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HOUZE Calls
Criminal defense lawyers aren't known for volunteering information about a client's crime to the district attorney's office. But lawyer Stephen Houze was all too happy to whisper in the local prosecutor's ear when he was hired to defend a man accused of growing marijuana in his house. Three weeks ago, Scott Lee Scholes was caught red-handed by the Portland Police with 2.2 kilos of marijuana in his Southwest Portland home. Lucky for Scholes and Houze, the man who made the arrest was Officer Steven A. Regalado (pictured, left), who, according to police, offered to blow the case against Scholes in exchange for several pounds of pot. That offer ended up giving Houze one of the easiest wins of his career. A single call to the DA's office was all it took to send the law scrambling after Regalado--and away from his client, who was facing possible forfeiture of his house. "When I received information from my client that indicated the potential of illegal activity on the part of a police officer," says Houze, "I felt an ethical obligation to report [it] to the DA's office." Regalado was arraigned last week on charges of accepting a bribe, official misconduct and distribution and possession of marijuana. Scholes, on the other hand, is out from under Justice's thumb: The DA couldn't very well put Regalado on the witness stand. --MO |
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Follow-Up
Pro-Voice
Portland Public Schools officials are paying for their students' outrage. Last month, Rock for Life's anti-abortion demonstration in front of Cleveland High School turned into mayhem when pro-choice students smashed the windshield of one of the demonstrators ("Lessons in Tolerance," WW, Sept. 10, 1997). |
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The car belongs to local anti-abortion activist Paul DeParrie, who filed suit in federal court, claiming school officials wrongly tried to stop earlier demonstrations in front of other schools and could have stopped the damage to his car at Cleveland. School officials confirmed that earlier this month they reached an out-of-court settlement with DeParrie giving him $450 to cover the cost of his court filing and the broken windshield. The school district also promised to instruct all students and employees not to physically interfere with demonstrations that occur on public property, DeParrie says. DeParrie, once named among the top 15 enemies of choice by Ms. magazine, believes pro-choice students have a right to argue. "If they want to shout and tell us we're crazy, that's fine," he says. But he feels that students cross a line when verbal assault and vandalism occur. Portland Public Schools spokesman Lew Frederick agrees that the group deserves free-speech protections. But he feels that the tactics employed by Rock for Life and DeParrie provoke heated confrontation. "They stand in the students' way and force them to go around," he says. "They're screaming for attention." --RR |
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Two weeks ago the pair of Gresham homemakers had hopes of testifying before Congress about a legal loophole that shields many health insurers from lawsuits by patients denied treatment ("Tricks of Treatment," WW, Oct. 22, 1997). Since then, a dozen people have called to offer their support and more scary stories about unintended consequences of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. Now, however, it looks like Congress may exclude testimony from people with ERISA lawsuits and postpone a vote on the proposed Norwood/D'Amato Patient Access to Responsible Care Act until next year. An aide to Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-Ga.) said that last week's hearings were dominated by lobbyists for major employers such as Wal-Mart, Eastman Kodak and General Motors who said the proposed reforms would dramatically increase the liability costs of their health plans and force them to cut their benefits packages. Cipriano and Rudy are angry that corporate lobbyists seem to have stalled the proposed changes, but they have vowed to make it to Washington. "We will go one way or another, even if we're just a visual aide," says Cipriano. "We want to educate everyone about [ERISA's] effect on society." For now, Cipriano and Rudy plan to meet with Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden next month and to rally as much support on the state level as they can before next session. On a local level, Fred Meyer truck dispatcher Julie Markham celebrated a victory last week when her employer agreed to pay for her expensive cancer-treatment surgery. Freddy's denial of the treatment brought a suit by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("What's on Your List Today?" WW, Oct. 15, 1997). Last week, in an out-of-court settlement, the company agreed to cover Markham's treatment. Markham's attorneys expected Freddy's to use ERISA as a defense of its initial denial of treatment if the case went to court. --RR |
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Double Trouble?
