Videotaping the Oregon Police: What is t...

Blog Post Written by: Pete Castleberry, Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyer Why don’t Oregon police officers want to be recorded on video by civilians? Several recent events would suggest that police do not want to be recorded, and are struggling to find a way to deal with it. Schlossberg v. Solesbee Last week, a jury in Eugene’s U.S. District Court determined that police sergeant...

Jury Nullification

People have a great deal of power and ability to form and shape our government and yet many of the paths through which people can do this are not utilized. We all know about voting, but there are many other paths that are not widely known and, often, deliberately kept from the public. One of the least known tools in the public’s ‘checks-and-balances’ tool bag is jury...

Missing Video Evidence

Many police department vehicles, especially in the greater Portland area, are equipped with video and audio recording equipment. Some departments, notably the Oregon State Police, equip their officers with lapel microphones to record conversations that occur on the side of the road, away from the car. Often DUII cases come down to officers opinions about the presence of signs of...

Coerced Into Consent

Oregon has a very odd law known as Implied Consent. Through it, the law says that a person who drives impliedly consents to give the police evidence of their blood alcohol content should that person be arrested for DUII. When one first hears that, it’s easy to think, yeah, ok, what is wrong with that? The problem with the Implied Consent law lies in the Fourth Amendment to the United...

Jail as Rehab?

Just over a week ago, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals released a decision in US v Grant that may have wide sweeping implications on many drug and alcohol cases in the future. I have long said, and will continue to do so, that jails make terrible treatment programs. Incarceration is a very effective societal tool and shouldn’t be discounted, but it very often is not the right way to...

Prizes for Sobriety!

The University of Connecticut has begun studies of the effects of prizes on encouraging sobriety in subjects who are already in inpatient or outpatient programs for substance abuse. The study is based on people who are in 2-4 week intensive programs and the study monitors them for a 12-week period following treatment. The emphasis of the approach is to put the focus on the positive and...

Coerced Confessions

Did you know the police can lie and trick you to get you to confess? What you say when you are being investigated for a crime or following your arrest is a major source of the state’s case against you. Many people do not realize they have said anything damning at all and many others get caught in logical traps and end up confessing to something they really had no business confessing...

I Got a DUII, What’s Going to Happen Whe...

In most cases, your very first court appearance will be an arraignment. An arraignment is almost always a merely informational appearance. What I mean by this is, at most arraignments, all you will do is learn information about your case and no decisions are actually made that greatly affect the eventual outcome of your case. When you were stopped and arrested by the police for DUII,...

How to Deal with Cops

I ran across this great article by Neill Franklin, a 33-year veteran of the Maryland State Police and Baltimore Police Departments. If anyone would know about the interactions between citizens and the police, it’s him. So, he decided to lay it out there in 10 easy steps. I must say, I don’t disagree with a single one. Let’s go through them. 1.  Always be Calm and Cool Under this...

I’ve Been Convicted of a DUI, What...

Now let’s talk about those Court-ordered suspensions and revocations that would follow a conviction for DUI. With these, the suspension or revocation is mandatory by statute and no hearing or plea deal will change that, no one has discretion. If this is your first conviction, your license will be suspended for 1 year. There is no waiting period for a hardship permit and, thus, you may...