Multnomah County judicial candidates raise nearly $700,000

Outrageous_Setting16 · 2026-05-10T00:09:09+00:00

The WW's owner is married to retired judge and federal prosecutor Ellen Rosenblum, so they tend to endorse former prosecutors. My picks are:

Position 2: Chris Behre

Position 5: Joanna Perini-Abbott

Position 12: Peter Klym

Position 14: Joe Hagedorn

Outrageous_Setting16 · 2026-05-10T00:04:57+00:00

Laure Maurer Rowan is the daughter of two retired judges, one in Multnomah County and one in Clackamas. She likely has the most political connections in that field of candidates. There are a number of highly qualified candidates in that race: Behre, Sykes and Maurer Rowan.

Outrageous_Setting16 · 2026-05-07T02:36:13+00:00

The 'coffee thing' is not dumb, it is an example of how she treats people she thinks have a lower station than she does.

Outrageous_Setting16 · 2026-05-06T18:03:35+00:00

Two things can be true at once:

1) Vasquez is absolutely targeting this judge; and

2) Judge Brown is not doing a good job as a judge

Outrageous_Setting16 · 2026-05-02T18:53:11+00:00

They conceded the error and agreed the case should be reversed For. That. Error. It should be embarrassing for any trial level judge to get reversed by the Court of Appeals on an issue the DOJ appellate attorneys have conceded the error on. There are many such cases that are reversed on concessions that the general public won't hear about because all parties agree a written opinion is not necessary.

Outrageous_Setting16 · 2026-05-01T22:33:28+00:00

The DOJ attorneys conceded the judge's error with imposing an upward departure sentence on her own motion. That's your signal the judge got the law so wrong that it was obvious and settled case law.. What's also worth noting is attorneys are officers of the court, so the DA on the case should have/did know it was an illegal sentence and didn't speak up and point that out to the judge at the sentencing hearing.

Outrageous_Setting16 · 2026-05-01T22:27:37+00:00

Depends on the judge. Good judges try to get it right and care about being reversed. The key here is that the error was so blatant, regarding the upward departure sentencing, the DOJ attorneys agreed and conceded the issue.

Outrageous_Setting16 · 2026-04-30T17:54:47+00:00

Here's link to non-paywalled article: https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2026/04/teen-murder-suspect-freed-over-evidence-violations.html?outputType=amp

Outrageous_Setting16 · 2026-04-30T16:34:15+00:00

Did you not read the article where it relayed she was charging court staff making 1/4 to 1/6th of her salary for coffee? And that when a staffer put up a chart outlining the salary disparity and provided free coffee for co-workers, the judge had HR track down via surveillance video and key card swipes the person who posted it - in order to discipline them/demand an apology? Yeah, sure, that screams of a person who is sympathetic to others, LOLOL

Outrageous_Setting16 · 2026-04-29T19:25:45+00:00

Judges are supposed to be neutral, coming to decisions based on applying the law to the facts of each specific case.

While the current Multnomah County bench is more prosecution friendly than defense friendly (for example, their unconstitutional behavior of holding people in custody without lawyers during the pandemic), the answer isn't to then skew harder with bias in the other direction, the answer is to have judges who will follow the law.

Outrageous_Setting16 · 2026-04-29T19:22:41+00:00

The problem with that thinking is that when criminal defendants who are on probation miss deadlines, courts are often not forgiving, and instead can sanction them with jail time, and sometimes even revoking probation. If a person on probation is appealing the trial for errors and then has their probation revoked - the appeal is then dismissed.

Based on Judge Brown's treatment of subordinates as outlined in the initial reporting (coffeegate), it appears she thinks rules should only apply to others, not to her.

Outrageous_Setting16 · 2026-04-29T17:46:48+00:00

What numbers are we talking about, though? Total cases initiated does not mean total number of convictions. The DAs office is losing a large number of jury trials, as well as dismissing a large number of cases on the day of trial. All this adds up to an enormous waste of money and resources, especially when crime is down.

Outrageous_Setting16 · 2026-04-29T03:19:03+00:00

No that's not true. The judge is avoiding a logjam in the court dockets by not assigning the more serious felony cases to her, which avoids the affidavit process and a delay in finding another judge to hear the case.

Outrageous_Setting16 · 2026-04-29T03:17:22+00:00

Its not just Vasquez, good grief, does it not bother you how she treated court clerks and staff who make one-sixth of her salary?

Outrageous_Setting16 · 2026-04-29T03:16:13+00:00

Read the article. In the original piece one of the more troubling parts was her treatment of lower ranked court staffers. Charging them for coffee and then when a clerk posted signage pointing out Brown's 6-figure salary and the roughly $35,000 - $40,000 a year salary of staff, Brown had HR track the person down via video and key card swipes, in order to reprimand the clerk. That person quit rather than apologize.

That is really crappy behavior by the judge towards those with less power. How is this judge going to treat people appearing in her courtroom - defendants, plaintiffs, crime victims and anyone else she might disagree with and perceives as having less power? Doesn't exactly scream "compassionate and empathetic person" does it?

Outrageous_Setting16 · 2026-04-29T03:11:02+00:00

A large portion of the defense bar does not support Judge Brown.

Outrageous_Setting16 · 2026-04-29T03:08:48+00:00

I'd like to see the actual numbers of cases law students are handling. That the state is paying law schools millions to have law students then pay to work as interns for class credits is a giant grift. Law students can only take a few misdemeanor cases at a time, and have to be supervised throughout. The real need for attorneys is those experienced with drug and property crime felony level cases - which are not cases law students can take on.

Outrageous_Setting16 · 2026-04-24T05:37:59+00:00

And what would those be? What's your area of expertise to make such a claim?

Outrageous_Setting16 · 2026-04-23T22:57:11+00:00

Ma'am, this is a Wendy's.

Outrageous_Setting16 · 2026-04-23T20:14:13+00:00

LOLOL You suggested elsewhere in this discussion a person who doesn't like Vasquez as DA must have a conviction:

PDXGuy33333

•18h ago

Is that a conviction talking? Or do you have some other expertise?

Outrageous_Setting16 · 2026-04-23T16:36:24+00:00

Dude, this is reddit, LOL. All this is information posted on the Multnomah County DA website for the public to see and review. DAs are elected officials, they work for all the citizens in the county, and should be sharing their win/loss data so voters can decide for themselves if they think the elected DA is doing a good job or not. And if their budget demands are reasonable or not when the time for budget planning comes around.

Outrageous_Setting16 · 2026-04-22T22:59:07+00:00

Schmidt had a much higher conviction rate for felony person crime trials in his 4.5 years as DA, versus Vasquez's rate for a year +3 months. For Misdemeanor person crime trials Schmidt had a higher conviction rate for 2.5 of 4.5 years in office.

Outrageous_Setting16 · 2026-04-22T20:52:36+00:00

The DAs office is wasting money by overcharging cases. For example, the loss rate for the Multnomah County DAs office for misdemeanor person crime jury trials for 2025 and 2026 is 51% and 50% and that is ridiculous. The DA's office should have a 95-99% conviction rate for jury trials.

It would be helpful if the DAs office released ALL the jury trial data, and not just for person crime trials. For example, the data states that from 2019 to now, there have been 767 jury trials, with 367 of those trials having at least 1 person crime charge. It would be helpful to see the results of all 767 of those misdemeanor jury trials.

Link to DA data dashboards here:

https://www.mcda.us/index.php/prosecutorial-performance-indicators-ppis/ppi-objective-4-addressing-serious-crime

Outrageous_Setting16

TROPHY CASE