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State of Oregon Law Library Legal Research Blog

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02/21/2024
profile-icon Lynne Palombo

The State of Oregon Law Library (SOLL) is thrilled to announce that we are celebrating our 50th anniversary of providing federal government documents to the public!

The Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) was created to make sure people have access to government information at the local level. Under Title 44 of the United States Code, the public has free access to government documents in designated depository libraries. SOLL officially joined the FDLP program in February 1974.

There are two types of depositories in the FDLP: regional and selective depositories. Regional depositories receive copies of all federal government documents. In Oregon, our regional depository is the State Library of Oregon. 

SOLL is a selective federal depository library. That means we choose which federal publications to add to our collection.

Here are some examples of government documents available at the law library:

 

Visit the State of Oregon Law Library at 1163 State St., Salem, Oregon or online at https://oregon.gov/soll/

02/23/2023
profile-icon Lynne Palombo

 

1913 General Laws of Oregon with Lady Justice statue in background.  Photo: Melissa Beer | State of Oregon Law Library

One hundred and ten years ago, on February 25, 1913, Oregon's State Library was reorganized and renamed the Supreme Court Library. The Supreme Court Library had previously been operating under the title "Oregon Territorial Library" since its creation by Congress in 1848, and later as the "State Library" when Oregon achieved statehood in 1859. 

The newly designated Supreme Court Library's focus was solely legal research under the control of the Oregon Supreme Court.

 

Be it enacted by the People of the State of Oregon:
Section 1. The library now known as the State Library
shall hereafter be known and designated as the Supreme Court
Library of Oregon, and the officer now known as the State
Librarian shall be known and designated as the Librarian
of the Supreme Court Library, and all laws now in force
relating to the State Library and the duties of the State
Librarian, except such as are herein amended, and making
appropriation for and directing money to be paid to the State
Library, shall apply to and be enforced by the Supreme Court
Library of Oregon, and the Librarian of the Supreme Court
Library. --Oregon Laws 1913, chapter 249

The Supreme Court Library became known as the State of Oregon Law Library in 2001, the name we still operate under today.

Note: The 1913 law also renamed the Oregon Library Commission to the Oregon State Library, and in 2017 the name was changed again to the State Library of Oregon.

For more historical facts, read our previous blog posts on Oregon history.

02/22/2022
profile-icon Lynne Palombo

 Transcript of 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Voting Rights (1870) Fortieth Congress of the United States of America;  At the third Session, Begun and held at the city of Washington, on Monday, the seventh day of December, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight.  A Resolution Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States.  Resolved by the Senate and House of Respresentatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, (two-thirds of both Houses concurring) that the following article be proposed to the legislature of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States which, when ratified by three-fourths of said legislatures shall be valid as part of the Constitution, namely:  Article XV.  Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude—  Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Passed by Congress February 26, 1869, and ratified February 3, 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment granted Black men the right to vote.

Article XV

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude—

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution despite failing to pass in Oregon. Oregon, however, could not overturn the rule of the land. The Oregon Supreme Court affirmed this in Wood v. Fitzgerald, 3 Or 568 (1870).  

The manner of the adoption of this amendment is a matter of history, and while individuals may be constrained to believe it an unwise measure of government policy, and while the very peculiar circumstances attending its ratification by the legislatures of some of the states render it obnoxious to exception, yet in view of the ascertained facts in this case, we cannot do otherwise than declare it to be a valid amendment to the federal constitution. To hold otherwise under the circumstances would be to unwarrantably overthrow certain well established principles of law, and give to judicial discussion such a coloring of partisan feeling as would lead to very unfortunate results. --Wood, 3 Or at 579.

Oregon did not ratify the 15th amendment until 1959 — one hundred years after the state joined the Union. 

04/21/2021
Georgia Armitage

Image: Mt. Hood from Lost Lake. 1900. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mitchell and Nancy Steir. 

April 22, 2021, is the 51st anniversary of Earth Day. Earth Day is a chance for us to learn more about our environment and the threats facing it. To mark the day, we have complied a selection of environmental law resources and a brief history of environmental policy in Oregon.  

Environmental Policy in Oregon

Oregon enacted its first pollution laws in 1889. The laws established drainage rules and animal carcass disposal rules. For the next forty years, Oregon passed a variety of piecemeal laws to prevent water pollution. They were ineffective. According to the Department of Environmental Quality's (DEQ) history, the 180 mile "Willamette River had become so polluted that during low stream flows, it resembled an open sewer.” 

Image: Willamette River, Portland, Oregon. 1901 Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mitchell and Nancy Steir. 

Frustrated with the state of the Willamette River, Oregonians voted for the "Water Purification and Prevention of Pollution Bill" in 1938. The law also created the State Sanitary Authority. In 1951, Oregon passed an air pollution control law and created the Air Pollution Authority. These laws made Oregon an environmental leader. According to the DEQ's history, the water control bill was "one of the first state comprehensive water pollution control laws in the nation."  Similarly, Dr. Arthur C. Stern -- writing for the Journal of the Air Pollution Control Association -- noted that the air pollution control law was the first in the country to control air pollution at the state level. Other states only allowed control at the county level or created city-focused regulations. 

Environmental awareness swept the country in the 1960s. The book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson highlighted the dangers of pesticides. In 1969, 2 environmental disasters – the Cuyahoga River Fire in Ohio and the Santa Barbara Oil Spill in California– drove Congress to establish the Environmental Protection Agency and pass Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.  

In Oregon, the legislative assembly created the DEQ in 1969. It replaced the State Sanitary Authority (and the Air Pollution Authority which the State Sanitary Authority absorbed in 1959).  During this time, Oregon passed the 1967 Beach BillGovernor Thomas McCall’s successful effort to make all Oregon beaches public – and the Bottle Bill (1972) – the first law in the country establishing deposits for bottles. In 1973, the Land Conservation and Development Commission was created to regulate land use. 

More recent environmental legislation in Oregon includes an environmental justice law that took effect in 2008. According to the EPA, minorities and low-income communities “are more likely to be impacted by environmental hazards and more likely to live near contaminated lands.” Oregon’s law established an environmental justice task force, as well as requirements to increase engagement and communication between natural resource agencies and communities impacted by their policies.

In the last few years, Oregon enacted the Single Use Bag-Ban and Oregon Environmental Protection Act in 2019. The Oregon legislature passed the Environmental Protection Act, because of increasingly lax federal environmental protections. The act made earlier and stricter federal environmental protections Oregon law.

Image Credit: Rooster Rock, Columbia River, Oregon. 1900. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mitchell and Nancy Steir. 

Today, Oregon is the 6th greenest state in the country according to a 2021 WalletHub report. The report ranked Oregon so highly, because of the state's environmental quality and eco-friendly behaviors. 

To learn more about environmental law and policy, dig into the library's resources listed below. To find bills before the current legislature search this database by subject or keyword. 

Resources

Databases (Limited to State Employees):

Lexis Advance -- Environmental Law

WestLaw -- Energy and Environment

HeinOnline -- Environmental Law and Conservation Journals (including Lewis & Clark and University of Oregon). Browse subjects to find them. 

Oregon Resources: 

Environmental Law Volume 1: Regulation and Permitting edited by Ms. Laura Maffei et. al. (2013).

Environmental and Natural Resources Law edited by Mr. Jas Jeffrey Adams et. al. (2002 edition with 2006 supplement).      

Water rights in Oregon: an introduction to Oregon's water laws (2018).

General Resources: 

Climate change and indigenous peoples: a synthesis of current impacts and experiences by Kathryn Norton-Smith et. al. (2016).

Endangered and other protected species by Richard Littell (1992) 

Environmental law in a nutshell by Daniel A. Farber (2014) 

Treatise on environmental law by Frank P. Grad (1973). 

Water law in a nutshell by David H. Getches (2009). 

Waters and water rights edited by Robert E. Beck and Amy K. Kelley (2009) 

Wildlife law, regulation, and falconry: an analysis of legal principles by William J. Murrin & Harold M. Webster, Jr., J.D (2013) 

Need more specific materials? Browse the catalog! 

If you are looking for a more specific topic, try browsing the catalog. Browsing the catalog is like browsing the bookshelves. The browse portion of the catalog is organized by subject – search for the subject you’re interested in, say environmental law, and click on it to see a list of relevant resources. 

Bibliography

Boissoneault, Lorraine. “The Cuyahoga River Caught Fire at Least a Dozen Times, but No One Cared Until 1969.” Smithsonian Magazine, June 19, 2019. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/cuyahoga-river-caught-fire-least-dozen-times-no-one-cared-until-1969-180972444/

Department of Environmental Quality. “Oregon’s 2008 environmental justice law.” Department of Environmental Quality, last accessed April 19, 2021. https://www.oregon.gov/deq/Pages/index.aspx

Department of Environmental Quality. “Oregon's Evolving Bottle Bill.” Department of Environmental Quality, last accessed April 19, 2021. https://www.oregon.gov/deq/Pages/index.aspx. 

Department of Environmental Quality. “Single-Use Bag Ban.” Department of Environmental Quality, last accessed April 19, 2021. https://www.oregon.gov/deq/Pages/index.aspx. 

Department of Land Conservation and Development, Oregon Coastal Management Program. “Public Access to the Coast.” Oregon Coastal Management Program, last accessed April 19, 2021. https://www.oregon.gov/lcd/OCMP/Pages/index.aspx. 

Governor Kate Brown. “Oregon Environmental Protection Act - HB 2250 Bill Signing,” last accessed April 19, 2021. https://www.oregon.gov/gov/Pages/index.aspx. 

Hamilton, Jon. “How California's Worst Oil Spill Turned Beaches Black And The Nation Green.” NPR, January 28, 2019. https://www.npr.org/. 

Hillegas-Elting, James V. “Department of Environmental Quality.” Oregon Encyclopedia, Oregon Historical Society, last modified May 28, 2019. https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/. 

