For more than 60 consecutive nights the Black Lives Matters demonstrations, confrontations and altercations have played out, much of the time on the front porch of the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse.
With normal operations at the building already cut back due to the coronavirus, the demonstrations have turned the courtrooms, judge’s chambers and administrative offices into a bit of ghost town.
Two state lawmakers now say they have the answer.
Rep. Mike Nearman, R-Independence, says it’s time to move the courthouse to more hospitable climes — like perhaps Dallas, one of the largest cities in his district.
Rep. E. Werner Reschke, R-Klamath Falls, quickly came out in support of Nearman’s proposal, but suggested that a better place would be… Klamath Falls.
“Moving the courthouse makes sense,” Nearman said. “We have business to do, we have legal things to do, we have criminal cases to try. We can’t have a courthouse that is under attack every night. I think that just moving it is a great idea.”
Ron Hoevet, one of the Portland’s most experienced criminal defense lawyers, said moving the operation out of the state’s largest city is a non-starter.
“The judges would never go for it,” he said. “And I’d have to scrape the Bernie Sanders sticker off my car. I might get shot in Klamath Falls.”
And why Dallas or Klamath Falls, asked Larry Matasar, another veteran defense lawyer, when there are existing federal courthouses in Eugene, Medford and Pendleton?
U.S. Attorney Billy Williams said work continues to get done in the Portland courthouse despite the pandemic and what he called “recent violent attacks” on the building.
“Our office, the Federal Public Defender’s Office, and the entire courthouse family have worked tirelessly to adapt to the new normal and keep the business of the court moving,” he said.
Once this time of pandemic and social unrest passes, the courthouse will “shine brighter than ever,” Williams said.
Nearman heartily agrees that the courthouse is an important symbol. All the more reason it should be relocated to a more peaceful locale… like Dallas.
Dallas may be peaceful…. sleepy even. But according to Dallas City Manager Brian Latta, there’s a problem with Nearman’s plan. This town of 15,000 just west of Salem has no building large enough to house a federal courthouse.
“That’s a 16-story story building, right,” Latta said. “We have three-story buildings here in Dallas.”
