A Columbia County circuit court judge has set a "date certain" for the trial of a man who allegedly sodomized a young boy after OCVLC pro bono attorney Lillian Salminen invoked the victim's right to a speedy trial.
The trial, which is set to begin on Jan. 24, 2012, has been scheduled to take place five times since the defendant was indicted in 2009 but has been reset for various reasons. The judge told Salminen and attorneys for the State and the defendant that "The Court has had to bump other cases that are nearly as old as [this case], and we have done so to get this case scheduled in a timely manner given the circumstances. There will not be any further resets." The "circumstances" cited by Salminen in her motion and a subsequent letter to the Court included the facts that the victim, who was five and six years old when the crimes alleged in the indictment occurred, is now nine and he and his family need to get the trial behind him. Under Oregon statutory law, victims have the right to have the trial of their cases proceed with "all practicable speed." Salminen, who has been doing pro bono work for the center since October 3, 2011, previously worked on child-protection issues as an assistant attorney general in Arizona. On October 21, the heads of the Oregon State Hospital (OSH) and the Psychiatric Security Review Board (PSRB) today apologized to a victim, whose wife and 11-year-old daughter were killed by a mentally ill man, for not notifying him when the man escaped from OSH on Sept. 3. They also explained why he did not receive notice, outlined the steps they have taken to prevent similar incidents and pledged to seek funding for a computerized notification system.
The victim, Jon Benson, lost his wife and daughter in 2009 when Matthew Daniel Ingle’s car collided with theirs in Clackamas County while Ingle was experiencing schizophrenic delusions and under the influence of marijuana and anti-psychotic and anti-depressant drugs. With Benson’s approval, he was allowed to be found guilty but insane of two charges of Manslaughter in the Second Degree and a charge of Driving Under the Influence of Intoxicants. He was committed to OSH and placed under the jurisdiction of the PSRB. The trial judge also ordered that Benson was to notified if Ingle escaped. The Oregon Crime Victims Law Center, which represents Benson, filed a claim of violation of his rights to notice and to be treated with dignity and respect after the hospital and the PSRB failed not only to notify him of Ingle’s escape on Sept. 3, but to contact him when Ingle was apprehended on Sept. 20. Benson agreed to the meeting, in lieu of a public hearing on the claim, at OSU’s and the PSRB’s request. At the meeting, OSU Superintendent Greg Roberts and PSRB Executive Director Mary Claire Buckley told Benson that the failure to notify him resulted from a change in computer systems at OSH. “Years ago, we agreed that OSU would be responsible for notice for escapes from OSH,” Buckley said. “Their old computer system had a process for that. Then they changed computer systems, and that piece didn’t get switched over. They didn’t know it, and they didn’t know that they didn’t know it.” Roberts said that as a result of this incident, OSH changed its system for notifying victims and “tightened up” its procedures for allowing patients like Ingle to be outside the institution. Ingle was on an approved walk with other patients and staff when he escaped to a car that was waiting for him. On Oct. 13, Ingle pled guilty to a charge of Escape in Marion County Circuit Court. His sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 16. Buckley told Benson that she had scheduled a meeting, for early December, to determine the cost of the agencies becoming part of the online victim notification system, VINELink, that the Oregon Department of Corrections has used for years. She noted that Crime Victims United of Oregon – whose president, Steve Doell, serves on OCVLC’s board of directors – and others previously had urged that the system be used for convicted defendants who had been placed under her board’s jurisdiction but that the costs precluded it. She pledged to search for funding for the system after its cost is established in December. The OCVLC will follow-up with Buckley after that meeting. The OCVLC has asked a federal judge to look into an affidavit submitted by a man who was convicted of sodomizing his then-teenage daughter as part of his claim of "actual innocence." On Oct. 11, the OCVLC, which represents the victim, now 25, submitted an affidavit to U.S. District Judge Thomas Coffin of Eugene in which the victim reiterated her 2003 testimony that her father had sexually assaulted her.
