Senate committee heard testimony on amendments to exonerees law

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Phillip Scott Cannon was convicted of a triple homicide in Polk County in 2000. He spent 11 years behind bars — but he consistently maintained his innocence. But after years of fighting his case was exonerated after bullets and crime scene photos were lost by the Oregon Department of Justice.

Being wrongfully convicted “sucks,” he said. “It’s probably one of the most helpless feelings you can have.”

He is now working with advocates like Janis Puracal with the Forensic Justice Project, an organization working to stop wrongful convictions from happening in the first place.

In 2022, lawmakers passed the Oregon Justice Exonerees Act which would provide wrongfully convicted Oregonians some money if they are exonerated. The act calls for $65,000 for each year a person spent in prison if their wrongful convictions were overturned.

But not many of the exonerees have seen any money. So far, 27 lawsuits have been filed since the Oregon Justice Exonerees Act was passed in 2022.

Part of the reason is the cost involved.

“We actually brought this same concept two years ago, in 2023. And the challenge that came back was, ‘Well, this is going to be really expensive for the state. Can we afford this?’” she said. “So recognizing that, we narrowed down the concept so that we can make this a no-cost solution so that nobody can come forward and say this is way too expensive.”

The Forensic Justice Project narrowed its focus to 3 evidence methods — hair comparison, bite mark analysis and comparative bullet analysis — that were commonly used before DNA was available as a tool.

Monday, Puracal brought that argument before a Senate Judiciary committee hearing on SB-1007 to amend the Oregon Justice Exonerees Act. Advocates want to amend the law to allow convicted Oregonians get a retrial if any of those 3 methods were used during the investigation.

“I have clients who are still sitting in prison today based on hair comparisons and bite mark comparisons that were done back in the ’80s and ’90s,” Puracal said. “They have been sitting in prison for decades, waiting for a law like this so that they could get back into court.”

The state owes Cannon about $750,000 for his time behind bars. But so far he and many other exonerees haven’t seen a penny.

“It’s hard to put into words just exactly how much turmoil it causes in a person’s life,” Cannon said.

Puracal wants to put the amendments to the law in front of lawmakers during the next legislative session in February 2026.

“We need to fix compensation by making it a much more efficient process, so that if you’ve already proved your innocence, you don’t have to do that all over again,” she said.

The Trump administration’s use of federal law to take control of state National Guard units and deploy them to Oregon and Illinois has triggered a wave of legal challenges that now test the limits of presidential authority in domestic security.

In Oregon, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut permanently blocked the deployment to Portland, finding after a three-day hearing that the administration failed to meet the statutory requirements of § 12406 and violated the Tenth Amendment.

Newsweek contacted the DOJ and the office of the governors of Illinois and Oregon for comment via email outside of normal office hours on Monday.

Why It Matters

The escalating court battles over President Trump’s federalization of National Guard units in Illinois and Oregon matter because they will determine how far a president can go in deploying military forces inside the United States without state consent.

At stake are the limits of presidential authority under 10 U.S.C. § 12406, the ability of states to control their own Guard units and the degree to which courts can review a president’s judgment in domestic security matters.

The outcomes will set precedent not just for these disputes, but for how future administrations respond to protests, unrest and conflicts with state governments.

What To Know

Oregon At The Center Of The Fight

Oregon is now the central battleground in the fight over President Trump’s authority to federalize and deploy National Guard units under 10 U.S.C. § 12406.

After a three-day hearing, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut permanently enjoined the administration from deploying any federalized Guard troops to Portland, holding that the President’s actions violated both § 12406 and the Tenth Amendment.

In the government’s emergency stay request now before the Ninth Circuit, federal officials portray Portland as a sustained security crisis, asserting that immigration facilities had “come under coordinated assault by violent groups intent on obstructing lawful federal enforcement action,” and arguing that “violence and threats of violence recurred more-or-less continuously,” including incidents where protesters “started fires,” “assaulted officers” and “hurled mortars at the facility.”

Oregon officials sharply dispute that rationale.

Oregon Governor, Tina Kotek is on record as saying: “I think it’s incredibly dangerous to take our citizen soldiers and to deploy them in our streets, without a real reason. The facts on the ground… do not warrant [this]. There’s not an insurrection. This is not a rebellion. This is not a national security threat,”

She added: “This is a fundamental issue for our democracy, about what the control and authority of the president is, and what the court says it is. The rule of law has to hold,” saying: “This is not a factual need on the ground in Oregon… This is an unlawful militarization of our troops here.”

However, Attorney General Dan Rayfield welcomed the ruling, saying, as per Statesman Journal: “From the start, this case has been about making sure that facts—not political whims—guide how the law is applied,” and insisting that the decision “made it clear that this administration must be accountable to the truth and to the rule of law.”

National Guard In Limbo As States Push Back

Even after the injunction, the Guard remains caught between state and federal authority.

About 200 members of the Oregon National Guard will remain under federal control, as reported by Oregon Capital Chronicle, but cannot yet be deployed to Portland, “…the effect of granting an administrative stay preserves the status quo in which National Guard members have been federalized but not deployed,” the judges wrote.

The Oregon standoff, however, has also drawn national scrutiny.

In an October 7 letter to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, members of Congress warned that cross-state deployments for domestic policing “violate the rule of law” and “set a dangerous precedent that states can police one another’s communities.”

Illinois Case Echoes Oregon—But On Narrower Grounds

Illinois faces a similar but narrower dispute. Unlike Oregon—where the administration attempted to bring in out-of-state Guard units—the Illinois case involves only the attempted federalization of the Illinois National Guard.

The Seventh Circuit is reviewing the administration’s appeal after a district court temporarily blocked federalization of the Illinois National Guard, finding “insufficient evidence of rebellion or a danger of a rebellion” and insufficient evidence that the President was “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”

The court of appeals wrote that “the facts do not justify the President’s actions in Illinois under § 12406.”

Illinois has also presented evidence that local police effectively managed protests near an ICE facility, including an ICE official’s email noting that agents “had not needed to interact with any protesters at all” because state and local officers “were handling everything.”

Across both states, the administration continues to argue that the President’s determinations under § 12406 deserve extraordinary judicial deference.

In a November 10 supplemental brief to the Supreme Court, the Solicitor General’s office asserted that the term “regular forces” refers to “the civilian forces with whom the President regularly executes the relevant laws,” and insisted that courts cannot “second-guess the Commander in Chief’s judgment.”

With appellate proceedings active and the Supreme Court weighing the meaning of “regular forces,” the legal boundaries of presidential power in domestic military deployment remain unsettled and consequential, according to Washington Examiner.

What People Are Saying

Donald Trump/the White House said, as per Military Times: “I am also authorizing Full Force, if necessary.”

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said in a statement: “From the start, this case has been about making sure that facts—not political whims—guide how the law is applied,” adding “The district court’s ruling made it clear that this administration must be accountable to the truth and to the rule of law.”

J.B. Pritzker. Governor of Illinois, October 4, 2025, said: “For Donald Trump, this has never been about safety. This is about control.”

What Happens Next

Appellate courts in the Seventh and Ninth Circuits—and likely the Supreme Court—must now decide whether President Trump can continue federalizing and deploying National Guard units over state objections, leaving troops in a suspended status while states pursue additional legal challenges and the administration presses its argument for broad presidential discretion under 10 U.S.C. §12406.

The outcomes will determine if deployments resume, remain blocked or trigger a broader constitutional ruling on the limits of federal power in domestic security.

ESPN’s “College GameDay” is headed back to Eugene, Oregon.