Lozano v. Agustin

In this appeal from a judgment of punitive contempt for violation of a Family Abuse Prevention Act (FAPA) restraining order, we are asked to decide whether the trial court’s remarks to defendant about the risks of testifying were so impermissibly coercive as to violate defendant’s right to testify under Article I, section 11, of the Oregon Constitution and the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.1 We conclude that the trial court’s advice — which would have communicated to a reasonable person in defendant’s position that the trial court would sentence…