Oregon Supreme Court sides with woman alleging Kotek caused her wrongful imprisonment

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — The Oregon Supreme Court has called for the immediate release of a woman who the justices ruled was unlawfully incarcerated due to an order from Gov. Tina Kotek.

On Wednesday, Supreme Court justices ruled Kotek didn’t hold the authority to send Terri Lee Brown back to prison after her sentence was commuted during former Gov. Kate Brown’s tenure.

Court documents show Terri Lee Brown pleaded guilty to two counts of mail theft in April 2017. She was sentenced to 60 months in prison, followed by two years of post-prison supervision.

In December 2020, then-Governor Brown issued commutations for several Oregon inmates in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19 inside the prison system. Terri Lee Brown was discharged from Coffee Creek Correctional Facility that same month but was still required to complete her post-prison supervision.

In February 2023, authorities informed Brown she had completed her sentence. But, roughly one year later, Brown was arrested and held in the same facility once again.

The Supreme Court opinion said Brown didn't learn that Governor Kotek had reversed the commutation until after she was rearrested.

Brown filed a petition against Kotek and other public employees in early May of 2023, arguing she was illegally imprisoned.

“Her petition was accompanied by a supporting memorandum in which she argues that Governor Kotek’s revocation of her earlier conditional commutation violates a variety of state and federal constitutional principles, including that the Governor lacks authority to revoke a commutation after the expiration of a sentence,” justices wrote.

In addition to ordering the state to free the plaintiff, the court also knocked down its argument that Brown previously waived her right to challenge authorities if her commutation was revoked.

Justices said she may have waived the right when she first signed a contract with the state, but that no longer applied after she completed her sentence.