OFF PAGE ONE
Tuesday, May 18, 2021
East Oregonian
A9
High court won’t make unanimous jury requirement retroactive
By JESSICA GRESKO
Associated Press
WA S H I N G T O N —
The Supreme Court ruled
Monday, May 17, that pris-
oners who were convicted
by non-unanimous juries
before the high court barred
the practice a year ago don’t
need to be retried.
The justices ruled 6-3
along conservative-liberal
lines that prisoners whose
cases had concluded before
the justices’ 2020 ruling
shouldn’t benefit from it.
The decision affects prison-
ers who were convicted in
Louisiana and Oregon, as
well as the U.S. territory of
Puerto Rico, the few places
that had allowed crimi-
nal convictions based on
divided jury votes.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh
wrote for the conservative
majority that the court’s
“well-settled retroactivity
doctrine” led to the conclu-
sion that the decision doesn’t
apply retroactively. The
decision “tracks the Court’s
many longstanding prece-
dents on retroactivity,” he
wrote.
In a dissent joined by
her two liberal colleagues,
Justice Elena Kagan wrote
that as a result of the ruling,
“For the first time in many
decades ... those convicted
under rules found not to
produce fair and reliable
verdicts will be left without
recourse in federal courts.”
During arguments in the
case in December 2020,
which were held by phone
because of the coronavi-
rus pandemic, the justices
were told that ruling in
favor of the prisoners could
mean retrials for 1,000 to
1,600 people in Louisi-
ana alone. States and the
Trump administration had
urged the court not to give
more prisoners the benefit
of the ruling, saying doing
so would be “massively
disruptive” in both Louisi-
ana and Oregon and might
mean “the release of violent
offenders who cannot prac-
tically be retried.”
As a result of the high
court’s 2020 ruling, juries
everywhere must vote unan-
imously to convict. But that
decision affected only future
cases and cases in which the
defendants were still appeal-
ing their convictions when
the high court ruled. The
question the high court was
answering in the current
case was whether the deci-
sion should be made retroac-
tive to cases that were final
before the ruling.
D u r i n g a r g u m e nt s ,
several justices noted the
very high bar past cases
have set to making similar
new rules retroactive.
The case the justices
ruled in involves Loui-
siana prisoner Thedrick
Edwards. A jury convicted
Edwa rds of rape and
multiple counts of armed
robbery and kidnapping.
The jury divided 10-2 on
most of the robbery charges
and 11-1 on the remaining
charges. Edwards, who had
confessed to police, was
sentenced to life in prison
without the possibility of
parole. Edwards, who is
Black, has argued among
other things that prosecu-
tors intentionally kept Black
jurors off the case; the lone
Black juror on the case
voted to acquit him.
Advocates for people
in Oregon convicted by
non-unanimous juries also
said they would pursue
possible relief through state
courts.
“My off ice remains
committed to reviewing
every case presented to us
that involves a request for a
new trial,” Oregon Attorney
General Ellen Rosenblum,
a Democrat, said in a state-
ment, adding that her office
is reviewing the May 17
decision and “will be work-
ing expeditiously on a plan
for addressing these cases
going forward.”
Shortage: Midco raised Hermiston wages to $16.50 per hour
Continued from Page A1
is doing to solve it.
In an interview, Pendleton
Superintendent Chris Fritsch
said the driver shortage has
led to service interruptions
throughout the school year.
While driver shortages
have been an on-and-off
problem for the company for
years, Midco manager Thyra
Lepak told the school board
at its May 10 meeting that
the business’ latest shortage
has been exacerbated by the
COVID-19 pandemic and
federally boosted unemploy-
ment insurance, which Lepak
said is leading many potential
driver candidates to stay home
rather than drive a bus.
Lepak said Midco’s Pend-
leton routes are short 10 driv-
ers, and the current pipeline
isn’t churning out enough
drivers to meet demand.
According to Lepak, of the
17 recent applicants to work
Pendleton routes, only three
ended up as drivers or in the
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Bus driver Bill Settle checks fluid levels in his bus engine during a pre-trip inspection at the
Mid Columbia Bus Co. bus barn outside of Pendleton on the morning of Wednesday, May 12,
2021.
company’s training program.
Midco pays drivers $15 an
hour in Pendleton, higher than
the state’s rural county mini-
mum wage, which will rise
from $11 to $11.50 in July. But
in a tight labor market, Midco
is finding success in raising its
wages further.
Lepak said its Hermis-
ton routes saw a significant
increase in applicants after
Midco raised driver wages in
the district to $16.50 an hour.
Plans are now underway to
raise Hermiston wages again,
this time to $17 per hour.
Chuck Moore, Midco’s
region vice president of East-
ern Oregon and Idaho, said the
goal isn’t just recruitment, but
also retention.
Lepak said Midco recently
lost an experienced driver to
another job with better pay,
and there are some chal-
lenges beyond pay to recruit-
ing candidates. Drivers only
work about six-and-a-half
hours per day and don’t work
during school holidays and
vacations.
And if Midco wants to
raise the wages of its drivers in
Pendleton, it will need to work
with the district to change the
terms of its contract.
Fritsch told the board that
both sides are meeting, but
the district wants assurances
that whatever contract they
agree to, it results in fully
staffed, functional bus routes.