Howe, Deborah. “Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC).” Oregon Encyclopedia, Oregon Historical Society, last modified March 17, 2018. https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/

Kiernan, John S, editor. "2021’s Greenest States." WalletHub, Evolution Finance, last modified April 14, 2021. https://wallethub.com

Office of the Secretary of State. Archives Division. Department of Environmental Quality Administrative Overview. Oregon Secretary of State, last modified November 2009. http://records.sos.state.or.us/ORSOSWebDrawer/Search. 

Oregon State Legislature. Oregon Laws 2007, Chapter 909. Oregon State Legislature. Last accessed April 19, 2020. https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/

Oregon State Legislature. Oregon Laws 2019, Chapter 138. Oregon State Legislature. Last accessed April 19, 2020. https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/

Robbins, William G. “Willamette River.” Oregon Encyclopedia, Oregon Historical Society, last modified January 20, 2021. https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/.  

Stern, Arthur C. “History of Air Pollution Legislation in the United States.” Journal of the Air Pollution Control Association 32, no. 1 (1982): 44-61. Taylor and Francis. doi: 10.1080/00022470.1982.10465369.  

“The Story of Silent Spring.” NRDC, last modified August 13, 2015. https://www.nrdc.org

United States Environmental Protection Agency. “Earth Day.” United States Environmental Protection Agency, last accessed April 19, 2021. https://www.epa.gov/

United States Environmental Protection Agency. EPA Annual Environmental Justice Progress Report FY 2020. United States Environmental Protection Agency. Last accessed April 19, 2021. https://www.epa.gov/. 

United States Environmental Protection Agency. “Evolution of the Clean Air Act.” United States Environmental Protection Agency, last accessed April 19, 2021. https://www.epa.gov/

United States Environmental Protection Agency. “History of the Clean Water Act.” United States Environmental Protection Agency, last accessed April 19, 2021. https://www.epa.gov/

United States Environmental Protection Agency. “Origins of the EPA.” United States Environmental Protection Agency, last accessed April 19, 2021. https://www.epa.gov/.  

Walth, Brent. “Thomas William Lawson McCall (1913-1983).” Oregon Encyclopedia, Oregon Historical Society, last modified January 22, 2021. https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/

02/24/2021
Georgia Armitage

“You have more energy than 3 people,” a colleague informed Justice Adrienne Nelson. Although Nelson disputes this assessment, her work speaks for itself. Nelson is Oregon’s first Black justice, Oregon's first Black state appellate court judge, and Oregon's second female Black circuit court judge. 

Justice Adrienne Nelson

Nelson was born and raised in a small town in Arkansas. Nelson “loved school.” Through hard work and skill, Nelson became the top student in her high school.

But some school board and community members did not want an African American valedictorian. Nelson’s mother, represented by attorney Mr. John W. Walker, prepared to sue the district. 

After a life-changing school board meeting, the school named Nelson valedictorian. The experience left Nelson determined “to be part of the solution and be positive change in any community I lived in.”

Nelson attended the University of Arkansas, double majoring in English and Criminal Justice. During several summers while in college, she worked for John W. Walker, the lawyer who had represented her in high school. Nelson loved her work with Walker and chose to become an attorney. After graduating college summa cum laude, she attended law school at the University of Texas.

In 1994, Nelson moved to Oregon. Originally, Nelson only planned to stay for a couple of years, but her interactions with Oregonians changed her mind. When Nelson questioned Oregonians about issues she noticed – like gentrification – Oregonians would acknowledge the problem and say, “but we want to make it better.” That willingness to change made Nelson want to stay in the state and excited to be “part of a solution.” It’s “not so much where you’ve been, but who you are and where you want to go,” reflected Nelson.

Part of making Oregon better started with Nelson’s own work. She worked at Multnomah Defenders, Inc., the law firm of Bennett, Hartman, Morris & Kaplan, LLP, and at Portland State University where she ran their student legal and mediation services.

While working at Bennett, Hartman, Morris & Kaplan, LLP, one of Nelson’s role models and mentors – Judge Mercedes Deiz (the first Black woman to become a lawyer in Oregon and the first to become a circuit court judge in Oregon) – told Nelson that she hoped she lived long enough to see her become a judge. 

Judge Deiz died in the spring of 2005. When a judicial vacancy occurred in the fall of 2005, Nelson remembered Judge Deiz’s words and her desire to be a public servant while making the judiciary more reflective of the communities it serves. Nelson applied and was appointed in February of 2006. 

When Nelson joined the Multnomah County Circuit Court in 2006, she was 1 of 2 Black judges in the state. Later that year, she became the only Black judge in the entire state until the latter part of 2007 when another Black judge was appointed.

From 2006 to 2018, Nelson worked as a trial judge while serving in the Oregon community in many capacities. When a vacancy on the Oregon Supreme Court occurred in the fall of 2017, Nelson applied because she wanted to think deeply and write about legal issues while bringing in her trial court perspective to the court.   


Justice Balmer (then Chief Justice) swears in Justice Nelson

On January 2, 2018, Governor Kate Brown appointed her to the Oregon Supreme Court. Nelson became the Oregon Supreme Court’s first Black justice and Oregon's first Black appellate judge.  Discussing Nelson’s appointment to the Supreme Court, Governor Kate Brown said, “Judge Nelson brings to our highest court an important, new voice and wealth of experience she has gained in twelve years on the trial bench.” Moreover, she noted, “Judge Nelson is a widely respected civil rights champion, whose perspective on the bench moves us closer to our shared vision of justice for all.” 

That “wealth of experience” includes years of “leaning in” as Nelson calls it. Nelson makes a point to connect with others, and she helps with any and all programs. For example, Nelson, recognizing the over-representation of minorities in the criminal justice system, organized listening sessions between the courts, police, and the people both serve. Over the years, Nelson has participated in a variety of organizations including: Oregon Women Lawyers, the Oregon State Bar, the American Bar Association, the Girl Scouts Beyond Bars Advisory Board, and the Oregon Community Foundation Metropolitan Portland Leadership Council. She also chairs the Oregon Supreme Court Council on Inclusion and Fairness.

Part of Nelson’s drive to serve and improve her community – the energy of 3 people – comes from her desire to give back. Assured she does give back, Nelson replies, “I don’t want to rest on my laurels.” 

Black History Month – Suggested Readings (Compiled by Justice Adrienne Nelson):

  • Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  • Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
  • Citizen:  An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
  • Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America by Gilbert King
  • A Girl Stands at the Door: The Generation of Young Women Who Desegregated America's Schools by Rachel Devlin
  • Foreign Soil and other stories by Maxine Beneba Clarke
  • Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
  • Images of African Americans of Portland by Oregon Black Pioneers Moreland and Kimberly Stowers*
  • Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
  • Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
  • Native Son by Richard Wright
  • Ordinary Light by Tracy K. Smith
  • Perseverance: A History of African Americans in Oregon's Marion and Polk Counties by Oregon Northwest Black Pioneers*
  • Playing in the Dark by Toni Morrison
  • Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made by Eugene D. Genovese
  • The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
  • The Known World by Edward P. Jones
  • The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
  • The Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela edited by Sahm Venter
  • The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois
  • The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson*
  • Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
  • When and Where I Enter by Paula Giddings
  • We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates

*Books to read first for historical reference.

12/18/2020
Georgia Armitage

Oregon Report of December 1859 Term

Roughly 160 years ago, in December 1859,  the justices of the State of Oregon Supreme Court met for the first time in downtown Salem to hear Howell v. State. Although the case wasn't groundbreaking,[1] it marked the beginning of our current justice system.

Territorial Courts

When the Oregon Territory was established in 1848, the United States President selected and the Senate confirmed Oregon’s justices. There would be 3 justices who would each serve as the district court judge for a section of the state. If a district court case was appealed, the justices from other areas of the state would listen to the appeal.  

The theory behind the territory’s justice system and the practice were vastly different. As Justice Thomas Balmer and his then law clerk Rebecca Johansen note: "The positions could be, and sometimes were, filled by political cronies of the President or of powerful senators - by people who had never been to Oregon, had little interest in the territory, and whose legal skills and experience could charitably be described as modest."[1]

Of the first 3 justices President Polk appointed, two declined. When President Polk found enough willing candidates in 1849, the newly appointed justices often weren't in Oregon at the same time. On several occasions, Oregon only had a lone justice living in the territory. Since appeals required 2 justices, holding Supreme Court sessions was impossible.

Territorial Chief Justice William Bryant

Worse, even when a justice lived in Oregon, he might choose not to do his job. Chief Justice William Bryant notoriously only held 1 supreme court session and 2 district court sessions in the 6 months he deigned to stay in Oregon.[2] The sessions were rather expensive since Bryant accepted roughly two years' worth of salary.[3]

To be fair, being a justice in the Oregon Territory was not an easy job. As circuit judges for their district, they traveled regularly from one place to the next. Lacking a courthouse, one justice once held court under an oak tree.[4] Lodgings lacked comfort or privacy – Chief Justice George H. Williams remembered that he “acquired a dexterity dressing and undressing in the presence of the family [he was lodging with] that would fill a circus rider with envy.”[4] Their salaries were small, forcing them to find other ways to earn money.[5] 

State Supreme Court 

The justice system the Oregon Constitution established in 1859 fixed many of the problems the territorial justice system faced.[1] Like the previous system, the 4 justices would act as circuit court judges for individual districts. When a circuit court case was appealed, the 3 other justices would hear the case. But under the new system, justices were elected and had to live in Oregon for at least 3 years to qualify for office. No more absconding with money – at least if one wanted to be reelected.

From left to right: Chief Justice Wait, Justice Boise, Justice Prim, and Justice Stratton.

Although none of the newly elected justices earned national fame, they were competent.[1][6] The justices were Chief Justice Aaron E. WaitJustice Riley E. StrattonJustice Paine Page Prim, and Justice Reuben P. Boise.  

