State v. Edwards

No. 17                    January 22, 2026              491

           IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE
                   STATE OF OREGON

                     STATE OF OREGON,
                      Plaintiff-Respondent,
                                v.
                      SHANE EDWARDS,
                    aka Shane Eppinghaus,
                      Defendant-Appellant.
                  Lincoln County Circuit Court
                      22CR24818; A180087

   Amanda R. Benjamin, Judge.
   Argued and submitted October 15, 2024.
   Joshua B. Crowther, Deputy Public Defender, argued the
cause for appellant. Also on the brief was Ernest G. Lannet,
Chief Defender, Criminal Appellate Section, Office of Public
Defense Services.
   Jonathan N. Schildt, Assistant Attorney General, argued
the cause for respondent. Also on the brief were Ellen F.
Rosenblum, Attorney General, and Benjamin Gutman,
Solicitor General.
   Before Ortega, Presiding Judge, Hellman, Judge, and
O’Connor, Judge.*
   ORTEGA, P. J.
   Affirmed.




______________
   * O’Connor, Judge, vice Mooney, Senior Judge.
492   State v. Edwards
Cite as 

 (2026)                             493

        ORTEGA, P. J.
         Defendant appeals a judgment of conviction for
three counts of second-degree sexual abuse, ORS 163.425,
and one count of third-degree sexual abuse, ORS 163.415.
Although the indictment alleged that defendant committed those offenses when he was 16 or 17 years old, the state
brought charges against defendant in circuit court after he
turned 18. After the trial court denied defendant’s motion to
remand his case to juvenile court, defendant entered a conditional no-contest plea and reserved his right to challenge
that ruling on appeal.
         In one assignment of error on appeal, defendant
contends that the trial court erred in denying his motion to
remand his case to juvenile court because the circuit court
lacked subject matter jurisdiction under ORS 419C.005.
Defendant argues that ORS 419C.005 evinces the legislature’s intent that a juvenile court have exclusive original
jurisdiction over any case involving qualifying acts that
were committed before the person turned 18 years old. In
defendant’s view, our cases construing ORS 419C.005 to
vest exclusive original jurisdiction in the juvenile court only
when the state formally charges the person before they have
turned 18 are plainly wrong and contrary to the Oregon
Supreme Court’s decision in State v. Scurlock, 

,

 (1979). Alternatively, defendant contends that
the exception recognized in Scurlock for retaining juvenile
court jurisdiction when the state fails to show a good-faith
reason for the delay in bringing formal charges applies here.
The state responds that defendant cannot show that our
ORS 419C.005 case law is plainly wrong and that he presents no cognizable basis to overturn the trial court’s finding
that the state did not intentionally delay charging defendant to avoid juvenile court jurisdiction.
        We are not persuaded that our cases construing
ORS 419C.005 are plainly wrong or that they conflict with
Scurlock. We further conclude that the trial court’s factual
finding that the state did not intentionally delay bringing
charges until after defendant turned 18 is supported by evidence in the record such that Scurlock does not aid defendant. Accordingly, we affirm.
494                                        State v. Edwards

