Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt announced today that eight joint petitions were submitted to the court pursuant to SB 819.
In 2023, the Oregon legislature adopted a new law allowing for reconsideration of previous convictions, referred to as SB 819. SB 819 grants local elected prosecutors across the state the authority to reconsider old convictions that merit reconsideration. Defendants are able to petition MCDA for reconsideration of their cases, and while the majority of cases do not end up being reconsidered, in certain cases– particularly where old convictions are preventing people from getting jobs or housing, involve other collateral consequences, and where the person has demonstrated rehabilitation in the community– we agree to allow a judge to decide if the conviction can be removed or changed in some way. MCDA has policies and procedures in place in how we apply the law, the office reaches out to and speaks with all victims at least 30 days in advance of any hearings, and MCDA additionally has a community advisory board (CAB) that hears all applications and weighs in before the DA considers the cases. In some more rare cases, the office will also consider sentences that appear excessive. These may involve individuals currently serving time in DOC.
The hearings for these cases took place this afternoon in front of the honorable Judge Melvin Oden-Orr and was attended by the victims of these crimes, families of defendants who currently remain in the custody of the Oregon DOC, as well as defendants who themselves are seeking a reconsideration of their sentence. The cases presented today were:
- State v. Shane Ebberts
- State v. Frank F. Swopes Jr.
- State v. Allen Wayne Howard
- State v. Tanya Stoudamire
- State v. Aaron D. Kent
- State v. Dashia Fontleroy
- State v. Jonathan Alexander Craig
- State v. Nicholas Thornton
In light of today’s hearings, DA Schmidt stated: “Today the court held hearings in several SB 819 cases and agreed that charges could be changed or dismissed to allow people to move on with their lives with clean records in recognition that they had turned their lives around. I’m grateful that Judge Oden-Orr acknowledged the work of the justice integrity unit and our victim’s advocates in communicating with victims in the remaining SB 819 cases and that those cases will be set over for 30 days to give the victims additional time with the joint petition filed with the court. I hope that at that time the court will thoughtfully consider and grant the petitions.”