All the elected judges had immigrated to Oregon. Wait and Stratton came from the Midwest, while Boise and Prim came from Massachusetts and Tennessee respectively. All had other professions, either before or during their law careers. Wait and Prim both had some mining experience – Wait went to California to join the 1849 gold rush, while Prim worked in the mines in Jacksonville, Oregon. Stratton originally learned how to be a millwright, then considered becoming a minister before finally deciding to become a lawyer. Boise was a teacher in Missouri, before studying law in Massachusetts.  

First Cases 

The first case the new state supreme court heard was Howell v. State. Howell stole $61 dollars. The jury convicted him, and a lower court sentenced him to a year of solitary confinement. Howell asserted that the verdict wasn't valid, because the jury didn't state how much he stole. The Supreme Court determined that there was no legal requirement to include the amount stolen. But they noted that he couldn’t be sentenced to a year of solitary confinement – solitary confinement could only last "twenty days at one time." The Supreme Court ordered a retrial.

Howell v. State wasn’t the usual type of case the court heard. Balmer and Johansen examined the cases the court heard in its first 10 years of operation.[1] Only 11% were criminal cases, and few of those were violent crimes.[1] The modern Oregon Court of Appeals handles many more criminal cases – roughly 42% of the cases the Court of Appeals handled from 2003-2009 were criminal appeals.[1] 

Balmer and Johansen speculate that the difference in the number of criminal cases comes from the lack of publicly funded defense attorneys. Publicly funded defense attorneys were not required by law until the 1960s, thus, many people couldn’t afford to appeal their convictions in early Oregon. 

These early opinions, as Justice Balmer puts it, "are a window into not only a society’s laws, but also its customs and pathologies, its commerce, its hopes and fears.” You can also speculate about whose voices are missing and why. If you want to read more cases, the State of Oregon Law Library offers public access for Oregon residents through Fastcase from 1938 onwards.  

Correction 4/20/21: Previously this blog incorrectly stated that Fastcase offers Oregon Supreme Court cases "from this era" (1800s). 

Works Cited

[1] Thomas A. Balmer and Rebecca Johansen, "ARTICLE & ESSAY: THE FIRST DECADES OF THE OREGON SUPREME COURT," Willamette Law Review 46, no. 517 (2010), Lexis Advance.

[2] Sidney Teiser, "The First Chief Justice of Oregon Territory: William P. Bryant," Oregon Historical Quarterly 48, no. 2 (1947), 53, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20611742.

[3] Teiser, 53-54.

[4] Donald C. Johnson, "POLITICS, PERSONALITIES, AND POLICIES OF THE OREGON TERRITORIAL SUPREME COURT, 1849-1859," Environmental Law 4, no. 1 (1973), 33, JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43265668.

[5] Johnson, 33-34.

[6] Ralph James Mooney and Raymond H. Warns, "Governing a New State: Public Law Decisions by the Early Oregon Supreme Court," Law and History Review 6, no. 1 (1988), 29, JSTOR, doi:10.2307/743921.

10/15/2020
Georgia Armitage

Judge Darleen Ortega

September 15th to October 15th is Hispanic Heritage Month! During this time, we celebrate Hispanic Americans and Latin American countries’ independence days – at least 7 Latin American countries celebrate independence in late September. This year, we talked to Judge Darleen Ortega – the first and only Latina appellate judge in Oregon. She was also the first woman of color appointed to an Oregon appellate court.  

For Judge Ortega, stories are the key to empathy, resilience, and creating an equitable, inclusive world. 

“I read everything I could get my hands on,” said Judge Ortega, remembering her childhood. Her experiences taught her “how powerful and impactful story writing could be.” Born in Los Angeles to a Mexican American mother and a Caucasian father, Ortega moved to Banks, Oregon when she was 10. “In all honesty, I came from a pretty troubled family,” she reflected. Her parents did not support her interest in college or law school. Despite this, Ortega graduated high school as a valedictorian, and she studied writing and literature at George Fox College. 

After college, Ortega decided to attend law school at the University of Michigan. She had what she describes as a “justice streak.” Public law interested her, as did juvenile dependency. She planned to “pick up a law degree on the way to saving the world.”

Unfortunately, “saving the world doesn’t pay well,” laughs Ortega. After her graduation in 1989, Ortega turned to private practice. It wasn’t a good fit, but she learned to “be curious” and “when to question, when to challenge” others’ perspectives – something that serves her today as a judge. She describes how there were a “lot of moments where people would ask the opinion of junior associates.” As one of those junior associates, Ortega often pointed out ways she felt the work didn’t accomplish the stated goal. It took time for Ortega to realize that they “were not waiting for a young Latina to point out their inconsistencies,” and to learn when and how to push back. 

The experience also taught Ortega to treat others – even those who disagree with her – with empathy. “Be curious. There are more or less decent people around,” she argues. To create change we need to understand why others “are operating the way they are” and to ask “what story are they telling themselves?”

She put those lessons to use. While in private practice, Ortega began mentoring programs for women at her firm, participated in Oregon Women Lawyers, and led diversity efforts at the Oregon State Bar.     

Around this time, Ortega changed her name. Throughout her time in private practice, she had used her married name, Darnall. But she and her husband had divorced, so she “didn’t feel attached to it.” At the same time, she didn’t want to use her maiden name since her relationship with her family was “fraught.” Her maternal grandfather suggested she use his last name, Ortega. The name Ortega “felt really right.”

It also changed how others saw her. Before she changed her name, when she stood up for Latinas, people would question her perspective. Darnall didn’t match their idea of a Hispanic name. After she changed her name, people argued with her less. Ortega laughs, “I was the same amount of Mexican American the whole time.” 

In 2003, when Governor Ted Kulongoski appointed Ortega to the Court of Appeals, she only received one phone call from a reporter about her historic appointment. He wanted to know why she had changed her name. There was a rumor that she had changed her name in the hopes of being appointed to the court. 

Despite this rough introduction, Ortega remembers being “so excited,” because she could actually “have an impact.” The reality was more complicated. Ortega reflects that creating change often requires “tak[ing] the long view.” For example, Ortega has written extensively on juvenile dependency, because she came from a violent home. Much of her work is attempting to “impact the questions we ask” in those cases. For example, why do we intervene only with poor families when abuse and neglect occurs with families at all economic levels?  And how well-informed are our interventions?

“The spaces where big decisions get made are very separated from those who suffer most,” reflects Ortega. Furthermore, individuals within those spaces often practice what Ortega calls “learned helplessness.” Learned helplessness is the idea that an organization can’t or shouldn’t change how it operates. Even members of marginalized communities who attain positions of influence can fall into this way of thinking, in part because they face so many challenges in being accepted inside existing structures that, as Ortega puts it, they “don’t develop the skills to challenge existing structures themselves.”

To help young lawyers and law students develop the skills they need to challenge the dominant paradigms, Ortega mentors extensively and teaches at all 3 of Oregon’s law schools. Ortega wants to help her mentees and students “develop their voice” and “take themselves seriously.” Their life experiences are unique and raise interesting questions, and she seeks to create a space where they are validated. 

Judge Ortega standing with a former law clerk, Patricia Rincon.

Ortega also mentors, because of her struggles navigating law alone. Those struggles could have been “wholly prevented if someone helped me out.” And she succeeds. As Ortega’s first clerk put it, speaking to The Oregonian“There's no instruction manual for succeeding as a minority woman. That's why I identify with her.”

The work exhausts Ortega at times, but she copes by “keep[ing] connected to stories of marginalized people.” She reminds herself that many people of color are in danger and remembers her own privileges. As Ortega puts it, “it keeps my struggles in perspective.” It also helps her keep going, and stokes what she describes as a necessary sense of urgency. Change needs to happen, because people are suffering now. 

One way she stays connected is through the arts – although COVID-19 has made this more difficult, since festivals are canceled, and theaters are closed. For Ortega, movies are “moments of empathy” – a chance to explore a different perspective without living it. 

Movies and the arts also help Ortega in the courtroom. When reviewing cases, Ortega says, “I get curious about the stories of the case” and ask, “why are we here?” Her love for the arts helps her dive deeper into the motivations behind the case. 

Asked what movies she’s enjoyed recently, Ortega recommended Beyond the Visible: Hilma Af Klint. The documentary describes the art and impact of an abstract artist – Hilma af Klint – who was not recognized in her lifetime. In many ways, it’s a story of resilience – something Ortega knows quite a bit about, and something we all need in 2020. 

09/22/2020
Georgia Armitage

 

Last week we celebrated Constitution Day and Citizenship Day, the day the United States Constitution was signed. In addition to the United States Constitution, every state also has its own constitution. Let's look at Oregon's Constitution – its importance, history, and how to research it.

Historic importance of early state constitutions

Most liberties the federal bill of rights guarantees only applied to the federal government until the 20th century. If your state constitution did not grant you the right to say, freedom of religion, your state could discriminate against you based on your religion. In 1826, Delaware outlawed blasphemy. Other states used public funds to support churches.

Eventually, the Supreme Court began applying amendments in the Bill of Rights to state law – a process called incorporation. The 14th Amendment made incorporation possible:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. 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.”

Despite this, the Supreme Court did not apply the 14th Amendment to states until the 20th century. 


State constitutions can expand civil liberties

Today, state constitutions can protect rights in ways that the United States Constitution does not. For example, in Oregon, our free speech rights are greater at the state level than at the federal level. Similarly, other state constitutions guarantee workers' rights or a clean environment.

