Oregon Supreme Court

The Oregon Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court judgment in case 21CR41830, reversed the judgment in case 22CR24774 and remanded it for further proceedings. It held that the Court of Appeals erred by affirming on an alternative procedural basis and that the criminal citation was not lawfully issued because it was…

The Oregon Supreme Court vacated the Court of Appeals' decision and remanded the case for the appellate court to reconsider the validity of OAR 291-100-0080(3)(c) in light of the 2026 statutory amendments to ORS 137.320 and ORS 137.370, addressing whether intervening legislative changes affect a pending facial…

The court held that first-degree criminal mistreatment requires proof that a defendant knowingly kept back food or care that the defendant could access and provide and that the dependent person needed for bodily health.

The Oregon Supreme Court held that the original indictment was substantively defective because it omitted the essential allegation of threatened immediate use of force, so the amendment without grand jury approval was improper and the error was not harmless.

The court held that the statutory requirement to use only clear and objective standards for regulating housing development did not apply to the proposed public road on an adjacent public right-of-way.

The Oregon Supreme Court affirmed the disciplinary panel’s 90‑day suspension of Sean L. Kyle, finding clear and convincing evidence of four professional‑conduct violations and noting that, because Kyle filed no briefing, the court could limit its de novo review to the issues presented by the record.

The court dismissed the alternative writ because the amended discovery statute on which the relator primarily relied did not apply to his criminal case. The court held that the amendments applied based on the alleged crime-commission dates, not the date the charges were filed.

The court held that instructing the jury that it could convict by a nonunanimous vote violated the Sixth Amendment, but the error was not structural. Because the jury poll established unanimous verdicts on four counts and the record provided no nonspeculative basis to conclude that the instruction affected those…

The court held that the defendant’s unpreserved Sixth Amendment challenge to convictions based on nonunanimous jury verdicts qualified for plain-error review and that the court should exercise its discretion to correct the error.

The court held that the post-conviction court had not resolved whether trial counsel's failure to request a limiting instruction was constitutionally inadequate and had applied an incorrect prejudice standard.

The court held that OEC 404(4) supersedes OEC 404(3) in criminal cases, allowing relevant other-acts evidence for propensity purposes subject to constitutional limits. In child-sexual-abuse prosecutions, due process requires trial courts to apply OEC 403 balancing, and the underwear evidence was logically relevant to…

The court held that both Comcast’s cable television and internet access services are “data transmission services” under the central-assessment statutes because they transmit electronically coded information between computers or computer-like devices.

The Oregon Supreme Court held that ORCP 59 H—which ORS 136.330(2) makes applicable to criminal actions—does not govern preservation of instructional error for purposes of appellate review and does not preclude an appellate court from reviewing a claim under the court's traditional plain error doctrine; the rule…

The Oregon Supreme Court held that the warrantless entry of the defendant's residence was justified under the emergency aid exception to Article I, section 9 of the Oregon Constitution because officers had an objectively reasonable belief, based on articulable facts, that immediate aid was needed to prevent serious…

The Oregon Supreme Court held that defendant preserved her argument that police exceeded a premises-search warrant by searching her purse. It nevertheless affirmed because, when evidence is obtained under a warrant, the defendant bears the burden of proving the search unlawful, and the record did not establish facts…

The Oregon Supreme Court held that evidence obtained in a consent search of the defendant's purse was admissible because her consent was neither the product of an unlawful seizure nor derived through exploitation of the concededly unlawful initial stop, in which uniformed officers without reasonable suspicion…

The court held that several experts impermissibly vouched for the credibility of alleged child-abuse victims by explaining why their statements appeared truthful in the context of diagnoses based solely on the children’s accounts.

The court held that police unlawfully extended each defendant’s traffic stop by pursuing unrelated questioning and consent searches after the traffic-related investigation was complete, without reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.

The court held that the KIDS Center's diagnosis of child sexual abuse was scientifically valid, but inadmissible because it offered little assistance beyond the jury's own credibility assessment and created a substantial risk that the jury would defer to the expert.

