After court rulings on non-unanimous jury verdicts, a third Lincoln County trial set for man in Seal Rock sex abuse case

 

By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews

A new trial – his third – has been set for early next year for a Seal Rock man whose 2019 conviction on 13 sex-related charges was sent back for re-trial by the Oregon Court of Appeals.

A July re-trial in Lincoln County circuit court of Lawson R. Rankin ended with a “hung jury” when 12 jurors said they could not reach the now-required unanimous verdicts.

Now, district attorney Lanee Danforth – she prosecuted the original case in 2019 and the second in July – will try again starting Feb. 21.

Rankin’s retrials and several others sent back to Lincoln County are the result of a December 2022 ruling by the Oregon Supreme Court requiring unanimous verdicts in felony trials. The Oregon court’s ruling followed the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision two years earlier on a case from Louisiana that held the Sixth Amendment requires unanimous verdicts for felony convictions.

In 2020 Oregon and Louisiana were the only states that still allowed felony convictions based on non-unanimous – 11-1 or 10-2 – jury verdicts. In its ruling, the Oregon Supreme Court said the state’s 1934 law was intended to minimize the vote of non-white jurors.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling left the door open for states to make their own laws applying it retroactively. The 2021 Oregon Legislature did not do that, but people convicted by split juries began pursuing relief at the Oregon Court of Appeals.

In Oregon, the Ramos ruling vacated more than 470 non-unanimous jury convictions with active appeals. That meant district attorneys were required to essentially reboot each case from the beginning and either pursue a new trial, cut a plea deal or dismiss the charges. The Oregon court’s ruling also meant that district attorneys also had to make similar decisions for cases where the defendant had already exhausted a final appeal.

In addition to Rankin’s case, at least six other men whose cases were affected by the higher court rulings on non-unanimous jury verdicts have been re-adjudicated this year or are under way in Lincoln County.

• Gregory A. Kay, 49, of Lincoln City, who was found guilty in 2016 on four sex abuse-related charges dating back to 2005, was serving 14 years in prison but returned to Lincoln County and released on $35,000 bond in August. He has asked for a new trial and is due back in court in November.
• A settlement conference was held Sept. 26 for Donovan T. Fortin, 51, of Siletz, who was convicted in 2002 of more than a dozen sex-related crimes, but whose two convictions for first-degree rape were returned to Lincoln County because they came on non-unanimous jury verdicts. On Sept. 28 Fortin pled guilty to one count of attempted rape and sentenced for up to 10 years but given credit for time served. The sentences for most of his convictions were concurrent, so he was released from custody Sept. 28, placed on probation for 10 years and required to register as a sex offender.
• Ian M. Williams, 33, Newport, who was convicted in 2011 of rape and sex abuse but found not guilty on seven charges and had one dismissed. He is scheduled for a pre-trial hearing later this month.
• Floyd T. Roper, 55, convicted of sodomy and sex abuse in 2003 from charges brought in 1997. He has a new trial scheduled for January.
• Scott D. Jones, 41, Newport, was convicted of four sex-related charges in 2003 but acquitted of a rape charge and four other counts were dismissed. In April three convictions were vacated because of non-unanimous jury verdicts and he was sentenced to 100 months in prison on another sex charge, but given credit for time served.
• Anthony A. Mendibles, 59, Siletz, was accused in 2013 of 20 crimes ranging from kidnapping to sex abuse. A jury found him guilty of 10, not guilty of one, and could not reach verdicts on nine other counts. In August he pleaded guilty to second-degree kidnapping, third-degree sex abuse, and coercion and was sentenced to time served.

Many court filings

But Rankin’s case may be the longest, most contested and convoluted. And, according to witnesses in court, led to tears from the presiding judge and prosecutor during reading of the jury’s first verdict in 2019.

Rankin, 40, was arrested in January 2019 after police learned he had held a woman for two months in a camp in the Beaver Creek area northeast of Seal Rock. They came to Oregon from northern California, where the woman had been reported missing.

During the time near Seal Rock, according to Danforth’s court filings, Rankin held the woman against her will, raped and sodomized her daily, repeatedly beat and strangled her, forced her to eat cat food and bathe in a creek for punishment.

In July 2019 a 12-person jury found Rankin guilty of 13 charges ranging from first-degree rape, sodomy, strangulation, and assault. They found him not guilty on two counts of second-degree assault. He was sentenced to eight to 25 years on each verdict – essentially a life sentence.

Rankin filed notice of appeal a few months later. The state’s public defender’s office filed its formal appeal in July 2020 after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling because all 13 of Rankin’s convictions were non-unanimous. The Oregon Court of Appeals reversed Rankin’s convictions and sent his case back to Lincoln County for re-trial. Rankin has been in the county jail the last three years.

Before the second trial, Lincoln County presiding Judge Sheryl Bachart approved a motion removing her from overseeing the case and brought in Judge Beau Peterson from Clatsop County.

The massive court file on the case is filled with motions and requests from attorneys including ones Rankin filed from his jail cell. In the last three years Rankin has also gone through several court-appointed attorneys.

John Mason of Newport defended Rankin in July when the jury in the second trial did not unanimously convict him or have at least 10 jurors reach not guilty verdicts. That hung jury resulted in scheduling yet another trial.

On Sept. 21, Peterson denied Mason’s motions seeking to also remove him from overseeing the case and for a change of venue and scheduled Rankin’s third trial to begin Feb. 21, 2024.

• Quinton Smith is the editor of YachatsNews.com and can be reached at YachatsNews@gmail.com