2025 OCDLA Annual Conference: Fighting Forward
June 12–14, Riverhouse on the Deschutes, Bend, Oregon
Program Speakers, Topics and Times subject to change.
Thursday, June 12
Moderator: Courtney Quale-Conrad, Deschutes Defenders, Bend
9:00 a.m. Public Defense Services Commission Meeting (adjourns at 1:00 p.m.)
Noon Registration / Exhibitors
1:00 Legislative Update: 2025 Highlights
Mae Lee Browning, OCDLA Legislative Director
2:00 Yes, Oregon, There Is a Confrontation Clause: A Constitutional Gift & Grinch that Can Make Your Client’s Case
Henry Oostrom-Shah, Metropolitan Public Defenders, Portland
Confrontation has been labeled—fairly—”utterly incomprehensible.” First, we clear things up by comparing the state and federal constitutional hurdles that Confrontation forces the state to clear. We then discuss an often neglected constitutional gift: Confrontation without the Confrontation Clause at PV hearings. Last, we talk about the Grinch of “unavailability” and how to make sure that doctrine doesn’t break your client’s case.
3:00 Break / Door Prizes
3:15 Time Served, Time Wasted? What Oregon’s Research Says about Prison Sentences and Reoffending
Christopher M. Campbell, Ph.D., Director, Criminal Justice Policy Research Institute, Associate Professor, Dept. of Criminology & Criminal Justice, Portland State University
Want tips to justify your arguments for shorter sentence recommendations? Drawing on statewide data, this presentation will show how length of prison sentences is largely uncorrelated with recidivism and longer stays in prison may actually increase reoffending. The implications will be discussed as they relate to sentencing practice & policy, as well as to countering deterrence-based arguments.
4:15 President’s Awards & Board of Directors Candidate Statements
4:30 The Mindful Attorney: Preventative Self-Care for a Trauma-Informed Practice Mental Health/Substance Use credit (pending)
Frankie Hupy, Public Defender of Marion County, Salem
This presentation looks at the science of trauma in the brain and body through the lens of mindfulness of our own and our clients’ histories. We will also discuss spoon theory for measuring emotional energy as a backdrop to creating your own preventative self-care plan.
5:30 CLE adjourns for the day.
5:45 Welcome Reception— Open to attendees and attendees’ families. Vegan & kid friendly!
7:00 DEI Committee BIPOC Meetup
Defenders and investigators of color are invited to attend a reception hosted by OCDLA’s DEI committee. The committee is committed to building community for defenders of color and looks forward to forming new connections at this event. Hosted wine, sodas and desserts.
Friday, June 13
Moderator: Alex Reiter, Umpqua Valley Public Defender, Roseburg
7:45 Continental Breakfast (included)
8:45 The Appellate Update: Looking Back to Fight Forward
Marc Brown and Carla Edmondson, Oregon Public Defense Commission—Appellate Division
"You can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been," said Maya Angelou. Join Marc and Carla as they review the most notable appellate decisions of the last year to help you chart your path through the opposition.
9:45 Break/ Door Prizes
10:00 Brady: How to Make Requests that Yield Results
Grant Cole, Metropolitan Public Defender, Portland
This presentation will take a deep dive into securing Brady material and police disciplinary records, particularly as those efforts are occurring in Multnomah County.
11:00 Kids Are Different: Rethinking Confrontation with Child Witnesses
Ted Occhialino, Metropolitan Public Defender, Portland
Especially in cases where a child is the alleged victim, conventional cross-examination strategies must be reexamined. As defense attorneys, we are taught to confront and hammer on every discrepancy, each change in narrative, and any different story that an adverse witness presents. We are trained to paint adverse witnesses as liars interested only in pointing the finger at our clients and having an axe to grind; that inconsistencies in their statements and observations are motivated by animus toward our clients. We better serve our clients when we rethink these approaches with child witnesses. There are many ways to get the testimony you need from a child witness to make your case: building rapport, taking advantage of accommodations, gaining trust, indirect confrontation, and empathy often work better than conventional confrontation.
12:00 Break / Transition
12:15 Lunch (included)
Sponsored by TravelPro, Tigard
12:15 Board of Directors Meeting
1:15 Ethics | Ethics credit (pending)
Lisa Ludwig, Portland
2:15 Special Announcement: Federal Criminal Justice Act (CJA) Panel
Lisa Ludwig, Panel Attorney District Representative for the District of Oregon
2:30 Break/ Transition; Board of Directors meeting concludes
2:45 BREAKOUTS
Breakout: No More “Bombshell Claims”: Fending Against Juror Misconduct
Rian Peck, Portland
Two recent serious felony trials in Portland have resulted in jurors coming forward with “bombshell claims” of misconduct, misunderstanding, and regret. Litigating juror misconduct post-trial is hard. We’ll talk about that, plus ways to avoid post-trial issues by fending off the misconduct and confusion beforehand.
