REGION
Wednesday, April 17, 2019
East Oregonian
A3
Senate passes sentencing reform bill on slimmest of margins
By AUBREY WIEBER
Oregon Capital Bureau
Senators would give
juveniles charged with
crimes a second chance to
avoid treatment as adults
under a reform to Measure
11 passed by the Senate
Tuesday on the slimmest of
margins.
If Senate Bill 1008 were
to win two-thirds support
in the House as it did in the
Senate, it would allow more
flexibility in dealing with
juvenile offenders.
The policy would allow
a judge to decide whether
teens aged 15 to 18 are
charged as an adult for a
violent crime. Prosecutors
now make that decision.
The reform also would
allow a juvenile the chance
to convince a judge they
have been rehabilitated and
shouldn’t be transferred
to adult prison to finish
their sentence. That would
align the state with a U.S.
Supreme Court decision
finding juveniles should not
be sentenced to life without
parole.
Research shows teenag-
ers’ brains are still devel-
oping, specially the parts
that control impulse, Floyd
Prozanski, D-Eugene, said
on the Senate floor before
the vote.
In 1994, Oregon voters
passed Measure 11, a strin-
gent mandatory minimum
sentencing law for violent
offenders. The law took a
significant amount of dis-
cretion from judges and put
it in the hands of prosecu-
tors, who decide whether
Oregon Capital Bureau Photo/Aubrey Wieber
Sens. Floyd Prozanski and Jackie Winters embrace after Senate Bill 1008 passes. The two car-
ried the bill on the Senate floor.
to charge someone under
Measure 11. In addition to
getting longer mandatory
sentences, those convicted
under Measure 11 aren’t eli-
gible for early release.
To date, 1,207 juveniles
have been sentenced under
Measure 11, according to
Department of Corrections
data. As of April 1, 272
were in Oregon Department
of Corrections custody and
122 were in Oregon Youth
Authority custody.
The legislation was car-
ried by Sens. Jackie Winters,
R-Salem, and Prozanski
more than 24 years after
Measure 11 passed. Winters
said on the Senate floor that
she has championed juve-
nile justice reform for 50
years. Winters’ late husband
was convicted as a teenager
and spent time in an adult
prison. Winters said her
husband told her prison was
no place for a juvenile.
“You are teaching the
individual, especially the
juveniles, how to be better
criminals,” Winters said. A
teenager sentenced under
Measure 11 goes into the
custody of Oregon Youth
Authority, but can later
be transferred to an adult
prison.
Prozanski said the state
spends three times more on
a juvenile in Oregon Youth
Authority custody than on
someone in an adult per-
son. That’s because the
focus is on reform. But once
they enter prison, the focus
for the offender becomes
surviving.
“All of that investment
goes away,” he said.
Sen. Dennis Linthicum,
R-Klamath Falls, said the
spike in imprisonment in
the 1980s wasn’t because
people suddenly became
worse people. It was the
result of bad policy that
didn’t focus on transition-
ing people out of the prison
system, he said.
“We know how to tail
them, nail them and jail
them,” Linthicum said. “We
don’t know how to exhale
them.”
Pendleton and Hermiston see
school enrollment trends continue
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
The Pendleton School
District’s student popula-
tion continues to shrink
in 2018-19, but a district
official found silver lin-
ing in the latest batch of
numbers.
The Oregon Depart-
ment of Education released
its annual fall membership
report in February, reveal-
ing that the Pendleton’s
enrollment had shrunk
from 3,176 in 2017-18 to
3,160 in 2018-19.
The enrollment fig-
ure continues a years-long
downward trend. But Matt
Yoshioka, director of cur-
riculum, instruction, and
assessment for the Pend-
leton School District, said
the net loss of 16 students
represents a better result
than years past.
“We actually feel like
it’s a success in some
ways,” he said.
Pendleton lost more than
120 students from 2013
to 2018 and 68 students
between 2015-16 and 2016-
17 alone.
Compared to those num-
bers, Yoshioka said it feels
like the 16-student loss is
an indicator of a “plateau”
effect where Pendleton’s
student population will
begin to flatten out.
While most of the losses
came from the elementary
school level, Yoshioka said
there isn’t much the district
can do to stop the outward
migration.
Last June, the dis-
trict presented a “mobility
report” that showed most
students who leave the dis-
trict are doing it because
their families are leaving
town. And the top reasons
families are leaving is for
better housing or wages
elsewhere, or to be closer
to family.
Yoshioka said the dis-
trict is encouraged by the
city of Pendleton’s efforts
to increase housing, and in
the meantime, it’s continu-
ing to focus on making sure
students aren’t unenrolling
due to missing too many
consecutive days of school.
While the state uses the
fall membership report to
determine how much fund-
ing it will provide each
district, Yoshioka said the
most recent dip in student
enrollment shouldn’t affect
the budget.
The Hermiston School
District is facing the exact
opposite trend: another
year of significant enroll-
ment growth.
The 5,766 students
Hermiston recorded on Oct.
1 represented a 56-student
bump from the year before.
Although the Hermiston
School District has grown
by nearly 470 students
in the past five years, the
growth in 2018-19 is in line
with the rise from 2016-17
and 2017-18.
The constant growth
means the district has had
to take steps like install-
Ribbons available to show support
during law enforcement week
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
Hermiston Police Chap-
lain Terry Cummings is
encouraging everyone to
participate in this year’s
National Law Enforcement
Appreciation Week.