OCVLC Legal Director Janine Robben also submitted a sworn declaration in which she questioning an affidavit that the victim had signed, in 2006, retracting the allegations. Robben, a former fraud prosecutor, told the Court that in her opinion, the 2006 affidavit was a "cut-and-paste" of a letter the victim had written onto a typed affidavit prepared by someone else. The defendant, who was convicted in Polk County Circuit Court, currently is serving time at the Snake River Correctional Institution with an expected release date of 2019. He has filed a petition for post-conviction relief alleging, among other things, that his convictions should be vacated because he actually is innocent of the crimes of which he was convicted. Thanks to the efforts of one victim and OCVLC pro bono attorney Olufunmike "Fumi" Owoso, Multnomah County has set aside its 1992 order that resulted in victims whose defendants had appealed their convictions not getting any restitution payments until the appeals were concluded.The county set aside the order, which the OCVLC maintained violated victims'
statutory right to restitution and constitutional right to "prompt restitution," shortly after the OCVLC called it to the county's attention on Sept. 30, 2011. The victim in this case complained to the county and to the OCVLC because he has not yet received a penny of the $52,901.15 in restitution the defendant, Randy Ray Richardson, was ordered to pay him in 2009. The victim incurred the costs in getting his ailing and elderly aunt's house back after Richardson and another defendant defrauded her into signing it away. Richardson, who is a former Multnomah County deputy district attorney, also was sentenced to 30 months in prison. His appeal of his convictions remains pending. Richardson, who subsequently was disbarred, lives in Portland is under post-prison supervision. The OCVLC thanks the victim for his persistence, Fumi for her work and Multnomah County for taking immediate action to revoke the policy. OCVLC pro bono attorney Lillian Salminen has obtained a permanent stalking order for a Yamhill County resident whose parents' now-adult former foster child has repeatedly threatened her.
“This case is exactly the kind of case the stalking law was meant for," Judge Cynthia Easterday said at the conclusion of a 80-minute hearing on Oct. 7. The order makes permanent a temporary stalking order the victim herself had obtained against her stalker on Sept. 6. He also faces a criminal charge of Harassment for some of the same conduct that resulted in the stalking order. The victim told the court that the defendant lived with her parents as a foster child while she was growing up. She said that her problems with him began in July, after he was released from jail, where he had been serving time on an unrelated offense. The victim had allowed him to stay with her, her husband and children but told him he would have to leave when he wouldn’t obey the house rules. Subsequently, the defendant repeatedly telephoned and came to the house, swearing at and threatening her and her family and, on one occasion spitting on her. For the full article, click the attachment below.
On Sept. 9, the Oregon Supreme Court held that where the defendant in a criminal Stalking case has been prohibited, by a civil stalking protective order, from communicating with the victim, the prosecution does not have to prove that he communicated an unequivocal threat to the victim to obtain a conviction on the Stalking charge. The ruling (State v. John Norman Ryan, Seeattachment below) reversed the Oregon Court of Appeals, which earlier had held that convicting the defendant in this case of Stalking, without such an unequivocal threat, violated his constitutional right to free speech.
As a result of the ruling, the defendant’s two convictions for stalking a former Portland Tribuneeditor – whom the defendant met at a public event and with whom he has been pursuing a fantasy relationship for six years – will be reinstated. The defendant currently is a patient at Oregon State Hospital, where he is being evaluated to determine whether he is able to aid and assist his attorney in his defense against new charges of Stalking. The new charges involve the same victim and her extended family. Although the defendant never has explicitly threatened the victim or her family, the imaginary nature of his “relationship” with them, his apparent mental-health issues and the long-standing nature of his personal and written contacts have, needless to say, alarmed them and made them feel threatened. The Oregon Department of Justice argued the appeal for the State. The Oregon Crime Victims Law Center, along with the Portland-based National Crime Victim Law Institute and the Oregon Law Center, also filed an amici curiae “friend of the court” brief to educate the Oregon Supreme Court about the trauma that stalking causes and its prevalence. Thanks to the OCVLC's and the Yamhill County District Attorney's Office's cooperative relationship, we were able to stop the defendant in a domestic violence case from potentially getting access to allof a victim's mental health records.
The defendant had sought to have the records reviewed by the trial court judge for potential release to him without providing the victim with notice of his subpoena for them or stating sufficient factual or legal authority for his request. The OCVLC opposed the subpoena, and any judicial review of the records, on the grounds that the lack of notice violated the federal HIPAA Privacy Rule and the request violated the victim's constitutional rights to privacy and to refuse a defense discovery request, as well as the psychotherapist-privilege. On Sept. 14, Yamhill County Judge Carroll Tichenor told the defendant's attorney - who apologized for the lack of notice to the victim - that unless she could re-do the subpoena to meet legal requirements, he was going to return the records to the victim's mental-health provider unopened. The Yamhill County District Attorney's Office had referred the victim to the OCVLC for legal representation after it received notice of the subpoena. District attorneys' offices, which represent the interests of the People of the State of Oregon, do not typically represent individual victims when defendants request their personal information. |
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