Breakout: “Forensic” Confrontation Clause Workshop: More Statutory and Constitutional Gifts to Keep Out Expert Testimony
Henry Oostrom-Shah, Metropolitan Public Defenders, Portland
Yes, Oregon, Confrontation Clause is real, and he brings us another gift: “forensic” confrontation. Last June, the United States Supreme Court limited the prosecution’s use of substitute experts who parrot back incriminating conclusions without ever touching the underlying evidence or analysis. See Smith v. Arizona, 602 U.S. 779 (2024). In the last several months, Oregon courts have similarly raised the bar for the state’s admission of scientific evidence. See State v. Bowman,373 Or 213 (2025) (distinguishing inadmissible hearsay from expert testimony); see also State v. Widerman, 339 Or App 380 (2025) (reaching same conclusion as Smith under Article I, section 11). We interweave state statutory and constitutional law with the federal Constitution’s Confrontation Clause. We then work through several real-life examples involving SANE reports, “sex offender packets,” and DNA analysis.
Breakout: Supervised Practice Portfolio Examination (SPPE), Part 1: Overview
Jordon Huppert, Oregon Public Defense Commission, Salem
The SPPE is a new way to become a licensed attorney in Oregon. Following law school, SPPE applicants work in supervised apprenticeship and develop a portfolio of work that is assess by the bar’s Board of Examiners.
3:45 Break / Transition
4:00 BREAKOUTS
Breakout: Padilla and the Immigrant Rights Project
J.J. Rollin and Erin McKee, Immigrant Rights Project, Oregon Justice Resource Center, Portland
This session is for counsel new to working with OJRC’s Immigrant Rights Project, funded by OPDC to assist public defense providers meet their constitutional duty under Padilla v. Kentucky to advise noncitizen clients about the immigration consequences of criminal convictions. You will learn how to access and effectively work with IRP, with the goal of reaching immigration-safer outcomes for your clients.
Breakout: Shooting Reconstruction: Bullet Trajectories, Body Positions & Biomechanical Engineering
Dutch Johnson, Engineer, Wiltshire Forensic Biomechanics, Glendale AZ
This presentation offers a brief introduction to Biomechanical Engineering and Injury Biomechanics. This skill set is used to determine how injuries are caused, how bullet trajectories are determined, and how body positions are approximated. (~10%, of course). We will look at cases from Oregon, California, Arizona and Utah where biomechanical shooting reconstruction has been used to assist with the criminal defense case through trial.
Breakout: Supervised Practice Portfolio Examination (SPPE), Part 2: SPPE In Practice: Lessons from the Field
Laura Fine, Supervising Attorney, Eugene; Carrie Petersen, Supervising Attorney, Public Defender of Marion County and Kia Tolbert, Former SPPE Candidate (Program Completed), Umpqua Valley Public Defender
5:00 CLE adjourns for the day.
5:15 First Timers Reception on garden lawn
Conference Reception and Silent Auction — Ballroom
Saturday, June 14
Moderator: New OCDLA President
8:00 Hot Breakfast (included)
9:00 Jedi Jury Deselection: Avoiding the Phantom Menace
La Mer Kyle-Griffiths, Training Division Chief, Los Angeles County Public Defender, Los Angeles CA
Learning objectives: 1. Participants will understand the power and importance of leaning in to cause challenges and asking questions to identify potential jurors to strike. 2. Participants will learn how to craft questions to start conversation on core beliefs, how to pivot to the rest of the panel, and when to switch questioning styles. 3. Participants will learn how to isolate jurors who need to be struck for cause and insulate them from being rehabilitated by a Judge/prosecutor.
10:30 Break / Door Prizes
10:45 OCDLA Business Meeting
- In Memoriam PowerPoint – Remembering Members we lost this year
- Introduce New Board Members
- Announce Juvenile Law Award Recipients
- Ross Shepard Lifetime Service to OCDLA Award Presentation – Gail Meyer, Award Recipient
- Sunny Climate Raffle Drawing / Win a Trip for Two to Maui! / Read on and purchase tickets.
11:00 Immigration KYR and Hot Topics
Kate Sinkins, Immigration Attorney, Lincoln City
J.J. Rollin and Erin McKee, Immigrant Rights Project, Oregon Justice Resource Center, Portland
This session will provide vital "know your rights" information to share with noncitizen clients who may be subject to ICE enforcement. It will also cover current hot topics in immigration law and policy, such as ICE courthouse arrests, efforts to end birthright citizenship, denaturalization, the Laken Riley Act, and proposed federal legislation expanding crime-based grounds for deportation. The goal is to help you understand the evolving landscape and its impact on your clients
12:00 Kintsukuroi Sentencing
Laurie Shertz, Portland
Kintsukuroi, the Japanese art of “golden repair,” involves mending broken pottery with gold, silver, or platinum, embracing the flaws as part of the object’s history rather than concealing them.
This philosophy can be a powerful tool in criminal defense. Applying Kintsukuroi to your practice means embracing and highlighting your clients’ burdens, journeys and rehabilitation efforts as part of their story. This fresh perspective can be applied to developing mitigation strategies and crafting compelling arguments for sentencing.
Most of our clients end up standing before a judge for sentencing. If you’d like to consider some new strategies to help them put their best foot forward, you’ll get some practical ideas and sources for this crucial aspect of your practice.
12:45 Adjourn
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