Currently, the district pays
more than $2 million from its
general fund for student trans-
portation services.
“We would like to see
some hard numbers,” he said.
After the meeting, Fritsch
said that if the district did
agree to a revised contract
with Midco, it would present
the resulting document to the
board for approval.
In the meantime, Lepak
said Midco will attempt to fill
its vacant slots by doing multi-
ple recruiting events over the
summer.
Headquartered in Pendle-
ton while servicing districts
in Oregon and Idaho, Midco
has been providing school
bus services since 1956. In
2015, Midco was purchased
by Landmark Student Trans-
portation Inc., a Canadian
company that also owns bus
companies in Missouri and
Wisconsin.
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Signs for Eternal Hotels’ Holiday Inn Express and Best West-
ern Inn are visible above a lot near the corner of Southeast
Nye Avenue and Southeast Third Drive in Pendleton on Mon-
day, May 17, 2021. The lot is one of several proposed loca-
tions for the group’s new Pendleton hotel.
Hotel:
Continued from Page A1
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
Keegan Jones’ Walkabout Mother Bin sits on display during a field day at Jones & Jones Ranch near Pendleton on Wednes-
day, May 12, 2021.
Grain: Mother bin shortened harvest by 3 days
Continued from Page A1
bigger and they’re built to
operate faster,” Kopecky
said. “Over time, as these
combines have increased
their capacity and their
ability to combine faster,
the only thing that hasn’t
changed is how we haul it
away.”
For Keegan Jones, of
Jones & Jones Ranch, the
mother bin did just that.
Jones, who received a
mother bin from Walk-
about 10 days into his
roughly 40-day harvest last
year, saw the hefty piece of
equipment cut nearly three
days off of his harvest.
“We were about halfway
through our harvest when
we received the mother bin
and we were able to just add
it right into our system,” he
said. “It was like adding
another combine. It really
picked up the slack because
of the extra surge capacity.”
Jones said he estimates
his two-combine harvest
usually costs about $10,000
a day, so the savings
amounted to nearly $30,000
in the first year alone.
“So you’re basically
spending $10,000 a day to
keep your crew and every-
thing going — combines
and all that stuff rolling,” he
said. “So if you have some
of that sitting or if you shave
off some time, then you
have some savings.”
That time was saved by
allowing combines to run
almost constantly. Jones
said the field-side storage
solution allowed him to
harvest later in the evening
and have a supply of grain
ready for trucks to transport
first thing in the morning.
“It just kind of stream-
lined the whole operation,”
he said. “The main thing
is to not shut down those
combines.”
FEI, Inc., which is based
in Yakima, Washington,
and is the regional distrib-
utor for Walkabout Mother
Bins, has sold two of the
bins to operations in the
Pacific Northwest, one
going to Jones and the other
near Helix, according to
Bill Nice, the Pacific North-
west territory manager for
FEI, Inc.
“It’s a fairly affordable
thing when you think about
how much more efficient
it makes your combine,”
Jones said.
leasing the property, but
they will vacate the land
before construction starts.
The company is also looking
at another vacant location by
Super 8.
The final location under
consideration is a spot some-
where in downtown Pendle-
ton, although Singh declined
to identify a specific address
while the property is under
negotiation.
Regardless of its place,
Lifeguard:
Continued from Page A1
Ben Lonergan/East Oregonian
The interior of Keegan Jones’ Walkabout Mother Bin on dis-
play during a field day at Jones & Jones Ranch near Pendle-
ton on Wednesday, May 12, 2021.
lap pool is already filled and
being used by the Hermiston
High School swim team for
practices, made possible by a
limited number of volunteer
lifeguards. The city plans
to open rest of the center’s
pools and slides when school
gets out, but again, availabil-
ity depends on staffing, Artz
said.
He said going through the
Red Cross lifeguard certifi-
cation process usually costs
between $200 to $300 for
someone to pursue on their
own, but the aquatic center
will provide that for free. Artz
said often getting certified not
only provides high school
students with their first job,
but allows them to work at
their university’s indoor pool
during the school year when
they go off to college, and
then come home to Herm-
Singh said he will begin
hiring new positions as soon
as the new hotel is completed.
He said he’s grown close to
his employees since he’s
arrived in Pendleton and
there’s opportunities for
growth and advancement at
his hotels.
Once the new Holiday
Inn is complete, Singh said
the building with the current
Holiday Inn designation will
remain but will rebrand to a
Choice Hotels International
affiliate. As a part of the shuf-
fling, Eternal will also reno-
vate all of its current hotel
properties.
iston to work at the HFAC
during summers.
While students are often
a good choice for lifeguards
because they’re available
to work full time during
summers, Artz said they
also hire adults of all ages,
including teachers looking
for some extra money over
the summer.
For the students, the
managers work with them on
professionalism and job skills
that will translate into future
employment. But Artz said
they also have a good time
together.
“A lot of other jobs, you
don’t get to have as much fun
as us,” he said.
There are two lifeguard
training sessions sched-
uled for the remainder of
May. Those interested can
fill out an interest form on
the Hermiston Parks and
Recreation Facebook page
to be contacted, or stop by
the Hermiston Community
Center during business hours.