         The relevant facts are undisputed. Defendant was
born in April 2001. In June 2018, T reported to Lincoln
County law enforcement that defendant had raped her in
April 2018, when defendant was 17 years old. Deputies did
not immediately locate defendant because his family had
since moved. In March 2019, T told deputies that defendant
had moved to North Carolina with his family, and she identified three additional victims that defendant had allegedly
sexually assaulted: K, C, and S. After conducting additional
investigation, deputies referred the matter to the district
attorney’s office in June 2019.
         In May 2022, a Lincoln County grand jury indicted
defendant on two counts of first-degree rape, ORS 163.375,
three counts of second-degree sexual abuse, ORS 163.425,
two counts of third-degree sexual abuse, ORS 163.415, and
one count each of first-degree sexual abuse, ORS 163.427,
and first-degree sodomy, ORS 163.405. The indictment
alleged that defendant committed those offenses against the
four victims between December 2017 and June 2018, when
he was 16 and 17 years old.
         Before trial, defendant moved to remand his case
to juvenile court on the grounds that the state intentionally delayed charging him until after he had turned 18 and
“solely for the purpose of avoiding a juvenile court [waiver]
proceeding.” The trial court denied the motion, stating that
“in this case after hearing the evidence from the [s]tate’s
witnesses, the Court doesn’t find that there’s any evidence
that the [s]tate acted intentionally in the delay.” Defendant
ultimately entered no-contest pleas to one count against
each victim, reserving his right to appeal the trial court’s
adverse ruling on his motion to remand.
        On appeal, defendant contends that the trial court
erred in denying his motion to remand because it lacked
subject matter jurisdiction over this case. Defendant argues
that ORS 419C.005 vests exclusive original jurisdiction
upon the juvenile court in any case involving qualifying
acts that were committed when a person was younger than
18 years old. In defendant’s view, the Oregon Supreme
Court’s decision in Scurlock confirms that construction of
ORS 419C.005, and our cases to the contrary—including
Cite as 

 (2026)                                              495

most recently State v. Davis, 

, 

,
rev den, 

 (2005)—are plainly wrong.1
         The state responds that ORS 419C.005 vests exclusive jurisdiction in a juvenile court in cases involving qualifying acts where the person is under 18 years of age at the
time the case is formally initiated. In the state’s view, defendant’s construction finds no support in the text or context of
ORS 419C.005, his arguments are contrary to controlling
Supreme Court precedent, and he cannot show that our
cases are plainly wrong.
          The state also contends that defendant’s statutory
construction argument is not preserved, but it acknowledges—and we agree—that because defendant ultimately
challenges the trial court’s subject-matter jurisdiction,
defendant may raise that argument at any time, including
for the first time on appeal. Waddill v. Anchor Hocking, Inc.,

, 

 (2000), adh’d to on recons, 

, 

 (2001). We therefore review for legal error.
State v. Baldwin, 

, 667, 

 (2025)
(observing that we review questions of statutory interpretation and subject matter jurisdiction for legal error).
         In construing a statute, we examine the statute’s
text, context, and legislative history, PGE v. Bureau of Labor
and Industries, 

, 

 (1993), and
State v. Gaines, 

, 

 (2009), as
well as prior judicial constructions of the statute, Ingle v.
Matteucci, 

, 

 (2023).2 We begin
with the text, which is the best evidence of the legislature’s
intent. PGE, 

.
           ORS 419C.005 provides, in relevant part:

    1
      In 1993, the legislature enacted ORS 419C.005 and simultaneously
repealed its predecessor, former ORS 419.476 (1991), repealed by Or Laws 1993,
ch 33, § 373. Or Laws 1993, ch 33, §§ 149, 373. Thus, Scurlock construed former
ORS 419.476, while Davis construed ORS 419C.005. There is no material difference between the relevant text of each statute.
    2
      We note that, although the prior judicial constructions of ORS 419C.005
and its predecessor predate either PGE or Gaines, they are still binding precedent that we presume were correctly decided. State v. Riley, 

, 

 (2019) (stating that “this court’s decisions interpreting a statute, even
prior to PGE, remain good law” and that “this court presumes that its prior decisions have been properly decided”).
496                                              State v. Edwards

