Opinion
No. MI 42596, CA 6114
Argued August 25, 1976.
Reversed and remanded October 4, 1976. Reconsideration denied November 10, 1976. Petition for review denied February 1, 1977.
Appeal from Circuit Court, Multnomah County, William S. McLennan, Judge.
Susan F. Mandiberg, Metropolitan Public Defender, Portland, argued the cause and filed the briefs for appellant.
Karen H. Green, Certified Law Student, Salem, argued the cause for respondent. With her on the brief were Lee Johnson, Attorney General, and W. Michael Gillette, Solicitor General, Salem.
Before Schwab, Chief Judge, and Tanzer, Judge, and Sloan, Senior Judge.
Reversed and remanded.
SLOAN, S. J.
The court below, in this mental commitment hearing, took judicial notice of the record of a prior commitment proceeding concerning David Hynes. State v. O'Neill, 274 Or. 59, 545 P.2d 97 (1976), held that judicial notice of prior court files was improper. The state, however, argues that O'Neill is inapplicable where the judicial notice is taken in the dispositional "phase" of a commitment hearing rather than in the adjudicative phase of the hearing. We must disagree. Whether or not ORS ch 426 now provides for a separate dispositional "phase" of the commitment process, we read State v. O'Neill, supra, as precluding taking judicial notice of prior court files in any event.
Reversed and remanded.