But lawyers neglected state constitutions until relatively recently. Until the 1970s, lawyers turned to the federal bill of rights without consulting state constitutions. A former Oregon Supreme Court Justice, Justice Hans Linde, advocated for lawyers to look to state constitutions, pointing to situations where state constitutions better protect individual rights. This approach is called new judicial federalism. Take Tanner v. Lloyd Corp., Ltd. A mall stopped protestors from handing out anti-war materials. The protestors took their case to federal court and lost. The United States Supreme Court determined that this did not violate the 1st Amendment – free speech. Under the Oregon Constitution, the protesters likely would have won. [1]


Interpreting the Oregon Constitution

When the Oregon Supreme Court interprets the Oregon Constitution, they often look to historical sources to understand what the framers and the people who ratified it intended. [2] Among other resources, they look to dictionaries available in that period, newspaper accounts, and Oregon Constitutional Convention materials. [3]

The court also looks to other states' materials. [4] State constitutions either stand on the shoulders of giants or plagiarize (depending on your current state of frustration at the framers’ inability to cite sources). Most state constitutions borrow from other states and the United States Constitution. 

The framers based most of the Oregon Constitution on the 1851 Indiana Constitution. As an Oregon delegate proclaimed, “if [I] was sent here to form a new Bible, [I] would copy the old one, and if [I] was employed To make a new hymn book, [I] would report an old one—they are better than any [I] could make.” But the framers also used materials from a number of different states – especially Midwestern states, unsurprising since many Oregon pioneers were originally from the Midwest.

Indiana 1851 Constitution materials

History of the Oregon Constitutional Convention

In 1849, at the Oregon Territorial Legislature’s first session, a representative proposed statehood. The bill failed. [5] After 3 more proposals and almost 10 years, the Oregon territory decided to hold a constitutional convention in 1857. [6]

Slavery drove the change. [6] Before 1857, Oregon’s Whig party minority wanted to avoid statehood, fearing that the Democratic party would gain power. [7] But in 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act passed. It allowed territories to determine whether they would be free or slave states. Previously under the Missouri Compromise, new free states were allowed above the northern Missouri border and new slave states below. The Kansas-Nebraska Act threw this into question, and pro-slavery and anti-slavery groups fought each other in Kansas. 

Oregon's Whigs and Democrats alike found national politics troubling. Whigs and Republicans worried that the federal government might impose slavery in Oregon. Democrats disliked the notion that the federal government could control their policies. [8] As a result, both groups decided that Oregon should become a state, holding a constitutional convention 1857. 

Unfortunately, we know relatively little about the debates surrounding the Oregon Constitution – what we have comes mostly from newspapers favoring specific parties and a few materials from the convention that Professor Claudia Burton discovered. The delegates refused to pay for a court reporter, foreshadowing the penny-pinching that characterized the convention.

As Judge Deady – one of the delegates – put it, “every question which came up here was first discussed on the ground of its expense, as though a government could be devised without expense." [9] The size of juries hinged on the cost. [10] Government salaries were so low that one delegate remarked in frustration: 

“In the opinion of this convention, twelve dollars and fifty-cents is an ample salary for the governor; provided, that after the good old school master fashion, he boards around and that the committee of the whole be instructed so to report.”

Racism

Racism defined Oregon's new constitution: “172 of its 185 sections were copied from other constitutions, and the thirteen original ones consisted almost entirely of various racial exclusions and measures limiting state expenditures.” [11]

Slavery remained a contested topic, and convention considered passing a resolution not to debate it. The Democrats were split regarding slavery and feared that discussing it would break the party’s united majority. Thus, the question of whether slavery would be allowed, and whether African Americans could live in Oregon at all, went to a public vote. In the end, Oregon choose to be a free state, but to exclude African Americans from living there.

Furthermore, the convention went to some efforts to ensure that only whites could vote. As they debated the text of the suffrage sections, the delegates focused largely on whether the wording could be construed in any way that might allow non-whites to vote. One delegate worried that “quarter-blood negroes” would be able to vote. Another suggested that the wording should read, “pure white.” One argued that “chinaman” should be added the phrase “no negro or mulatto should have the right of suffrage.” The delegates added the last.  

The final phrasing (repealed in 1927) read: “No Negro, Chinaman, or Mulatto shall have the right of suffrage.”

Oregon Statehood

Congress found Oregon’s stance on minorities polarizing. On the one hand, Southerners did not want another free state. One the other, Republicans disliked Oregon’s discriminatory policies. The bill for Oregon statehood passed the Senate, but it remained contested in the House. 

The Oregon History Project's excerpt of the Senate debate gives a sense of the national politics surrounding Oregon statehood. In it, Missouri Senator John B. Clarke argues that Oregon should be admitted despite the South’s reservations, because “whenever we surrender the right to determine who shall vote in the States, we do not know how soon we will be deprived of that right ourselves.” Furthermore, he argues that those concerned about Oregon’s discriminatory voting policies are hypocrites because they limit voting to the wealthy.

Eventually, a few House Republicans determined that Oregon should receive statehood because Oregon had followed the correct procedures – they held a convention and a ratification vote. This tipped the scales, and Oregon became a state on February 14th, 1859. 


Our State Constitutional Materials

Ready to research?

The State of Oregon Law Library maintains a list of all of our state and tribal constitutions and constitutional research materials. You can also search our catalog to see what materials we have available. Although the library building is currently closed to the public due to COVID-19, you can email us your research questions. We’re happy to help you find electronic versions of materials or scan physical ones.

Primary Resources:

     Here is a short list of the state constitutions Oregon’s used (or likely used) [12]:

  • Connecticut 1818
  • Indiana 1851
  • Iowa 1846
  • Iowa 1857
  • Illinois 1818
  • Maine 1819
  • Massachusetts 1780
  • Michigan 1850
  • Ohio 1851
  • Wisconsin 1848
  • Texas 1845

Secondary Sources:

Happy researching! Stay safe!

Works Cited

[1] Hans A. Linde, "First Things First: Rediscovering the States' Bills of Rights," University of Baltimore Law Review 9, no. 3 (1980): 389, HeinOnline.

[2] Jack L. Landau, "An Introduction to Oregon Constitutional Interpretation," Willamette Law Review 55, no. 2 (2019): 269, 293, HeinOnline.

[3] Ibid., 276, 293-294.

[4] Ibid., 297-300.

[5] David Schuman, "The Creation of the Oregon Constitution," Oregon Law Review 74, no. 2 (1995): 613-615, HeinOnline.

[6] Ibid., 615.

[7] Ibid., 614.

[8] Ibid., 617.

[9] Oregon, The Oregon constitution and proceedings and debates of the Constitutional Convention of 1857, ed. Charles Henry Carey, 369-370, quoted in David Schuman, "The Creation of the Oregon Constitution," Oregon Law Review 74, no. 2 (1995): 623, HeinOnline.

[10] Schuman 622.

[11] Ibid., 611.

[12] Palmer, W.C.. "The Sources of the Oregon Constitution." Oregon Law Review 5, no. 3 (1926): 200-215, HeinOnline.

08/26/2020
Amanda Duke

Margaret Howe with Oregon shield during woman suffrage march in Washington, D.C., March 1913

Today marks the official centennial anniversary of women’s suffrage in the United States (although it was ratified by the last state on August 18th, 1920, it was not signed by the Secretary of State until August 26th, 1920). But this date only marks the suffrage of some women. The path to all women voting has had a long circuitous path in this country, and not all have gotten the right to vote at the same time.

Early limited suffrage

The first known woman to vote in the colonial U.S. was Lydia Chapman Taft in Massachusetts. The vote was on whether the town would support taxation for the French and Indian wars. Taft’s husband, who had been the town mediator, had recently died, as had their oldest son, who would have taken his place. The family had no other male relative that was of age or met the requirements to vote, so the town made the unusual decision to allow Taft to vote in their stead. Her ballot was the deciding factor to support funding the war.[1] It appears that this was a solitary event, and she did not vote on later measures.

Directly after the Revolutionary War in 1776 is when women more universally began to vote. Several states originally included broad voting requirements that would have, intentionally or not, allowed women to vote. However, it seems that once state legislatures realized this or once women exercised that right, they began to limit it to men. New York changed their voting requirements language to men only in 1777, Massachusetts in 1780, and New Hampshire in 1784. The 1787 U.S. Constitutional Convention left the decision of voter requirements in the hands of the state—and every other state but New Jersey voted to exclude women.[2]

The first New Jersey constitution gave voting rights to: “all inhabitants of this colony, of full age, who are worth fifty pounds … and have resided within the county … for twelve months.”[3] (This broad terminology allowing all inhabitants also granted African American voting rights, although they added a requirement in 1797 that it only applied to free citizens.) In 1790, the legislature changed “inhabitants” to say “he and she,” explicitly stating that women had the right to vote.[4] However, due to the requirement of property worth 50 pounds, this excluded all married women, who could not own property in their own names, as well as any poorer women and men. In 1807, the legislature changed the voting requirements yet again by restricting it to free, tax-paying, white male citizens. This change seems to have been the result of political pressure from the national Democrat-Republican party who wanted an advantage in the following year’s election and who didn’t think broader voting rights would get them that, claims of voter fraud, and a growing intolerance toward immigrants and people of color.

After New Jersey ended their women's suffrage, Kentucky was the next state to grant women with school-age children the right to vote in school elections, including on taxation issues, in 1838.[5] This limited so-called “school suffrage” very slowly spread to other states. Inspired by Kentucky and by the abolition movement, the organized movement for suffrage first began in 1848 with the Seneca Falls Convention, which was the first time any convention had ever been held on women's rights. There, the women issued a Declaration of Sentiments, which included suffrage as a core tenet of the fight for equality.

Suffragists began putting pressure on legislatures on women's rights issues and convincing male voters to support their cause. This led to individual states passing some steps towards equality (such as states passing laws allowing married women to own property). However, despite this, the first national women’s voting organizations focusing on suffrage weren't founded until 1869. 