The week isn’t until
May 12-18, but people can
begin picking up ribbons
now. The blue ribbons
labeled “C.O.P.S.” — short
for “Concerns of Police
Survivors” — are meant to
be displayed on vehicles as
a show of support for law
enforcement.
“When they see that
blue ribbon, they know
somebody is saying thank
you, we appreciate you,”
Cummings said.
He said while most cars
no longer have an antenna
to tie the ribbon around,
people can tie it around a
rearview mirror or roll it
up in their window.
National Law Enforce-
ment Appreciation Week
was signed into law by
President John F. Kennedy
in 1962. He also declared
May 15 a memorial day for
law enforcement officers
killed in the line of duty.
People who want to par-
ticipate in the week or start
showing their support now
can pick up blue ribbons at
the following Hermiston
businesses: Ace Hardware,
Banner Bank, Bi-Mart,
Dairy Queen, Eastern
Oregon Physical Fitness,
Hermiston Drug, Les
Follow us on
Facebook!
ing two new modular class-
rooms at Sunset Elemen-
tary School and Hermiston
High School over spring
break.
And while there’s been
“growing pains,” Super-
intendent Tricia Mooney
said, anticipated growth in
Hermiston’s future means
she expects the city’s stu-
dent population will con-
tinue to grow along with it.
Besides Pendleton, all of
Umatilla County’s school
districts with enrollment
of more than 1,000 stu-
dents saw growth, with
the Morrow County and
Milton-Freewater
Uni-
fied school districts see-
ing 41 and 39 more stu-
dents than the year before,
respectively.
Most of the smaller
school districts either
saw small bumps or dips,
although the Pilot Rock
School District saw the big-
gest drop, decreasing from
337 in 2017-18 to 317 in
2018-19.
As the Senate voted, one
Republican, Sen. Dallas
Heard, R-Roseburg, side-
stepped the vote when first
called on. He sat with his
head in his hands as the rest
of the senators cast votes.
Winters and Linthicum
were the only Republicans
to vote in favor and one
Democrat, Sen. Betsy John-
son, opposed it.
The vote stood at 19-10.
A reform of a voter-ap-
proved measure required
two-thirds of the senators
to support it. The fate of the
bill came down to one vote
– Heard’s.
He joined Winters and
Linthicum in voting for the
bill, passing it out of the
Senate and sending it on to
the House. Heard declined
comment after the vote.
For decades, lawmakers
have shown little appetite
to reform the policy, despite
states throughout the coun-
try repealing similar laws.
That was in part due to
the powerful Oregon Dis-
trict Attorneys Association,
which opposed SB 1008.
According to Prozanski,
there was strong support,
including from the Ore-
gon Youth Authority and
Department of Corrections.
Senate President Peter
Courtney said politics also
has hindered reform.
“One of the most deadly
things to use … is this kind
of stuff in a campaign —
that they’re weak on law and
order, that they’re releasing
criminals,” Courtney said
after the vote.
“The politics of this is
fierce.”
For Courtney, the bill
was personal. Growing up,
he said on the Senate floor,
he got in violent fistfights
that could’ve made him a
Measure 11 offender. He
said when he looks at the
people in prison, he can see
himself. The difference,
he said, is someone came
into his life and turned him
around as he was about to
be kicked out of school.
“Peter, I have not given
up on you, but boy do I
expect more,” he recalled
that person say saying.
It allowed him a sec-
ond chance. That’s what he
wants to give the teens of
his district.
“They had two strikes
against them through no
fault of their own,” Court-
ney said of those in Oregon
Youth Authority custody.
“Talk about three strikes
and you’re out.”
Courtney said reforms
are
suddenly
possible
because of a changing tide
in public opinion about the
criminal justice system.
He hopes the success
from Tuesday would be fol-
lowed by legislation that
would allow split juries to
convict defendants. Oregon
is the only state that doesn’t
require a unanimous vote by
jurors.
———
Reporter Aubrey Wieber:
aubrey@salemreporter.com
or 503-575-1251. Wieber is a
reporter for Salem Reporter
who works for the Oregon
Capital Bureau, a collabo-
ration of EO Media Group,
the Pamplin Media Group,
and Salem Reporter.
Judge grants Umapine
murder defendant a
second lawyer
By PHIL WRIGHT
East Oregonian
Murder
defendant
Antonio
Vasquez-Var-
gas has two lawyers in the
wake of communication
problems with just one.
Attorney Kara Davis
of Pendleton in March
tried to stop represent-
ing Vasquez-Vargas, who
faces murder and felon in
possession of a weapon
for the November 2018
shooting death of Renee
Luiz-Antonio where they
worked on a dairy in Uma-
pine. Davis in the motion
in Umatilla County Circuit
Court stated she and her
client had a breakdown in
communication and trust.
That was not enough,
however, to persuade Cir-
cuit Judge Christopher
Brauer, who denied Davis’
request.
Vasquez-Var-
gas sent his own lengthy
motion to the court April 5
seeking a new attorney. He
blamed Davis for not rep-
resenting him and asserted
the court forced him to
work with an attorney he
was in conflict with.
Davis the same day filed
a motion asking the court
to appoint a co-counsel.
“I believe that the facts
and circumstances sur-
rounding this matter are
more complicated than the
average case,” Davis stated
in the request. “I believe
communication between
myself and the client
would be improved with
the assistance of another
attorney.”
She also told the court
the state Office of Public
Defense Services agreed
to the appointment of
another attorney. Brauer
on April 8 granted Davis’
request and appointed
Dean Gushwa of Pendle-
ton as the co-counsel.
The next hearing in the
case is a status check Mon-
day morning in Pendleton.
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