Oregon Measure 11 suspect out on bail faces work restrictions

You don't have to be an attorney to know that in Oregon and everywhere else in the nation, criminal defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. But that doesn't mean that if you're charged with a crime, you won't face certain restrictions before you go to trial. You also may face premature conviction in the court of public opinion, which doesn't always play by the same rules.

Defendants who are perceived to present a risk of harming another person while they await their day in court may be especially prone to certain conditions of their pre-trial release. Take for example the case of an Oregon man currently facing felony Measure 11 charges. The defendant, accused of sexually assaulting female employees of the market he managed in Depoe Bay, was released from the Tillamook County Jail May 30.

In deciding the man's release conditions, the judge asked whether there were any female employees working at the market. The man into whose care the defendant would be released said there were not, but that the plan was to have the defendant work in another market location.

After the man was released, several residents who had heard about the defendant through media reports called the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office to report the Depoe Bay market did, in fact, have female employees. The prosecutor in the case subsequently asked the judge to modify the release agreement to prohibit the defendant from working in any location where females were employed. The judge ruled that the man couldn't work in the presence of female employees. The man overseeing the defendant said news reports about the case have hurt his business because customers were under the impression he would be working at the Depoe Bay market. But customers are slowly returning after hearing the man is no longer working at that location.

The defendant has been charged with 24 counts of first-degree rape, five counts of sodomy, 52 counts of second- and third-degree sex abuse and two counts of harassment. Until his Aug. 13 plea hearing, he's likely to be presumed guilty by many customers and others who have heard about his case. Although they won't have a say in his conviction, many have already made their feelings known about him through their phone calls to the Sheriff's Office and their boycott of the store.

Source: Tillamook Headlight Herald, "Rape suspect banned from working alongside women," Patrick Alexander, July 6, 2012