The fight in Oregon

In Oregon, the campaign for the vote began in 1870 with Abigail Scott Duniway’s arrival in the state. She immediately founded a women’s rights newspaper called The New Northwest and invited Susan B. Anthony to tour the Pacific Northwest advocating for women’s rights. In the state’s 1872 election, several women tried to cast their ballots. These women were: Duniway, Maria Hendee, M.A. Lambert, and Mrs. Beatty; however, their votes were ordered to be set aside and weren’t counted. Women’s suffrage was debated in the Oregon state legislature starting in 1872 and bills passed either the House (1880) or the Senate (1882), but each time it died before advancing any further. Without enough support in the legislature, suffragists worked on getting the question on the ballot. The Oregon Equal Suffrage Association got the equal suffrage constitutional amendment on the ballot for the first time in 1884. It failed. They got it on the ballot in 1900. It failed. They got in on the ballot in 1906. It failed. They got it on the ballot in 1908. It failed. They got in on the ballot in 1910. It failed. 1912 was the magic year and it finally passed.[6] Suffrage was on the ballot six times in the state, more than anywhere else.    

Dr. Viola M. Coe, Abigail Scott Duniway, Governor Oswald West at the 1912 Equal Suffrage Proclamation signing.

The slog towards 1920

Although there were efforts to bring a national amendment, the focus was on getting individual states to pass suffrage. However, this strategy advanced things at a glacial pace. By 1900, there were 17 states that had passed limited school suffrage and only 4 states that had passed full suffrage (Wyoming in 1869 was the first granting full voting rights to women).[7]  Moreover, suffrage wasn't always a straight line once it was passed, there were repeated setbacks, as was seen in Washington and Utah. 

Washington was the first territory or state where suffrage was introduced in the legislature in 1854, but it was defeated by a single vote. A Washington judge allowed women to cast ballots in an 1869 election, the state legislature in response passed a law explicitly denying women the right to vote in 1871. Suffrage was passed in 1883, which the Territorial Supreme Court struck down in 1886, and women in the state did not get suffrage passed again until 1910.[8]

Utah territory granted women the right in 1870, however before becoming a state, Congress attempted to pass several bills disenfranchising women, Mormons, polygamists, or all the above; a bill passed in 1887 succeeded of stripping women of the vote in the state. They regained that in 1893.[9]

State measures and ballots were not the only methods suffragists tried. Women also turned towards the courts and civil disobedience by trying to vote and then refusing to pay fines, or by suing their state. In Minor v. Happersett (1875), Virginia Minor was barred from registering to vote.  She sued the registrar on the grounds that the 14th amendment allowed her suffrage as a citizen. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that the amendment did not give women the right to vote and that voting was not an inherent right of being a citizen. These slow gains and losses continued until Congress finally passed the 19th amendment in 1919. However, it still needed one more state for the two-thirds majority for ratification. This happened when Tennessee passed the amendment on August 18th, 1920, and it was officially certified August 26th, 2020.

So was that the happy ending and all women had the right to vote? Not so fast.

Zitkala-Sa (Gertrude Simmons Bonnin), Native American Suffragist and Author

 

Indigenous women’s suffrage

For the first 148 years of this country, Native Americans did not have United States citizenship unless they gave up their tribal affiliation. And still, that may not have granted them full voting rights, as many states had laws denying them suffrage. Oregon did not have explicit laws against them voting, and there is evidence that ballots were cast in at least two elections (1896 and 1906) on reservation or allotment land.[10] It was not until the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act that full citizenship was granted. However, even this did not fix matters, as the Constitution allows states to decide who as the right to vote; and many states had constitutions or laws denying suffrage that they continued to enforce. The last state to finally strike down these anti-suffrage laws was in 1962, however, the 1965 Voting Rights Act and other subsequent federal voting protection laws were still needed to ensure access to the polls.[11]

Asian American women’s suffrage

The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and the 1924 Immigration Act explicitly prohibited either the naturalization or immigration of Asians in the United States. Although the 14th and the 15th amendments granted voting rights to all natural-born men, and the 19th granted it to women; suffrage was often denied to those who would have met these criteria through literacy tests, property restrictions, and other means of voter suppression. It was not until the 1943 Magnuson Act that Chinese immigrants could become naturalized, and the Immigration and Nationality Acts of 1952 and 1965 finally granted full citizenship and suffrage to all Asian Americans living in the U.S.

Clara Elizabeth Chan Lee, the first Chinese American woman to register to vote, 1911

 

Latina women’s suffrage

Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, which ended the Mexican-American War, citizenship was granted to Mexicans living in the territories that now belonged to the United States. A 1790 Immigration Law had previously declared that citizenship was only granted to “free whites.” Federally, the treaty meant that Latinx were classified as white and therefore Latino men should have had the right to vote. Unfortunately, that was not often the case. In 1923, Texas declared that election primaries were for white people only; officials often broadly applied this to all Latinx. It was not until Smith v. Allright (1944) that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down white primaries. However, states often enacted literacy tests, poll taxes, or other means of suppressing voters, until the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Many places continued to provide election and ballot materials only in English, which served as a de facto literacy test. It required the 1975 expansion of the Voting Rights Act to end this and mandate that election materials be provided in multiple languages. 

Jovita Idar, founder of the League of Mexican Women, a woman's rights organization

African American women’s suffrage

Technically, African American women could vote with the passage of the 19th amendment. However, the widespread use of poll taxes, white-only primaries, and other methods of suppression meant that was rarely the case. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 established a Civil Rights division within the Department of Justice that allowed the U.S. Attorney General to prosecute those who barred citizens from voting. The 24th amendment in 1964 banned poll taxes, and then the 1965 Voting Rights Act allowed more widespread protection.

Harriet "Hattie" Redmond, prominent Oregon Suffragist

Women’s Suffrage in U.S. Territories

Nearly all U.S. territories and commonwealths have the same limited voting rights: they can vote in election primaries but cannot vote in federal general elections. They may send a delegate to Congress, but that delegate cannot vote either.

American Samoa is the exception to that. They became an unincorporated territory in 1900 and are considered “nationals but not U.S. citizens at birth,” so do not have full U.S. citizenship and cannot vote in elections but can send a delegate to Congress. The territory adopted its first constitution in 1967, which gives “every person” the right to vote.

Maria Cadilla, Puerto Rican Suffragist

In Puerto Rico, U.S. citizenship was granted under the Jones Act of 1917. Women in U.S. colonies were not specifically included in the 19th amendment, and when women in Puerto Rico tried to vote, the U.S. consular office decreed that the 19th amendment did not apply. The Puerto Rico legislature passed the right to vote for literate women in 1929, and then removed the literacy requirement in 1935.[12]

The U.S. Virgin Islands also became a territory in 1917 but were not granted citizenship until 1927. The Organic Act of 1936 further prohibited discrimination based on “race, color, sex, or religious belief.” Guam became a U.S. territory in 1950, and the Organic Act granted citizenship. The Northern Mariana Islands became a territory in 1947 and then moved to commonwealth status in 1974, which gave them citizenship. Their constitution, adopted in 1978, grants voting rights to all inhabitants. 

 

Oregon Woman Suffrage Handbill 1912


07/10/2020
profile-icon Lynne Palombo

The Publications Program within the State of Oregon Law Library publishes and distributes decisions, or opinions, of the Oregon Supreme Court, Oregon Court of Appeals, and the Oregon Tax Court as mandated in the Oregon Revised Statutes (ORS 2.150).  

Written opinions of appellate courts are reported, or published, in court reports. The Oregon Reports have been published continuously since 1862 (with opinions dating back to 1853 when Oregon was still a territory). 1962 saw the establishment of the Oregon Tax Court and the first issuance of the Oregon Tax Reports.  The Oregon Court of Appeals and the first issue of the Oregon Reports - Court of Appeals began in 1969.

Preparing for print

Copies of opinions appear first as “slip opinions” which are copies of the original filed in the clerk’s office.  Slip opinions are then published in “advance sheets.” The Advance Sheets (AS) is a soft-cover publication, published every two weeks, that includes opinions in a preliminary format, paginated such that citing is possible. The AS will go on to be published in permanent bound volumes (the Reports) and include additional material, such as orders regarding rules and tables listing cases pending review by the Supreme Court.   

The size of each Oregon Reports volume is determined by the number of pages.  It takes about 2 months for the Court of Appeals and 6 for the Supreme Court to accumulate enough material to close out a volume. The Publications staff then prepares the master for printing, which includes: final formatting and proofing, insertion of citations that might not have been available when the opinions originally issued, updating of case histories as they progress through the appeals process, creation and formatting of tables.  This process takes approximately 4 months to complete. The final product is then transmitted to an outside vendor who prints, binds, and ships the volumes, which takes about another 2 months. 

Digital collection

Until an opinion is published in a bound volume, it is listed on the Publications website with a link to the AS-version in the State of Oregon Law Library (SOLL) digital collection: 

When a new bound volume becomes available, the links to the AS-version opinions for that volume are deleted from the Publications website, the AS-version opinions are replaced by final versions and are accessible by visiting the SOLL digital collection.  All opinions published online have been formatted per OJD policies designed to address confidentiality and privacy laws. The digital collection dates back to January 1998, when the Judicial Department began publishing opinions on the internet.

Purchase Bound Volumes

Bound volumes have always been and still remain available for purchase. Preorder upcoming volumes to avoid shipping fees! (301 Or App is available for preorder through July 23, 2020)

History 

Read Justice Balmer's essay on the origin of the Oregon Reports and their insight into the legal documents of Oregon's history.

Balmer, Thomas A. "The Oregon Reports, 1862-1900: A Brief History." Oregon Appellate Almanac, 2006. 

--Pat Zollner, Mary Yunker, and Lynne Palombo

06/30/2020
Georgia Armitage
Pride Month celebrates the LGBTQ+ community and commemorates the 1969 Stonewall Riots. This year, SOLL interviewed Oregon’s LGBTQ+ justices to highlight their stories and contributions to the law.
 
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Justice Rives Kistler
“I wanted to be part of that system and contribute to it.”
 
