As a former Assistant District Attorney, you would think that Representative Marty Wilde (D-Eugene) would have more respect for the Oregon Constitution and the 14th Amendment or for the 17 rural districts affected by his introduction of HB 2998. This bill provides that a party or prosecuting attorney may not move to disqualify a judge in a judicial district with three or fewer circuit court judges.

The bill sets up an inequitable justice system for 17 rural Circuit Courts by prohibiting a “fair and impartial trial or hearing” by not allowing disqualifying a judge in the 17 rural Circuit Courts. For those circuits with more than three judges, when a judge is compromised in conducting a “fair and impartial trial,” it may “apply to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to send a judge to try the cause, matter or proceeding.” Why shouldn’t the rural Circuit Courts have the same rights and option?

The Oregon Constitution, Article I, Section 20. “Equality of privileges and immunities of citizens. No law shall be passed granting to any citizen or class of citizens privileges, or immunities, which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens.” Article IV, Section 23, “The Legislative Assembly, shall not pass special or local laws, in any of the following enumerated cases, that is to say: — Regulating the jurisdiction, and duties of justices of the peace, and of constables; For the punishment of Crimes, and Misdemeanors; Regulating the practice in Courts of Justice; Providing for changing the venue in civil, and Criminal cases.”

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Then there's the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, “No State shall make or enforce any Law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Is the process more important than justice? Courts denied this right: Baker, Benton, Clatsop, Columbia, Crook, Curry, Grant, Harney, Hood River, Jefferson, Lake, Lincoln, Malheur, Polk, Tillamook, Union, and Wasco.

Hearing is scheduled for March 2 in the House Committee on Judiciary at 1:00pm.


--Donna Bleiler

Post Date: 2021-02-28 09:39:19

Last Update: 2021-02-27 17:41:01