Opinion
4A
Saturday, May 8, 2021
Our View
State should
change DUII law
A
drunken driving conviction for John
Hedgpeth seemed a cinch.
An Oregon state trooper pulled Hedg-
peth over in 2014 for riding his motorcycle
without a helmet. The trooper took him into cus-
tody for driving under the influence of intoxi-
cants and brought him to the North Bend Police
Department for an intoxilyzer test. It was one
hour and 45 minutes after Hedgpeth had been
stopped before the test began. The test showed his
blood alcohol content was .09%. The legal limit
in Oregon is .08%.
Charged. Convicted. Case closed?
Nope. Hedgpeth appealed and the case ended
up before the Oregon Supreme Court. The defen-
dant claimed the state’s evidence did not show
he was intoxicated at the time he was riding the
motorcycle. The court ruled in his favor.
In many cases, more police work would have
prevented that outcome. The prosecution could
have presented evidence of a roadside sobriety
test. There could have been testimony from
experts showing that a .09% blood alcohol con-
tent about two hours after he was stopped indi-
cated he was impaired at the time of the stop.
That evidence, though, was not presented at his
trial.
Most states allow a two-hour window if .08%
is established. Not Oregon. Some states allow a
three-hour window. So this legislative session
Senate Bill 201 would change Oregon law. It cre-
ates a two-hour window. And the bill seems on
track to pass. The bill also would make a second
change in the law regarding DUII. It relates to the
Supreme Court’s decision in what is called the
Guzman case.
In Oregon, a person cannot be held account-
able for DUIIs in other states unless the laws are
essentially identical — the Oregon law’s “statu-
tory counterpart.”
Ricky Guzman was indicted for felony DUII
and other crimes. The indictment for the felony
DUII alleged Guzman had two prior convictions
for DUII from other jurisdictions, including one
from Kansas.
Guzman challenged the Kansas conviction was
not a statutory counterpart and so his Oregon
charge could not be a felony.
The Kansas statute is broader than Oregon’s
statute in that it applied to operating any vehicle
and allowed conviction based on a blood alcohol
content of .08% within three hours of operating a
vehicle. The court found for Guzman.
The impact could be that Oregon would be the
only state in the country that did not allow out-of-
state DUII charges to count toward a felony. SB
201 puts a stop to that.
In 2019 in Oregon, 34% of the driving-related
fatalities were related to alcohol-impaired driving.
That’s more than 160 deaths. Oregon needs to
change the law. Pass SB 201.
CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES
UNITED STATES OFFICIALS
PRESIDENT JOSEPH BIDEN
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W.,
Washington, D.C. 20500
Comments: 202-456-1111
www.whitehouse.gov/contact
SEN. RON WYDEN
221 Dirksen Senate Office
Building, Washington, D.C., 20510;
202-224-5244
La Grande office: 541-962-7691
SEN. JEFF MERKLEY
313 Hart Senate Office Building,
Washington, D.C., 20510;
202-224-3753;
Pendleton office: 541-278-1129
REP. CLIFF BENTZ
1239 Longworth House Office
Building
Washington, D.C., 20515;
202-225-6730
Medford office: 541-776-4646
STATE OFFICIALS
GOV. KATE BROWN
900 Court Street N.E., Suite 254
Salem, OR 97301-4047
503-378-4582
SEN. BILL HANSELL, DIST. 29
900 Court St. N.E., S-423
Salem, OR 97301
503-986-1729
Sen.BillHansell@oregon
legislature.gov
REP. BOBBY LEVY,
DISTRICT 58
900 Court St. N.E., H-376, Salem,
OR 97301; 503-986-1458
Rep.BobbyLevy@oregon
legislature.gov
Thinking Out Loud
What we memorialize speaks volumes
ANNE
MORRISON
LA GRANDE
L
ike Eastern Oregon Universi-
ty’s library formerly known as
Pierce, my high school is, at the
moment, nameless.