Asked why he chose to become a judge, Justice Kistler chuckled, “it was not entirely my decision.” From Kistler’s perspective, luck played a large role. “There were many wonderful, thoughtful lawyers” who applied, and becoming a judge was a matter of being in “the right place at the right time,” said Kistler. When Kistler joined the Oregon Supreme Court in 2003, he was the first openly LGBTQ+ state supreme court justice in the United States.
 
Kistler’s path to the Oregon Supreme Court involved luck – and talent, although Kistler doesn’t mention the latter. After graduating college in 1971, he hitchhiked around Europe for a year trying to decide what to do, before enrolling in graduate school. Graduate school “wasn’t a good fit,” said Kistler. After a few years of odd jobs, Kistler enrolled in law school at Georgetown University. Kistler remembered, “I was happy to be back in school” and “felt lucky to find something I liked and seemed to be good at.”
 
During law school, Kistler worked as a sort of extern, helping Judge Edwards at the D.C. Court of Appeals update a book. He also clerked for Judge Clark at the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Powell at the United States Supreme Court. After graduation, Kistler joined Stoel Rives– a litigation firm in Portland. Later he became interested in appellate work and joined the Oregon Department of Justice (DOJ). 
 
The DOJ suited Kistler. “It’s a public interest law firm,” said Kistler. “You’re carrying out public interests as expressed by the legislature.” During Kistler’s time with the DOJ, Attorney General Dave Frohnmayer transformed the department into a “nationally recognized group,” said Kistler. “It was a good time to be there.”
 
Working for the DOJ, instilled a deeper appreciation for the courts in Kistler. As he put it, “I wanted to be part of that system and contribute to it.” Kistler received his chance in 1999 when Governor Kitzhaber appointed him to the Oregon Court of Appeals. In 2003, Governor Kulongoski appointed him to the Oregon Supreme Court. Kistler ran for election in 2004.
 
“Kistler had a fire lit around him,” said Justice Virginia Linder, remembering Kistler’s election campaign. Just before the primary deadline, Multnomah County started granting LGBTQ+ couples marriage licenses. Suddenly, Kistler had an opponent. “I think people were not necessarily comfortable initially with the concept of same-sex marriage and, as a result, with my orientation,” reflected Kistler. His campaign compared two polls and discovered that whether respondents knew Kistler’s orientation determined if he was winning or not. 
 
“I wanted to be judged by my ability to do the job, not solely by my orientation – although that’s part of who I am, and I’m proud of it,” said Kistler. 
 
Ultimately, he was judged on that basis. He won the election with the support of governors and judges. His work earned him the appointment in the first place. According to a Portland Tribune interview, Governor Kulongoski stated, “I know other people think that [Kistler’s orientation] was why I did it, but I wanted to get the most qualified person I could appoint to that position. Rives filled that bill.”
 
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Justice Virginia Linder
"Those first women made the wave possible."
 
Justice Linder never planned to run for a position on the Oregon Supreme Court. “Someone wandered into my office and asked me if I’d ever consider running,” she said, “and I said, ‘no!’” A year or so later, Linder joined the court, the first elected, openly LGBTQ+ state supreme court justice in the country. She was also the first woman elected to the court rather than appointed. 
 
A high school civics class sparked Linder’s interest in the law. She didn’t know any woman lawyers. Thinking about it, she laughed, “I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make a living.” In college, she intended to study political science and teach. Instead, she decided to pursue law. 
 
When Linder enrolled in law school at Willamette University, she joined the first wave of women law students. “Women had gone before, like Betty Roberts, but there were so few – you can’t really call it a wave,” she reflected, “but those first women made the wave possible.” She met her first women judges at a conference for women during her first year of law school. “I didn’t think I’d ever meet a woman judge,” she remembered. Later, she met Justice Betty Roberts and Judge Mary Deits. 
 
Linder did more than meet women judges, she became one. After graduating from law school, she joined the Oregon Department of Justice, eventually becoming Oregon’s first woman solicitor general. In that role, she even argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1997, Governor Kitzhaber appointed her to the Court of Appeals.
 
Then in 2005, no woman seemed to be running for an open seat on the all-male Oregon Supreme Court. Linder and other women felt frustrated. As Linder put it, “it didn’t make sense. Women in law were doing all sorts of wonderful things in Oregon.” A group of women judges and lawyers met to find someone to run. Linder quickly became a possibility, although she had no interest. Among her other concerns, Linder suggested that her orientation would harm her chances. “How quickly that room of trial judges overruled me,” she recounted, “and they’re bright people. They were right.” But Linder left unwilling to run. 
 
A few months passed and no woman entered the running. “I started to get prickly and had a short fuse,” said Linder. Eventually, she realized that she had to run: “I didn't want to, but if it were any other woman in my shoes, I'd be very disappointed in her.” Linder ran and won. 
 
Reflecting on her career, Linder said, “it was a wonderful time to be part of the court, it filled young women lawyers with inspiration. As impatient as you get waiting for these things to happen, it was a lucky time to be in the law.”
 
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Justice Lynn Nakamoto
"You can't be it, if you don’t see it."
 
When Justice Nakamoto moved to Oregon in the 1980s, she found it, “mind-blowing how few bar members were people of color…. Asian Americans were the smallest group.” Ultimately, she became the first Asian American appellate judge in Oregon and the first Asian American supreme court justice in Oregon.
 
Nakamoto became interested in law late in college. Instead of studying abroad during her junior year at Wellesley College, she attended classes at Berkley. After taking a public interest law class there, she realized that “law can really change things for people.” Back at Wellesley, she took every law course she could and the LSAT. She enrolled at New York University School of Law, graduating in 1985.
 
Public interest law remained Nakamoto’s passion. “I loved being able to make a huge difference in people's lives,” said Nakamoto. She helped clients with housing disputes or accessing public assistance to "help them put food on the table."
 
During law school, Nakamoto clerked for the National Center on Women and Family Law, and then Bronx Legal Services. After graduation, she took a job with Bronx Legal Services in New York, and then Marion-Polk Legal Aid Service in Oregon. 
 
The work didn’t pay well, forcing Nakamoto into private practice – she couldn’t afford her student loans otherwise. Nakamoto felt nervous, she had never applied to work at a private firm. When a 1-year position opened at Markowitz Herbold, a business litigation firm in Portland, she applied. As she put it, “you can do anything for 1 year.”
 
Nakamoto stayed with Markowitz Herbold for 21 years, attaining the position of managing partner. She liked the work. There were “always interesting legal, intellectual challenges,” said Nakamoto.
 
While in private practice, Nakamoto continued her public interest law work. She did volunteer work with seniors and assisted the ACLU of Oregon. In 2004 and 2005, Nakamoto aided the national ACLU as a cooperating attorney in a gay marriage rights case.
 
Eventually, Nakamoto decided to become a judge. People had been asking her for years, and she had always said no. But at 50 years old, Nakamoto felt ready. “I was already involved in affinity bar organizations and interested in seeing Oregon change,” said Nakamoto. She was financially stable and an experienced lawyer. “There wasn't a good reason why I shouldn't,” she stated. 
 
Reflecting on her appointments to the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court – roles that made her a role model for others – Nakamoto said, “You can’t be it if you don’t see it.”
 
“I found it heartening to see people come together.”
 
Success depends on strength of will, talent, passion, and luck, but it also depends on the community.
 
Justice Kistler recounted how during his 2004 race, even as the public worried about a gay justice, he “found it heartening to see people come together across the bench to support me. All the living governors endorsed me, including one Republican.”
 
Justice Linder repeatedly mentioned her respect and appreciation for the trial court judges who pushed her to run and helped her during the race. She said, “they provided useful support all the way through.”
 
Reflecting on her old firm, Justice Nakamoto discussed her gratitude for their support when she helped the ACLU in 2004. They were “so generous,” she said, because “I hardly could do regularly billable work for that year.” 
 
Supporting others makes all the difference.
06/18/2020
Georgia Armitage
Yasui's efforts earned him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Wikipedia Commons.
 
On June 21, 1943 – 77 years ago this Sunday – the United States Supreme Court determined that the government could discriminate against Japanese Americans based on their ancestry during World War II. Defendant Minoru Yasui, an Oregon lawyer, felt frustrated. He had broken the curfew imposed on Japanese Americans to challenge such discrimination, expecting the court to overrule it.
 
Discrimination against Japanese immigrants and U.S. citizens was not new. In 1922, the United States Supreme Court held that Asian immigrants could not become citizens. The Oregon Alien Business Restrictions law let local governments deny various licenses (liquor, pool, etc.) to non-citizens, and forced groceries and hotels owned by non-citizens to post the owners’ nationality.[1] At the same time, whites frustrated by Japanese immigrant competition in farming pushed an alien land bill. Passed in 1923 with the support of the Ku Klux Klan, the Alien Property Act allowed "all aliens eligible to citizenship under the laws of the United States" to buy or lease property.[2] This shut out Japanese and Chinese immigrants who could not become citizens. 
 
Yasui's parents, Masuo and Shidzuyo, were Japanese immigrants. Masuo, like many Japanese Americans, came to the United States in the early 1900s to work for the railroad companies. He also worked in an American lawyer’s household, reading law books to improve his English. The books sparked his interest in law, but he couldn’t join the bar as a non-citizen.[3] So instead, he opened a general store with his brother, among other business ventures. He became a community leader in Hood River’s Japanese community. Much of Masuo’s passion for law and community leadership passed to his son. 
 
Minoru "Min" Yasui was born in 1916. He studied at an Oregon Japanese Language School and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Oregon. He joined the Army’s Infantry Reserve as a second lieutenant. In 1939, he graduated from the University of Oregon's law school in 1939 -- the school's first Japanese American graduate. He was also the first Japanese American to join the Oregon State Bar. But after completing law school, he struggled to find employment in Oregon, eventually moving to Chicago to work for the Japanese Consulate.
 
