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In 2016, Erious Johnson Jr., then former top civil rights lawyer at the Oregon Department of Justice, sued his employer in federal court—for violating his civil rights.
Johnson won a $205,000 settlement in that case, and today he won again: Gov. Kate Brown appointed him to a vacancy on the Marion County bench.
With the appointment of Johnson and Marion County hearings referee Jennifer Gardiner, to another Marion County vacancy, Brown continued to remake the Oregon judiciary. Since taking office nearly six years ago, Brown has focused on changing the makeup of the courts, which, like many powerful institutions of power, have been dominated by white men.
Although the Oregon Constitution says judges “shall” be elected, in practice, judges at the circuit and appellate court levels routinely retire before their elected terms are up, allowing the governor to appoint successors. The aging of the baby boom generation has meant wholesale retirements, giving Brown the opportunity to appoint about 90 judges, including six Oregon Supreme Court justices. Of her appointments, half are women, at least 20 are people of color, and five identify openly as LGBTQ.
Johnson’s appointment, however, is particularly noteworthy. In 2015, Johnson, one of a handful of Black lawyers at the DOJ, learned that Jim Williams, an investigator within the DOJ’s Titan Fusion Center, a shadowy operation charged with conducting threat assessments, had used a surveillance tool called Digital Stakeout to monitor Johnson’s social media activity. Williams documented his findings, mostly innocuous tweets about music and the Black Lives Matter movement, in a memo to his superiors.
That surveillance appeared to violate Johnson’s civil rights and an Oregon law prohibiting targeting a person because of the person’s political activity.
After an independent investigation, Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum fired Williams and, later, removed his boss. (Disclosure: Rosenblum is married to Richard Meeker, the co-owner of WW’s parent company.)
An arbitrator later reversed Williams’ firing, saying DOJ had failed to train him properly and should not have ordered him to document his surveillance. And in the end, although Johnson got a $205,000 settlement from DOJ, he also agreed to leave his job as a condition of the settlement. He returned to private practice and also served as legislative director for state Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-Clackamas) in the 2018 session.
In effect, Johnson got punished for being the victim of improper surveillance. Now, he will replace retiring Judge Susan Tripp on the circuit court where his former agency regularly appears to represent state agencies involved in lawsuits.
“Gov. Brown called yesterday evening to say that she would appoint me to the Marion County Circuit Court,” Johnson said. “I am humbled and honored by her confidence. I thank Judge Tripp for her years of service to our community. I am grateful too for the outpouring of support from community members and elected officials. Next I’m looking forward to joining my colleagues on the bench and building upon my years of service to the public.”
