Hundreds of Oregon Criminal Cases Could Be Reversed

Oregon’s Department of Justice says hundreds of felony convictions should be reversed, after a U.S. Supreme Court decision.  KXL talked to our legal expert about what this means for the criminal cases.

The state justice department finds that convictions in at least 269 felony cases in Oregon, should be overturned.  This comes after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Oregon’s nonunanimous jury system last month, ruling it unconstitutional.

“It was very clear the moment that decision came down that there were going to be a large number of cases that were going to have to be reversed and then either dismissed or retried or somehow dealt with again,” says KXL’s Legal Expert Kevin Sali.

The cases are all on appeal, and include convictions for rape, assault, burglary, drug dealing and other felonies.

Sali says this does not mean the cases are all just going away. He says, “Typically what’s going to happen is that the case will go back to the status that it was in right before the trial.”

That means those accused, will stay in jail.

“If the defendant had been held pretrial in the first time around that would likely be the case this time too,” he says.

He says at least some of the cases, will be retried, while others will be dropped.