jurisdiction with circuit courts and justice courts over misdemeanors committed or triable in the city. Municipal courts may exercise the jurisdiction conveyed by this section without a charter provision or ordinance authorizing that exercise.

(3) Municipal courts have no jurisdiction over felonies.

(4) A city may limit the exercise of jurisdiction over misdemeanors by a municipal court under this section by the adoption of a charter provision or ordinance, except that municipal courts must retain concurrent jurisdiction with circuit courts over:

(a) Misdemeanors created by the city’s own charter or by ordinances adopted by the city, as provided in ORS 3.132; and

(b) Traffic crimes as defined by ORS 801.545.

(5) Subject to the powers and duties of the Attorney General under ORS 180.060, the city attorney has authority to prosecute a violation of any offense created by statute that is subject to the jurisdiction of a municipal court, including any appeal, if the offense is committed or triable in the city. The prosecution shall be in the name of the state. The city attorney shall have all powers of a district attorney in prosecutions under this subsection. [1999 c.1051 §40]



Note: 221.339 was enacted into law by the Legislative Assembly but was not added to or made a part of ORS chapter 221 or any series therein by legislative action. See Preface to Oregon Revised Statutes for further explanation.

Anonymous said...

Tom T.
Who are you slandering?
A name would be good.
Willis has lots of friends. Maybe even more than you.
You can become an attorney by spending the night in a Holiday Inn? Cool, could you provide more details please?

Brian,
Could Pat McGee have missed this law saying municipal courts have concurrant jurisdiction with circuit courts? God forbid!
Maybe that means the District Attorney would have to prosecte in municipal court.

Patrick McGee said...

No.....I didn't miss it "Anonym".
Did you read it thoroughly yourself?

Anonymous said...

Of course, Patrick, I thorougly read all the things you send to improve us. As usual, the law says what it says and doesn't say what it doesn't say. Maybe that's one of the reasons we have courts and judges. You think?

Patrick McGee said...

TYPICAL STATE OF OREGON DUII PENALTIES


OFFENSE / CONVICTION RANGE OF PENALTIES
FIRST OFFENSE
misdemeanor Defendant typically will enter the diversion program if eligible; if not eligible for diversion, see FIRST CONVICTION below.₁

FIRST DUII CONVICTION
misdemeanor 18 to 36 months probation;
2 - 10 days jail;
$1,000 to $2,000 fine;
several hundred dollars in add'l fees;
one year license suspension;
substance abuse treatment classes;
victims impact panel class.

SECOND DUII CONVICTION
misdemeanor 24 to 36 months probation;
8 - 30 days jail;
$1,500 to $2,000 fine;
several hundred dollars in add'l fees;
one to three year license suspension (three years if prior conviction was w/in past five years);
substance abuse treatment classes;
victims impact panel class.

THIRD DUII CONVICTION
misdemeanor
(no more than one conviction w/in past ten years) 36+ months probation;
30 - 180 days jail;
$2,000+ fine;
several hundred dollars in add'l fees;
lifetime license revocation₂;
substance abuse treatment classes;
victims impact panel class.

THIRD DUII CONVICTION
felony (effective 12.2.2010)
(both prior convictions w/in past ten years) 36 to 60 months probation;
at least 90 days jail (possible prison time);
$2,000+ fine;
several hundred dollars in add'l fees;
lifetime license revocation₂;
substance abuse treatment classes;
victims impact panel class.

Note 1: Successful completion of diversion will allow a defendant to avoid a conviction and obtain a dismissal of the DUII charge. More information on the diversion program is set forth below.
Note 2: You can apply for reinstatement after serving at least ten years of the revocation. No hardship permit is permitted on a lifetime revocation.

Anonymous said...

Patrick, you list the "typical" penalties for DUII convictions for some reason or just because you own this website?
If you are implying, which you obviously are, that the Astoria municipal court is not abiding by these penalities, please provide the cases and facts.

Patrick McGee said...

TYPICAL STATE OF OREGON DUII PENALTIES.........

Anonymous said...

Ah, yes, well you do own the website don't you!

Anonymous said...

It is really intersting that the Clatsop County DA has the resourses in this time of financial crisis to take on over 100 more cases a year. Since he has all this extra time, could we save money by reducing the size of his office?

Anonymous said...

According to the city is will be about 25 cases a year that don't go to diversion, of which maybe one-third will go to trial. So 8 cases in an office that handles over 1500 crimes a year won't require any more staff or money.
Of course threatening to cut the DA's Office if it dares to seriously prosecute DUII cases is exactly what we would expect from the GOBs.

Anonymous said...

DA Marquis only handles 1500 cases a year? From the last statistics I saw, that is about half of what the Astoria Police generate, and says nothing about cases from Seaside, Gearhardt, Cannon Beach and Warrenton. Astoria generates at least 2500 cases a year and Seaside generates at least 1700. What happens to all the cases over the 1500 you cite? Does Josh actually dump all the cases in favor of prosecuting only the ones that are slam dunk?
You can get the actual data from the state or UCR if you want.
By the way, I doubt sailors really care about what the DA or Astoria does. Why do you think they do?

Not a Diety said...

That's because the DA only counts CRIMES, like drug dealing, murder, burglary. IF you include violations the DA handles about 7000 cases a year but the City is citing speeding and parking tickets for which under Oregon law a prosecutor cannot appear unless the defendant HIRED a lawyer.
So much for your claim the DA is underworked or overstaffed.
The County paid for a study 4 years ago of their choosing which
showed that the DA' office was doing about twice the work as similar offices with the same staff.

Anonymous said...

You might want to check your stuff, Not. APD actually generates over 1500 CRIMINAL cases a year and over 1600 traffic citations. This data says nothing about the cases generated by the other cities. Seaside, just by itself, may produce another 1000 CRIMES.
Josh must really be winnowing the cases down to slam dunks if he only handles 1500 a year.
And, a study showing Josh is doing twice as much work as every other DA? That sounds like crap to me and, I bet, the other DAs. My recollection is that Josh said to the paper that he does twice as much work, not a study. That would be no surprise, except that he didn't say three times as much.

Anonymous said...

Crime in Oregon, a report produced by the State Police and based on Uniform Crime Reports, shows crimes reported to the police and does not include traffic tickets. For 2009, the latest year, it shows the Astoria Police reported 186 crimes against persons, 770 crimes against property and 1435 behavorial crimes, including 98 DUIIs for a total of 2424 criminal reports. For the same period, the total crimes in Clatsop County was 5473.
It also says there were only 1474 arrests made.
Our cops must be really bad in solving crimes. Maybe Josh could devote some attention to helping them?

Anonymous said...

Someone can ask Chief Curzon and Mayor Van Dusen about why the stats for Astoria are
like they are?

Anonymous said...

Actually, these statistics show the Sheriff's Office, with many more officers than Astoria PD or even Seaside PD, makes 57% fewer arrests than APD and also takes 40%fewer cases to add to the total of 1474 arrests total in the county. Someone should be asking Sheriff Bergin, not Chief Curzon why CCSO has so many deputies to so much less work than the city cops.

Anonymous said...

So now the City can't STOP talking
and claims it wants to avoid a lawsuit
that was filed after two years of the
DA tried to get the City to do the
right thing.
As Don Webb asked..."Why is the City
willing to spend tens of thousands of taxpayer
dollars" if as they claim they don't care
where DUIIS are tried.
The DA has repeatedly said why he
wants his office to handle DUIIs.
What is the City's reason- money?
They told the legislature it wasn't making
money
Now they're thrilled they have a judge whose
pedigree exceeds Willis' and has (only one)
DUII.