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Jeremy Joseph Christian, who was convicted of murdering two men on a rush-hour MAX train in 2017, filed an appeal of his conviction in early December, court records show.
On June 24, Multnomah County Circuit Judge Cheryl Albrecht sentenced Christian, 38, to life in prison without possibility of parole for one of the most shocking acts of violence in Portland in the past two decades.
On Dec. 2, Christian filed a notice of appeal with the Oregon Court of Appeals, records show. The state appointed Christian an attorney Dec. 3.
Court records indicate Christian asked Multnomah County on Dec. 7 for transcripts of more than 40 hearings from his case. The requested transcripts constitute the court record in its entirety, according to the document, spanning nearly three-and-a-half years, from May 2017 to October 2020.
The appeal lands nearly 10 months after Christian's conviction.
In February, jurors unanimously found Christian guilty of two counts of first-degree murder for killing Ricky Best and Taliesin Namkai-Meche and attempted first-degree murder for stabbing Micah Fletcher. The three men interrupted Christian's racist rant at two Black teenage girls on the MAX train.
Christian, whose idiosyncratic political beliefs centered on hatred of liberals and religious minorities—and his right to say whatever offensive thing he wanted, in any company or setting—based his defense on the idea that he had been attacked for exercising his right of free speech. Jurors didn't buy his claim of self defense.
Jurors also found Christian guilty of two counts of assault, three counts of second-degree intimidation, two counts of menacing, and two counts of unlawful use of a weapon.
Christian is currently incarcerated at Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla, prison records show.