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor tore the Yasui family apart. Immediately after the attack, Masuo sent his son a telegram, telling him to join the army. Yasui resigned from the Consulate and went to Fort Vancouver to report for duty. The army refused him. Over the course of the war, they refused him nine times. Yasui returned to Oregon. Around the same time, the FBI arrested his father, because they felt he was a danger to the United States. Yasui unsuccessfully tried to help his father but to no avail.  In January 1942, Yasui opened a law firm in Portland to help Japanese Americans with legal problems resulting from the war.
 
For Oregon’s Japanese community, the war posed immediate problems. Many first-generation immigrations, like Masuo, were technically Japanese and legally could not become U.S. citizens. Renouncing their Japanese citizenship meant they would have no nationality at all. Nor could they leave their homes in the U.S., because their work and children were here. Fearful the government would accuse them of disloyalty, they bought war bonds and signed pledges of loyalty. In February 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. Under the order, the military could establish curfews -- and later internment camps -- for Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans.
 
Shortly after the curfew went into effect in Portland, Yasui broke it. Convinced that the curfew was unconstitutional, he determined a test case was needed – a case that the courts could rule on and, thus, strike down the curfew. To that end, he set out from his law office in the late evening of March 28, 1942. He helpfully directed his legal assistant to call the police. Wandering downtown Portland, he met a police officer who told him to “Run along home, sonny boy.” Eventually, Yasui went to the police station, where “I [Yasui] argued myself into jail.”[4]
 
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Forced evacuation notice in San Francisco. Courtesy of the National Archives
 
In May 1942, while Yasui was out on bail and awaiting trial, the military ordered the “evacuation” of Portland's Japanese Americans to internment camps. Yasui informed them that he would not follow the “unconstitutional, illegal and unenforceable” order. He told them he was leaving for Hood River, and the military took him to Portland.
 
Eventually, Oregon’s federal district court ruled on Yasui’s curfew breaking. The judge agreed that the order was unconstitutional for American citizens, but determined that Yasui was not a citizen. The ruling stated that Yasui's actions -- such as working for the Japanese Consulate -- forfeited his U.S. citizenship. Therefore, the judge determined, the curfew was legal and Yasui was guilty. Delighted and frustrated at once, Yasui thanked the judge for upholding the Constitution and appealed the case.[4]
 
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sent Yasui’s case to the United States Supreme Court. The US Supreme Court ruled that the curfew was constitutional. For Yasui, the one consolation was that the court restored his citizenship. Shortly thereafter, the government sent him to the Minidoka Relocation Camp in Idaho. 
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Minidoka Relocation Center. Courtesy of the National Archives
 
After the war ended, Yasui moved to Denver, Colorado. His sister and much of his extended family had moved there, and Hood River had not welcomed its Japanese community back. Those who returned faced severe discrimination. As one resident put it, “The town rejected us…. We were caught in the fear that somebody might come to attack us, and we jumped even at the creaking of a door or at mice running on the ceiling at night.”[1]
 
In Denver, Yasui turned his attention to civil rights issues. He founded a chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League. He campaigned for redress for Japanese Americans sent to concentration camps and citizenship for Japanese immigrants.[4] He helped Japanese Americans facing immigration and citizenship legal problems, and charged them for only what they could give (including a live turkey).  
 
His conviction continued to haunt him. The Colorado State Bar refused him because of his conviction, forcing him to appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court. He won and joined the bar. In 1983, he began pursuing legal redress for his trial and conviction. The federal courts never agreed that the order was unconstitutional. Nonetheless, after more than forty years, the courts vacated his conviction.
 
Near the end of his life, Yasui stated: 
 
“[W]hen you subjugate, when you suppress or oppress any group of people, you are really derogating the rights of all people because if you can do it to the least of us then you can indeed do it to all of us … If there is suffering or pain that is unfairly imposed upon anyone, it's my duty, it’s your duty to try to alleviate it because that's the way in which we gain a better life for all of us.” 
He practiced what he preached. In Denver, he helped found numerous groups to protect civil rights including the Urban League of Denver (African American), the Latin American Research and Service Agency, and the Denver Native Americans United. He participated in a virtually endless number of organizations: interfaith groups, ex-offender programs, a women voter league, students groups, etc.[4] His work earned him a place on the Denver Community Relations Commission, where he created multiple commissions “including the Commissions on Youth, Aging, Human Services, the Council on Disabled, and the Office of Citizen Response.” Ultimately, President Obama posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom – the highest honor available to a civilian. 
 
Works Cited:
04/24/2020
Georgia Armitage
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Oregon State Capitol, c. 1915
 
Not all heroes rescue small children or animals from burning buildings, some rescue books! Several years ago, we received a donation of books that the then Speaker of the House, John E. Cooter, saved from Oregon’s second capitol fire, 85 years ago. 
 
John E. Cooter was born on October 29th, 1890 to dairy farmers outside of Lebanon. Talented and well-educated, Cooter held a variety of positions including: university professor of agriculture, product marketing specialist, county agricultural agent, and country newspaper publisher. By 1932, Cooter became a democratic state legislator representing Lincoln county. During that time, he helped pass relief bills to mitigate the Great Depression, as well as bills regulating public utilities. Cooter also worked with the State Grange and advocated for the Coastal Highway. His skill working across the aisle earned him a place as Speaker of House in 1935. 
 
Unfortunately, on April 25th, 1935, the Oregon Capitol burned. The fire started in the building’s basement, likely when papers spontaneously combusted. The building’s design sealed its fate. According to the Salem Fire Department, the “redwood columns that held up the dome were hollow and open at the base and the top,” and they functioned “like a chimney.” The Oregon Insurance Rating Bureau described how the fire “again demonstrated the hazards of such occupancy in buildings of this type of construction.”
 
The Capitol’s flames were visible for fifteen miles. Despite Salem firefighters' prompt arrival, they could not quell the fire in the basement – it was already too hot. Cutting into one of the pillars on the first floor, “they observed flames rushing upward and at almost the same moment fire burst from another on the opposite side of the rotunda.” By 8 p.m., the dome collapsed. By 9:30 p.m., firefighters from Portland arrived to help. After 17 hose lines, 2 pumpers, and 350,000 gallons of water, the fireman extinguished the flames. 
 
The fire killed one firefighter – Floyd McMullen. It also destroyed various state records and portraits. Water used to douse the fire even damaged books in the Oregon Supreme Court and Library building because it and the Capitol were connected through a tunnel. In the end, it caused one million dollars of damage or almost $19 million in today’s money.
 
Capitol after the fire
Oregon State Archives, Oregon Board of Control, OBC0018 and OBC0017
 
Cooter rescued five books he felt the government needed to function. Specifically, he saved: Oregon Laws 1931, Oregon Laws 1933 Regular and Special Sessions, Oregon Laws 1935, Senate and House Journals 1933, Senate and House Journals 1935. Cooter likely immediately put the books to use, as he oversaw the 1935 Special Session to rebuild the Capitol. 
 
Later that year, the Oregon Attorney General charged Cooter and several other Democrats with holding other state positions in addition to their duties in the legislature. Some Democrats argued that they were being attacked for their party because several Republicans also held other state positions. Regardless, the charges forced Cooter to leave the legislature. According to his children, the State gifted him with the books as “a memento of his service.” 
 
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John E. Cooter's stamp inside Oregon Laws 1933 Regular and Special Sessions
 
His children and grandson kept the books and eventually donated them to the State of Oregon Law Library. Fittingly, the books are again serving the purpose Cooter intended when he rescued them: helping the state government continue running. 
 
Craving more history or need something to read at home?

An earlier version of this blog post stated Cooter “ran into the building.” That could not be verified and has been removed from the final version.

04/17/2020
Georgia Armitage
 
On March 4th, 2020, the Oregon Supreme Court and Library Building was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Thanks to Justice Thomas Balmer and the Henneberry Eddy Architects, future generations will enjoy the building’s history and architecture. Well, they will once it’s renovated and we return from our temporary home on Broadway Street. 
 
Joining the National Register of Historic Places in Oregon takes around a year from start to finish. Interested property owners reach out to the State Historic Preservation Office. From there, committee members from a variety of disciplines – “history, archaeology, architecture, architectural history and a Native American culture” – review application materials and decide whether to recommend it for listing on the National Register. Then the Keeper of the National Register makes the final decision. 
 
In this case, the Oregon Supreme Court and Library Building’s importance to state history, combined with its stunning architecture earned it a spot on the National Register. 
 
History:
 
Building the Supreme Court and Library Building in the first place took some persuasion. Originally, the judicial branch operated in the 1876 Capitol – hidden away on the third floor. But as the population increased, so did the Supreme Court justices’ caseload. Between 1909 and 1913, the number of justices increased from five to seven. Staff and justices demanded more room, and eventually, the legislature determined the courts needed their own building. 
 
Fire shaped the new buildings’ design and ultimate importance. Remembering the fate of the first territorial capitol, which burned in 1855 and destroyed most government records, the planning board demanded it be fireproof. To that end, the architect – William Knighton – chose glazed terra cotta bricks and steel as building materials. Completed in 1914, the Supreme Court and Library Building held the Supreme Court, the state printing press, state library, and the Oregon Supreme Court Library (changed to SOLL in 2001).
 
After a fire destroyed the capital in 1935, the Oregon Supreme Court and Library Building became the oldest remaining civic building on the Capitol Mall. Although the structure of the Judicial Branch continued changing – the Tax Court and Court of Appeals were created in 1961 and 1969 respectively – the building continuously housed the Oregon Supreme Court and State of Oregon Law Library until 2019, when the two moved for seismic renovations. Almost every justice has literally left their mark on the building, scratching their names into the bench’s drawer. 
 
