Politics with a lower-case ‘p’
Judge Karin Immergut allowed Oregon’s worst ever legal offender to walk free without bail
On May 24, 2019, still a few months away from her eventual confirmation to the federal bench, Judge Karin Immergut dutifully presided over her courtroom in Multnomah County, Oregon.
As she processed the parade of criminally accused that morning, it must have come as a shock to see her colleague Lori Deveny before her — not as an attorney in one of the cases, but as a defendant accused of a crime.
Actually, a defendant accused of 92 crimes, including 24 counts of forgery in the first degree, and 32 of aggravated theft in the first degree, all committed against Deveny’s former legal clients.
Earlier that month, Deveny had been indicted by the feds on charges stemming from the same facts: The former superstar attorney had defrauded her vulnerable personal injury clientele, forged their signatures on legal documents, and stolen most or all of their settlement monies… millions of dollars over the course of decades.
Those were the same decades that Deveny and Judge Immergut crossed paths, rubbed elbows, and guest spoke at galas, fundraisers, and functions in Portland’s legal community, most notably for Oregon Women Lawyers (OWLS) — arguably the most influential organization in the state.
When the dust finally settled on Deveny’s career, state prosecutors would describe her as “the worst thing to happen to Oregon’s legal community, ever.” But on day one of the criminal case against her, she was presumed innocent, and it was Judge Immergut’s duty to determine how large of a threat Deveny posed to the public, and if she might flee before trial.
Despite the seriousness of her crimes and the sheer number of victims she had defrauded, and despite the prosecutor’s recommendation that Deveny pay nearly a half million dollars in security, Judge Immergut inexplicably declined to order any bail.
Deveny’s release conditions — ordered and signed by Judge Immergut — read like a to-do list for the disgraced attorney, and she would go on to violate nearly all of the conditions over the course of four years that she managed to have the trial delayed:
Because Judge Immergut failed to order any bail for her colleague, there were zero consequences for Deveny, for her ongoing abuse of her release agreement.
However, there were significant consequences for the dozens (in truth, hundreds) of victims Deveny continued to exploit and lie to, and whose money and affairs she handled, right up until the morning she surrendered to federal agents on January 17, 2023.
It would be wonderful if America’s right-wing extremists, steeped in capital ‘P’ Politics, and reflexively raging against judicial decisions they don’t like, were at all concerned about the actual lower-case ‘p’ politics routinely infecting our courts, and producing objectively unjust rulings.