From the beginning, its name was
problematic. Henry Sibley was an
early settler and the first governor of
Minnesota. But after the 1862 Dakota
War, Sibley presided over the trials
of hundreds of Dakota men, many
lasting just minutes and in a language
that few Dakota understood. Three
hundred three men were sentenced
to death. That done, Sibley immedi-
ately turned to driving the remaining
Dakota westward out of Minnesota.
For those who knew Sibley’s history,
the school’s naming could only be
seen as insult on top of century-old
injury.
Perhaps it was the too-close
murder of George Floyd that finally
turned the tide.
In recent years, many people
have challenged the significance of
the individuals and events we have
memorialized, and many monu-
ments and institutions have been
removed, demolished, or renamed.
Some suggest that this seeks to
“change history.” Of course it doesn’t.
Removing statues cannot change the
fact that Columbus is the first docu-
mented European to encounter North
America after the Vikings, or that
he immediately claimed that land as
belonging to the Spanish king and
queen. Changing the names of institu-
tions does not change the role Wash-
ington played as a revolutionary gen-
eral or our nation’s first president. A
change in names or removal of mon-
uments does not change the facts of
history.
Others argue that changing names
or removing memorials “rewrites”
the past—but we have always been
selective, choosing to recognize
some parts of history while ignoring
others. One example: Wallowa Coun-
ty’s courthouse square contains a
plaque that lists numerous “Wallowa
County Pioneers,” including B.E.
Evans — but Evans was the leader
of the 1887 massacre of 34 Chi-
nese miners along the Snake River
in Wallowa County. The county
continues to celebrate Evans while
making no mention of the mass mur-
ders he committed.
Does the county presently portray
that history fully or accurately?
Memorials can serve other pur-
poses. In recent years, there has
been a movement across the South
to memorialize the massacres and
lynchings of African Americans,
which constitute a significant part
of Southern history. Sometimes, you
know about the markers ahead of
time; you brace yourself for them,
such as those that tell of the murder of
Emmet Till. Others appear unexpect-
edly: driving down a rural road or
walking past a courthouse, you notice
a marker placed at the site of yet
another lynching. These new memo-
rials are reminders of the human
capacity for hatred and brutality.
They stand as admonitions. And as
warnings.
Monuments can symbolize
the values our society considers
important, commemorating the prin-
ciples that we want to pass forward.
Letter to the Editor
Halibut dinner drive-thru a delicious
success for North Powder schools
Every year we make it a point to eat a
delicious halibut dinner put on by the North
Powder School District. Unfortunately with
COVID-19 they were unable to put it on last
year. However, this year they got creative
and did a drive-thru with amazing and deli-
cious success. Hats off to every single person
who made it happen — we can’t thank them
enough.
Ivan and Judi Richter
Elgin
That raises another issue: People and
events can mean different things to
different people. To some, Charles
Lindbergh was intrepid and coura-
geous, the first pilot to make a solo
flight across the Atlantic. Others
remember him for his open support
of fascism and campaign to keep the
United States out of World War II.
Similarly, there are over 1,500 mon-
uments to the Confederacy across
the South. For many, such memorials
represent a glorious lost cause. But I
often wonder how it would feel to be
Black and to encounter omnipresent
monuments to a cause that existed to
keep my ancestors enslaved. It would
be chilling to know that enough
whites considered such beliefs
acceptable that monuments have been
erected and maintained in their honor.
I’m certain I could never feel fully at
home in a world where the Confed-
eracy was celebrated.
Phrasing the same idea differently:
Can our country be truly inclusive
when some people erect monuments
that celebrate the subjugation or
enslavement of other people who live
here? At a minimum, it seems that
understanding and respect for other
people’s experiences and feelings is
a matter of simple common courtesy
and basic decency.
Today’s challenges to monuments
and institutional and place names
spotlight the fact that our history —
and our memorialization of it — is far
more complex than many of us have
been taught.
———
Anne Morrison is a La Grande
resident and retired attorney who has
lived in Union County since 2000.
Thinking Out Loud is her monthly
column for The Observer.
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