Portland’s leftist district attorney is trying to reduce the sentences for several violent prisoners, including a convicted murderer just days before his tough-on-crime replacement takes over.
Mike Schmidt, district attorney of Multnomah County, was voted out of office on Election Day last month, but that has not stopped him from petitioning an Oregon judge to reduce or get rid of charges for eight people, some convicted of murder, violent assaults, or robbery, The Oregonian reported.
Schmidt will be replaced by Nathan Vasquez, who has promised a tougher approach to crime in the Portland area.
“These have all the appearance of a last-minute giveaway,” Vasquez said of his predecessor’s petitions for lenience. “They’re extremely violent individuals who have committed horrible crimes, and they’re being given some kind of a break.”
Vasquez starts his term January 6.
Districts attorneys and convicts can petition a judge together to reconsider a conviction and reduce a prison sentence, according to a 2021 state law. This can result in a judge releasing a convict from prison.
One convict petitioning the court is Frank F. Swopes Jr., who was convicted of murder, robbery, burglary, kidnapping, unauthorized use of a vehicle, and eluding police in 1993 when he was 30.
Swopes was convicted of killing a 75-year-old woman by asphyxiation as he and another person robbed her Portland home. She died after his fellow robber pushed her to the ground when Swopes said to “keep her quiet,” the case found. The robbers took her wedding ring and $8.
Swopes then robbed another 76-year-old woman a week later, tying her to a bed frame. He “terrorized” her until she gave him her ATM code, “touched her sexually” and took her robe off, “at which point she believed he either urinated or ejaculated on her,” documents say. Swopes had a cocaine habit, court documents said.
Another convict petitioning the court is Shane Ebberts, 46, who along with two friends attacked two community college students with a mallet handle when he was 16. He served seven years and got out of prison in 2003 and is now married and runs his own general contracting company.
However, Ebberts wants a judge to let him withdraw his guilty plea and enter a new guilty plea to the lesser charge of attempted second-degree assault. Two years ago, his defense lawyer tried to get his conviction changed to the lesser charge so Ebberts could then apply to get the lesser charge expunged.
Both of the victims in that case, the community college students who were attacked, are opposed to throwing out the more serious convictions, the petition notes.
Other convicts petitioning the court include a man convicted of robbing a pub and firing a gun at the floor with nine people inside, two women with child neglect convictions, a man who delivered drugs near a school, another burglar, and a man who delivered heroin.
Schmidt told The Oregonian that the petitions are similar to others he has supported this year.
His office stands “for more than just convictions – but striving for justice,” Schmidt said.
“We have an established and extensive process, including input from our community advisory board. Each of these petitions have been considered in a thorough process over a number of months,” he told the outlet. “This is the same work we’ve been doing throughout my term.”
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