       “(1) The juvenile court has exclusive original jurisdiction in any case involving a person who is under 18 years
   of age and who has committed an act that is a violation, or
   that if done by an adult would constitute a violation, of a law
   or ordinance of the United States or a state, county or city.”
We first observe that the subject of the sentence is the juvenile court, the verb phrase is “has exclusive original jurisdiction in,” and the object is “any case involving a person
….” That sentence structure defines the juvenile court’s
jurisdiction in certain cases, rather than over certain persons or acts. However, the statute qualifies the cases over
which the juvenile court has jurisdiction as those “involving
a person” that meets two requirements: (1) “who is under
18 years of age” and (2) “who has committed an act” that
violates the law or would violate the law if done by an adult.
         We further observe that the statute speaks in present tense—”has exclusive original jurisdiction in any case
involving”—meaning that jurisdiction is determined when
the case exists before the court and is not determined at some
point in the past or future. The qualifications for the types
of cases over which a juvenile court has jurisdiction—”involving a person who is under 18 years of age and who has
committed an act”—are also stated in present and present
perfect tense, meaning that those qualifications must exist
at the time the case is before the court.
        The plain text of ORS 419C.005 therefore strongly
supports the conclusion that the legislature intended to vest
exclusive original jurisdiction upon the juvenile court in any
case before it that, when it is initiated, involves a person
who is under 18 years of age and who has already committed an act that violates the law or would violate the law if
done by an adult.
         We and the Supreme Court have consistently construed ORS 419C.005 according to its plain text, including
most recently in Davis. Indeed, in Davis, we rejected the
same arguments that defendant raises here. In that case,
the trial court granted the defendant’s motion to remand his
case to juvenile court “out of ‘the need for public confidence
in our system’ ” because the defendant was 17 years old when
he committed the charged acts but 18 when he was charged
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 (2026)                                            497

by indictment. 

. The state appealed
and we reversed. We concluded that ORS 419C.005, together
with ORS 419C.094, which provides that “the jurisdiction
of the juvenile court of the county in which a youth is taken
into custody … shall attach from the time the youth is
taken into custody” mean that “as a general rule, if a person
is over 18 when [they are] charged with a criminal offense,
that person will be tried as an adult … even if the person
was under the age of 18 when [they] committed the acts that
gave rise to the charge.” 

 (internal quotation marks
and citations omitted).
          To be sure, we acknowledged that in Scurlock the
Supreme Court had created “an exception to the foregoing
general rule in cases in which the state has intentionally
delayed bringing charges to avoid juvenile court jurisdiction.” 

.3 However, we emphasized that Scurlock’s
holding was limited to intentional delays to avoid juvenile
court jurisdiction and that the trial court’s express finding
that the state had not engaged in intentional delay was dispositive, given that the state did not charge the defendant
until after he turned 18. 

. Finally, we explained
that the defendant’s argument that “we should expand the
exception to include not just intentional delays but also
delays occasioned by the negligence of the state … should
be addressed to the Supreme Court.” 

         Davis controls the outcome in this case, and we are
not persuaded that it, or any of the cases on which it relies,
are plainly wrong or conflict with Supreme Court precedent.
See State v. Civil, 

, 

 (2017)
(“[T]o be ‘plainly wrong’ a holding must first be wrong.”).
Here, it is undisputed that the state charged defendant
after he turned 18, and the trial court found that the there
was no evidence that the state intentionally delayed bringing charges. ORS 419C.005 therefore does not vest exclusive original jurisdiction in the juvenile court over this case,

    3
      The Scurlock court recognized that the predecessor statutes to ORS
419C.005 and ORS 419.094 vested exclusive original jurisdiction on the juvenile
court in cases involving persons under 18 years of age at the time they were
charged or brought into custody. 

. We therefore reject defendant’s argument that Davis conflicts with Scurlock without further discussion.
498                                                         State v. Edwards

Scurlock does not apply, and the trial court did not err in
denying defendant’s motion to remand on that basis.4
           Affirmed.




    4
      We recently held that under ORS 161.740, when sentencing a defendant
whose conduct occurred before they were 18 years of age but whose case is proceeding in the circuit court, rather than the juvenile court, the sentencing court
must “exercise its discretion by fashioning an appropriate sentence, without
being bound by presumptive sentences provided in the [Oregon Criminal Justice
Commission] guidelines.” State v. Gardner-Rolph, 

, ___ P3d
___ (2025). In determining the “appropriate” sentence, the sentencing court must
give consideration to, among other factors, the defendant’s “age … at the time of
the offense.” ORS 161.740(2)(a).