Citing the Clatsop County District Attorney's Office lacks standing over the State of Oregon, Astoria City Attorney Blair Henningsgaard has filed a motion to dismiss the DUII lawsuit against the city by District Attorney Josh Marquis.
The lawsuit was filed in September by Oregon Attorney General John Kroger on behalf of Marquis, claiming the city needs to turn over the cases to Circuit Court and cease handling misdemeanor DUIIs in Municipal Court.
This is ORS 8.660 that clearly states the position of a County District Attorney. Use This Law in Balance with your reading City of Astoria's "Dismiss Motion" in shaping your thinking
Attending court and prosecuting offenses
(1) The district attorney shall attend the terms of all courts having jurisdiction of public offenses within the district attorney’s county, and, except as otherwise provided in this section, conduct, on behalf of the state, all prosecutions for such offenses therein.
(2) A district attorney shall not conduct prosecutions under this section when:
(a) A city attorney is prosecuting a violation under ORS chapter 153;
or (b) The district attorney is prohibited from appearing in a violation proceeding under the provisions of ORS 153.076 (Conduct of trial). [Amended by 1975 c.451 §170; 1981 c.626 §1; 1981 c.692 §6a; 1999 c.1051 §116]
5 comments:
Thank you very much, Patrick, for not only providing a summary but passing along the entire motion. Seems like Astoria has made a very technical, but quite persuasive argument. And it even cites law and the Attorney General opinions. But, at least this matter is where it should be, in court. Hopefully, we will soon know the results.
Thanks again. This is a great article.
Seems to me, though, that ORS 8.660will definitely play into this in Marquis' favor and will indeed provide for his standing in the case and contrary to Henningsgaard's suggestion.
Maybe, but unless we want to play CNN and try to figure out what the President is going to say 10 minutes before he says it, we will be able to find out the answer to your questions and many others when the judge rules.
I was going to query the "Sandbagging/paper-making" scenario but, decided on "The Law" versus "Henningsgaard Conjecture" instead.
You are correct of course in letting "The Court" rule on it and as it should be and hopefully before a truckload of our money is used up in determining what should have been determined in the first place.
Just so folks know, Josh says there will be a hearing on the motion to dismiss on January 6, 2012.
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