Talk about confidence. For years, Multnomah County has operated under a federal court agreement limiting the number of inmates at the Justice Center jail to 476. Last month, however, the county installed extra beds in some of those jail cells, which would put capacity over the court-ordered limit. And it did so before a federal court hearing on Monday during which county lawyers asked permission to toss the federal order and double-bunk inmates. During the hearing, assistant county counsel Jacqueline Weber asked U.S. District Court Judge James Redden to terminate the agreement he signed in 1990, after a hard-fought 10-year legal battle between the county and a former inmate, Gary Jordan. "The amount of work they want to pick up and throw out the window just blows me away," says Angela Hart, a lawyer with Rieke & Savage who is fighting the county's efforts. The agreement, which has since become known as the Jordan Order, does not prohibit double-bunking in the tiny jail cells, but it does force the sheriff to release inmates every day at 4 am if the jail population exceeds 476. So many people are booked into the county jails that more than 500 inmates are released early each month. The sheriff hasn't yet doubled up inmates in those newly retrofitted cells, but the corrections officers union opposes the move. So do defense lawyers, who argue that overcrowded jails and possible constitutional violations are no more acceptable today than they were seven years ago. A 1995 federal law known as the Prison Litigation Reform Act, however, may give the county the backing it needs. As a result of the act, which takes away certain rights from prisoners, judges across the country are throwing out decisions like the Jordan Order. Multnomah County Sheriff Dan Noelle's promise to end the early release of inmates, made during his campaign, gives the issue an added urgency. But those who oppose double-bunking may have one thing in their favor: Cells in the Justice Center jail don't have floor-to-ceiling bars like older facilities. Instead, they have wooden doors that don't allow corrections officers to see inside the cells easily--a real problem when there's more than one inmate. "There's no way to adequately supervise them," Hart argued before the court Monday, citing the possibility of assaults and rapes. Redden has not yet made a decision on whether to terminate the Jordan Order, modify it or keep it intact. Even if he does throw out the order, the battle isn't over. Hart says that, if necessary, Rieke & Savage will pursue the rights of inmates and corrections officers in state court. --MO |
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Wanted: Stay-at-Home Boss
Union leaders, teachers, parents and students all want to put Portland's next school superintendent in his or her place: the schools. Nearly every person in a series of 14 focus groups held last week agreed that Portland's next school boss should spend more time improving the city's schools and less time fighting for funds in the state legislature. "They'd rather see this person get the house in order in Portland than drive down to Salem three times a week," says Cynthia Guyer, director of the Portland Public Schools Foundation, which organized the focus groups. She says Portlanders think lobbyists and community leaders can more effectively fight the funding battles than a superintendent. Though Guyer doesn't mention him, those queried obviously are reacting to outgoing superintendent Jack Bierwirth, who chafed under his lobbying duties and was not well-received in Salem. The foundation will present a report from the rap sessions at the Nov. 6 Portland Public School Board meeting. The school board will use the report to help generate a formal job description for the superintendent position and will share the results with the headhunting firm it eventually hires. --EM |
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Follow-up
Auxiliary Plans
When the Air Force tries next week to simulate the kind of multi-engine flame out that caused the Portland-based King-56 plane to crash last year, killing 10 men, the crew will have one advantage the King-56 crew didn't. |
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The test crew at Edwards Air Force Base in California will use a plane equipped with a backup generator, called an Auxiliary Power Unit, to restart their engines. King-56 didn't have an APU aboard and the crew couldn't restart its four engines when it flamed out 80 miles off the Northern California coast. In fact, the Air Force has equipped only about 330 of its 696 C-130 planes with APUs, according to the Air Force's response to a Willamette Week Freedom of Information Act request. "It cost the Air Force approximately $1 million to upgrade each C-130 aircraft with the APU," Col. Bernard Burklund told WW. Widows of the King-56 crew have asked the Air Force why King-56 didn't have an APU, but have not been able to get a complete and consistent answer. Despite the backup power provided by the APU, the Air Force will not let WW or any other media aboard next week's test flights. "There's a certain amount of danger attached to that situation," says Air Force spokeswoman Lt. Col. Linda Leong. The flight tests, which commence Nov. 10, are part of the Air Force's broad review of C-130s, spurred by the mysterious King-56 crash. After launching the review with an Oct. 3 visit to Portland, Air Force officials have been crisscrossing the country collecting information about the planes. The head of the review, Maj. Gen. Bobby Floyd, attended the C-130 Worldwide Operators Conference in Atlanta on Oct. 15. In a memo to Lt. Gen. David Vesely he noted, "While no one has experienced a flameout like King-56, most [nations attending the conference] reported random rollbacks tied to the synchrophaser"--an electronic device suspected of causing the King-56 accident. Floyd also reported that "a U.S. Navy representative shared an incident that required the synchrophaser to be removed from [its mount] before the rollback was reversed"--a last-ditch safety measure that the Air Force noted in a safety bulletin issued last April. In his memo, Floyd added that he visited with the crew of an Air Force C-130 that experienced a multi-engine rollback shortly after takeoff in Colorado in May ("Recurrent Problems," WW, Aug. 27, 1997). Solving the mystery behind the King-56 crash is important, Floyd acknowledged, because, as he learned at the Atlanta conference, "The C-130 force may be losing confidence in the C-130's reliability." --BY |
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