Oregon Supreme Court

Attorneys with the Oregon Department of Justice say a case that cuts at the heart of the state’s overwhelmed public defense system – and that’s currently before the Oregon Supreme Court – could be moot because the attorney at the center of the debate has left his job. But they’ve stopped short of asking the justices to toss out the case.

The Oregon Court of Appeals on Monday asked the state’s highest court to decide whether Republican state senators who carried out a record-setting GOP walkout this year can run for reelection.

A group of public defenders from Marion County asked the Oregon Supreme Court whether trial court judges can force an attorney to take an indigent defendant’s case. The justices will have to balance the legal protections for a person charged with a crime against the ethical obligations of a public defender.

GOP senators and state attorneys disagree on what Measure 113 does, but they agree the matter needs to be answered soon.

In a preliminary ruling, the Oregon Supreme Court found a state court judge erred by forcing a public defender to take a new client, over the objections of the lawyer's employer.

The proposal would set up an hourly payment system and put public defenders on staff to bolster their ranks to represent the hundreds of people without legal representation

A Friday opinion by the Oregon Supreme Court offers clarity for people convicted in trials where not everyone on the jury agreed the convicted person was guilty.

When Kate Brown leaves office, she will have appointed every justice on the state’s highest court. She also announced other judicial appointments Wednesday.

The Oregon Supreme Court denied a state Department of Justice petition asking the court to intervene and throw out a lower court’s temporary restraining order blocking the law from taking effect.

Jessica Kampfe, who heads a public defense nonprofit in Portland, would take over a state agency that has left hundreds without attorneys

Stephen Singer, who until August was the executive director of the Office of Public Defense Services, says his firing violated state laws designed to protect whistleblowers and charged the head of the Oregon Supreme Court with violating her authority under state law.

The denial affirms a lower court decision saying the "greatest permanent value" of Oregon forests is more than just timber revenue.