Opinion ID: 2612476
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Equal Privileges, Article I, Section 20

Text: Father contends that federal constitutional guarantees and the equal privileges and immunities provision of Oregon Constitution, Article I, section 20, [10] require that the state provide him with counsel. This court decides cases upon subconstitutional grounds, where available, even though litigants argue only constitutional errors. [11] Likewise, the state constitution is consulted before the federal. Here, ORS chapter 109, relating to adoptions, is silent on the right to counsel and no prior decision of this court covers the question presented. We turn to consideration of father's state constitutional claim. Father's Article I, section 20, argument is based on the statutory mandate of ORS 419.525(2) to provide counsel in parental termination proceedings instituted in juvenile court. Simply stated, father contends that he was treated unequally under the law of Oregon when he was denied assistance of counsel in a proceeding that was, as to him, precisely like a proceeding to which ORS 419.525(2) applies, and that Article I, section 20, makes such unequal treatment unconstitutional. His request is not that this court strike down the law which grants a privilege of assistance by counsel to other parents whose parental rights are in jeopardy, but rather that the privilege be extended to him as a parent equally in jeopardy of loss of his parental rights. The ORS 419.525(2) requirement  to appoint counsel for indigent parents in juvenile court termination proceedings  represents a legislatively recognized right to assistance of counsel in such proceedings. The privilege of counsel, if a parent employs one, is a given upon which the statute builds to assure counsel in all such cases. Similarly, no statute or rule prohibits assistance of counsel in a private adoption under ORS chapter 109. If father had come to court with counsel, we know of no basis upon which the trial judge could deny him such assistance. Because he could not employ his own counsel, the question thus becomes: Does Oregon Law require that counsel be appointed for him?