The Oregon Supreme Court held that a defendant's mere oral refusal to obey an officer's directive to move from one place to another, unaccompanied by any physical act, does not constitute a 'physical interference or obstacle' under ORS 162.235(1), and it reversed Gaines's conviction for obstructing governmental or…

The Oregon Supreme Court held that ordinary preservation rules apply when a party challenges a trial court's failure to make the special findings required for dismissal as a discovery sanction.

The Oregon Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals’ decision that the trial judge’s upward‑departure sentencing findings constituted plain error, holding that the appellate court abused its discretion by reviewing an unpreserved Sixth‑Amendment error.

The Oregon Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals' decision that vacated a probation sentence and remanded for resentencing, holding that the appellate court abused its discretion by considering an unpreserved plain error based solely on a "no valid interest" rationale.

The court held that the Sixth Amendment requires a jury to find facts that Oregon law makes necessary for imposing consecutive sentences when those findings increase the defendant's aggregate punishment beyond what the jury's verdict alone authorizes.

The Oregon Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals' decision that had treated an unpreserved Sixth Amendment sentencing claim as plain error and vacated the defendant's departure sentence, and affirmed the circuit court's judgment that the sentence was proper.

The Oregon Supreme Court held that the trial court erred in excluding, as too remote, the murder victim's pre-March 1996 statements about her suicidal obsession with defendant, which supported defendant's sole-defense theory that she shot herself; the state conceded on review that the statements were relevant under…

The court held that sufficient evidence supported the jury’s finding that Farmers had modified or waived the contract’s at-will termination provision, or was estopped from relying on it.

The Oregon Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment for the State of Oregon on all three of Outdoor Media Dimensions' claims arising from the state's removal of billboards under the Oregon Motorist Information Act (OMIA).

The Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals, which had set aside defendant's rape, sexual abuse, and delivery-of-controlled-substance convictions because the trial court excluded his forensic expert as a sanction for a reciprocal-discovery violation without considering less onerous sanctions.

The court held that a defendant who intentionally kills one victim commits only one separately punishable aggravated-murder offense, even when multiple aggravating circumstances support separate aggravated-murder counts.

The court vacated the death sentence and remanded for a new penalty-phase proceeding. It held that the defendant could waive ex post facto protection so the jury could consider life imprisonment without parole, that the trial court improperly restricted portions of his unsworn allocution, and that a neuropsychologist…

The court held that, for second-degree assault, the statutory term "knowingly" requires proof that the defendant was aware of the assaultive nature of his conduct and that the conduct in fact caused serious physical injury.

The court held that the trial court properly excluded cross-examination offered solely to lay a foundation for contradicting a witness on a collateral matter, but erred under OEC 401 by excluding evidence that the witness threatened a defense witness because the threat reasonably tended to show bias.

The court held that Oregon's stalking statute is not facially overbroad under either Article I, section 8, of the Oregon Constitution or the First Amendment. It sustained narrowing constructions requiring a communication-based contact to include a genuine, objectively reasonable threat that convincingly expresses an…

The court affirmed the convictions and death sentences after rejecting all preserved claims of guilt-phase and penalty-phase error. It held that the defendant was not entitled to substitute appointed counsel, that the homicide-related charges were properly joined, and that the evidence supported the burglary-based…

The Oregon Supreme Court held that a civil action filed by an indigent incarcerated plaintiff commences when the complaint is received by the court clerk, not when the fee‑deferral is granted, and affirmed that the plaintiff had preserved the issue for appellate review, resulting in a partial reversal and remand of…

The Oregon Supreme Court held that the 1995 amendment to ORCP 47 C codified, without material change, the summary judgment standards previously announced by the court, and did not shift the burden of production to a nonmoving party on issues as to which that party would bear the burden of proof at trial.

The court held that the restrictive covenant's prohibitions on use for anything other than residential purposes and on commercial enterprises were ambiguous as applied to defendants' short-term vacation rentals.

The court affirmed all seven convictions and the death sentence. It held that defendant's post-arrest statements were properly admitted, the statutory and evidentiary rulings did not constitute reversible error, and extreme emotional disturbance was not a defense to aggravated murder.

The court held that the state must prove, as an element of unlawful possession of a machine gun, that the machine gun was not registered as required under federal law. The statutory text and context characterize nonregistration as part of the offense rather than an affirmative defense, and the court declined to invoke…