Architecture:
 
One of the ways a building qualifies for the National Register of Historic Places is its architecture. An eligible building “represents the work of a master.” The building’s architect, William Christmas Knighton, was a master. Oregon’s first and only State Architect, he designed the Supreme Court building and worked on "more than ninety buildings, including the Eastern Oregon State Hospital (1911) in Pendleton... Johnson Hall at the University of Oregon (1915), and buildings at the State Institution for the Feeble-Minded (Fairview Training Center, 1914) in Salem." After leaving the position, he collaborated with Leslie Howell and began creating more modern designs. Knighton's buildings span a variety of architectural styles, and over twenty of his buildings are listed on the National Register. 
 
Here are just a few of his designs:
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Top Left: Justice Building, Salem, built 1920, Italian Renaissance -- Courtesy of Jenny Armitage Top RightJohnson Hall (University of Oregon), Eugene, built 1915, American Renaissance -- Wikipedia Commons Bottom Left: Dr. Luke A. Port House (Deepwood Estate), Salem, built 1894, Queen Anne -- Courtesy of Jenny Armitage Bottom Right: Sentinel Hotel, Portland, built 1909, Early Modern and Arts and Crafts -- Wikipedia Commons
 
Knighton chose a combination of the Classical Revival and Beaux Arts style for the Oregon Supreme Court and Library Building, making it one of his more classical designs. Most of Knighton's work, aside from his time as State Architect, dealt with either home design or "experimental designs in modernism."
 
The Beaux Arts style developed in France and became popular in the United States in the early 1900s. Meanwhile, Classical Revival sought to evoke Roman and Greek buildings and temples, but tended to be less decorative than the Beaux Arts Style. The styles' classical influence combined with its “heaviness” made it an obvious choice for government buildings -- it signals permanence and evokes the power and ideals of the Romans and Greeks. Let’s examine a few of the characteristics of Beaux Arts and Classical Revival that the Oregon Supreme Court and Library Building demonstrates -- little did you know that this is an art history lesson in disguise!
 
Examples of Supreme Court and Library Building moldings and decorations.
 
Detailed, decorative moldings and facades define the Beaux Arts style. Knighton had a particular fondness for shields, as you can see in the photograph above.
 
Supreme Court and Library Building, stairway looking down.
 
Entering the Supreme Court and Library Building, the stairway dominates your view -- another characteristic of Beaux Arts Architecture. 
 
Supreme Court and Library Building, Front Plan
 
The front and inside of the building are symmetric -- typical of both Classical Revival and Beaux Arts. The rounded entrance signals further Beaux Arts influence. Knighton's drew on Classical Revival with the "Roman lettering relief" at the top of the building, combined with the engaged, ionic order columns.
 
Roman lettering reading "Supreme Court of the State of Oregon."
 
Engaged colonnade and ionic order columns on the Oregon Supreme Court and Library Building.
 
Ionic order columns are simple decorations at the top of a column -- a pair of "curly-qs" on either side. Engaged colonnades mean that the columns are set into the wall, rather than free-standing. 
 
Looking Ahead:
 
Knighton designed the Supreme Court and Library Building to last a 100 years -- it has survived 106 years. Joining the National Register of Historic Places will help ensure it survives into the future. As Justice Balmer put it, "Historic designation requires extra steps before people make any changes and that was intentional.... We decided, on balance, that this was an important enough building to maintain the original design by William Knighton, and we want those who come after us to take that into consideration before they make any future changes."
 
Further Reading:
 
 
Image Credits: All uncredited images come from the State of Oregon Law Library's collection. Much thanks to Jim Meuchel, the photographer, who recently retired from OJD. 
 
 
03/13/2020
Georgia Armitage


"County Circuit Court Judge Mercedes Deiz swearing in Commissioner Charles R Jordan"

With Women’s History Month upon us, let’s examine Oregon’s earliest African American women in law – Beatrice Morrow Cannady and Judge Mercedes Deiz. The two women’s work advanced not only African Americans but women and other minorities.

Born in Littig, Texas in 1889, Cannady pursued education and racial equality with passion. She graduated from Wiley College in 1908 and went on to study music at the University of Chicago, before moving to Oregon in 1912 to marry Edward Daniel Cannady.

Together, Edward and Beatrice Cannady ran the Advocate – an African American newspaper with "3,000 subscribers, including influential people such as the Oregon governor and other government leaders." Beatrice Cannady used the platform to improve African American rights in Oregon. She advocated amending the Oregon Constitution so that African Americans and other racial minorities could vote. As the Klu Klux Klan rose in Oregon, she documented their activities and managed a fifteen-year long protest against the film, Birth of a Nation. And she co-founded Portland’s branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

At the same time, Cannady hosted tea parties for up to 200 people from all backgrounds to improve their understanding of one another. To that end, she insisted that guests always talk with strangers. At these parties “white and black, rich and poor, Christian and Jew mingle freely and discuss their common interests while sipping together a cup of tea!”

In 1922, Cannady graduated from Northwestern College of Law, becoming the first African American woman to practice law in Oregon – despite never passing the bar. She told the Oregon Journal, “I will work among my own people. As it is they must always go to the white attorneys, and often they are suspicious.” And she did, appearing in court on multiple occasions, most notably defending African American children’s right to attend public schools. She also chaired the Portland NAACP’s Committee on Legal Redress.

Ultimately, she ran for state representative in April 1932 – the first African American to ever run for public office in Oregon. She lost, although she “garnered some 8,000 votes cast primarily by white constituents.” In 1938, she left Oregon for Los Angeles, dying in 1974.

Ten years after Cannady left Oregon, Mercedes Deiz arrived with her young son and 12 dollars. Deiz came from New York City, where she raised money to support African Americans on trial and organized women participating union strikes. Oregon shocked Judge Deiz, who felt more discriminated against in Portland than New York. Various employers rejected her job applications because of her gender. A restaurant refused to serve her, driving her to join the NAACP and the Portland Urban League.

Like Cannady, Judge Deiz attended Northwestern College of Law, graduating in 1959. The first African American woman to pass the bar, she served on the Workman’s Compensation Board, before Governor Tom McCall appointed her to a district court position. In 1972, she ran against seven men for a position on the Multnomah Circuit Court, ultimately becoming the first African American woman elected to the bench in Oregon.

Among her other accomplishments, Judge Deiz served as director of the National Center for State Courts and actively participated in the National Association for Women Judges. She also taught classes at Harvard Law School, as the Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow. When she retired from the bench, she continued to work as a youth advocate.

In 1989, Deiz co-founded Oregon Women Lawyers (OWLs). Deiz and her co-founders advocated that OWLs should promote women and other minority groups within the legal profession, and that remains its mission today. Her vison’s inclusivity stands out because advancing one minority often comes at another’s expense. For example, white suffragettes ignored African American suffragettes’ work or furthered their goals through racist rhetoric. Both Judge Deiz and Cannady’s work included not only women and African Americans, but any minority, creating more lasting change.

As Judge Deiz put it, “one voice crying alone frequently is ignored, whereas many voices loudly speaking through a spokesperson, shielded by an organizational framework will be heard and heeded."

Image Credit: "​County Circuit Court Judge Mercedes S Deiz swearing in Commissioner Charles R Jordan." Photograph. 1969. Auditor's Office. The City of Portland, last accessed March 12, 2020. https://efiles.portlandoregon.gov/Record/2767169/

Editor’s Note: On March 12, 2020, this blog published two photos that have since been removed (2/10/2021) to avoid copyright concerns.

 

11/12/2019
profile-icon Lynne Palombo

 

The Oregon Appellate Almanac is a yearly publication by the Appellate Practice Section of the Oregon State Bar. Archived copies of the publication are online back to 2006, when the first Almanac was published.

The 2019 edition includes a feature by Lewis Zimmerman, the State of Oregon Law Library’s reference librarian.

Read how Zimmerman found a typed note inside the 1899 Session Laws of Oregon and was compelled to write about Oregon’s storied Hold-Up Session of 1896-1897.  “It is a story of bigamy, corruption, and political deadlock."  

The current issue also includes a special feature to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Oregon Court of Appeals. 

02/14/2019
profile-icon Lynne Palombo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On February 14, 1859 Oregon became the 33rd state admitted into the union. The state was home to over 50,000 residents and the Oregon Supreme Court consisted of four justices. 

Elected by district in 1859 were Aaron E. Wait (Chief Justice), Matthew P. Deady, Reuben P. Boise, and Riley E. Stratton.  Deady resigned before taking office to serve as federal district judge for the District of Oregon. Paine P. Prim was appointed by Governor John Whiteaker to fill the vacated seat. 

They were paid a salary of $2,000.

Interested in learning more? Arthur P. Benson, former Oregon Supreme Court clerk, compiled a detailed history of the Oregon Supreme Court before and after statehood. 

12/20/2018
profile-icon Lynne Palombo

Oregon Reports is the official court reporter for the publication of all Supreme Court decisions. The first reported opinion is dated 165 years ago on December 1853.

The case before the Supreme Court of Oregon Territory was Robert Thompson v. Jacob Backenstos, 1 Or 17 (1853). The appellate case emerged from a Multnomah County suit for civil trespassing damages. The court affirmed the judgment made in Multnomah District Court and determined:

1. A motion is no part of the record.
2. A bill of exceptions, signed and sealed by the judge, is the proper mode of placing upon the record instructions given and refused by the court to the jury.

The court affirmed the judgment of the Multnomah District Court. The Supreme Court held that mere motions of a party in the case were not automatically part of the record. The proper procedure for preserving refused instructions in the record was for the judge to file a signed bill of exceptions including the refused instructions. As this procedure was not followed the appellate court had no proper record to consider with regard to the refused instructions.

Read the opinion from Chief Justice Williams

Learn more about Backenstos, Thompson  and other Oregon pioneers by using the Secretary of State's Early Oregonians Database. It includes information from census, death, probate and other records of the early pioneers who lived in Oregon before statehood. The database coverage is from 1800 to 1860 and has over 103,000 entries! 

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