OPINION | Street Roots has joined others in asking the state to retroactively apply the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling
Mike was finishing up paperwork behind the desk in the vendor office to pay vendors on the action team for outreach to camps delivering supplies and COVID-19 information. His pit bull, Angel, the sweetheart of the office, was curled at his feet.
Taking a break to fetch a cup of coffee, I stopped to chat about what I was writing. I told Mike how Street Roots is taking a stand alongside other organizations — Coalition of Communities of Color, Don’t Shoot Portland, Criminal Justice Reform Clinic at Lewis & Clark Law School, Latino Network, and NAACP’s Oregon delegation— and submitting an amicus curiae brief calling on the Oregon Supreme Court to reverse convictions when juries received instructions that they did not need to all be in agreement to deliver a guilty verdict.
This was allowed under Oregon’s non-unanimous jury law that the U.S. Supreme Court overturned April 20. In the Ramos v. Lousiana decision , the court noted that Oregon’s 1934 law came about “due to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and efforts to dilute the influence of racial, ethnic, and religious minorities on Oregon juries.”
It’s racist and otherwise discriminatory, and it had to go. Now there’s a lot of work to make sure that this ruling has a widespread and just impact.
Here’s why our organization is particularly attuned to these legal proceedings. By providing low-barrier income opportunities, we are alert to the barriers that stop people from getting work and housing in the first place, and so our advocacy focuses on these barriers.
Essentially, we look upstream to figure out what can be changed so that they aren’t so harmed downstream, so to speak.
That’s why we look at discriminatory laws themselves, or we propose plans like Portland Street Response to reduce legal entanglements, or — a bit further downstream — we look at what’s wrong in the court system itself, like this non-unanimous jury history.
Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum has conceded that cases currently on appeal should either be dropped or retried.
She’s been clear that she opposed the non-unanimous jury law, writing after the Ramos v. Louisiana ruling, “This is good news! It is an embarrassment to our otherwise progressive state that we are the only state in the country with a law in our constitution that allows criminal convictions without juror unanimity.”
But she can do more.
Thousands of people deal with the stigma and barriers that follow felony convictions decided by non-unanimous juries, many of whom have already served their time.
It’s not enough to only address the harm imposed on people whose cases are currently being appealed.
Sure, it’s daunting to deal with the past in the courts — “retroactivity” — but more daunting is dealing with the past in one’s own life. Homelessness itself should not be part of a life sentence following a decades-old conviction. But it is.
Mike had been open about his past dealing with the legal system. He and another vendor taught me how to make “prison burritos” from crushed chips, ramen and boiling water.
Most of his drug convictions were in the 1990s and early 2000s, but he continues to be punished, long after the initial sentence was served. Ever the optimist, he pointed out that he’s doing work that he enjoys at Street Roots, and he also has had opportunities at Central City Concern, so despite the fact that there are plenty of jobs that are off limits to him because of those felonies, he’s found a way.
“But what about housing?” I asked.
His optimism wavered. No doubt, those felony convictions stand in the way of housing. He’s homeless. Right now he’s camping near the freeway, a step up from the stoops where he threw down a sleeping bag when COVID-19 hit. At least now, he has a small community for safety.
Mike’s love for his dog keeps him going, as does his commitment to supporting other unhoused people deliver supplies and COVID-19 information to camps through Street Roots, work for which he is paid. He smiles easily.
But his body has taken a beating from living outside, still dealing with the ramifications of some convictions acquired decades before.
Attorney General Rosenblum needs to revisit all of the cases of those whose convictions were decided non-unanimously, not just the ones that happened to be on appeal when the law changed.
As Aliza Kaplan, the director of the Criminal Justice Reform Clinic at Lewis & Clark Law School, told me, the only difference between these cases and the ones that Rosenblum has committed to revisiting is timing. That’s not fair, and it’s not just.
Just because people may have already served their time doesn’t mean they are free from a lifelong sentence of challenges that include homelessness, employment discrimination, suffering families and stigmas. Too often, one’s past is one’s future, and at Street Roots, we believe strongly in supporting people in achieving their best futures.
We must deal with injustices of the past in order to aspire for a just future.
Director's Desk is written by Kaia Sand, the executive director of Street Roots. You can reach her at kaia@streetroots.org . Follow her on Twitter @mkaiasand . Street Roots is an award-winning, nonprofit, weekly newspaper focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. Our newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Learn more about Street Roots . Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today .
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