Evans v. Nooth
Annotate this CasePetitioner Michael Evans raised a claim for inadequate assistance of counsel based on the performance of his appellate counsel, who had represented him in his direct appeal of multiple sexual-assault convictions. The post-conviction court denied that claim, concluding both that counsel had not acted unreasonably and that no evidence showed that petitioner had suffered any prejudice. Petitioner appealed, and the Court of Appeals affirmed, but on different grounds than those at issue before the post-conviction court or raised by the parties in their briefing on appeal. The Oregon Supreme Court found the Court of Appeals, in effect, affirmed the post-conviction court’s judgment by invoking the “right for the wrong reason” principle. In Outdoor Media Dimensions Inc. v. Oregon, 20 P3d 180 (2001), the Supreme Court explained that an appellate court may affirm a lower court based on that principle, but only if certain conditions are met. One condition was that, if the question was not purely one of law, then the record had to “materially be the same one that would have been developed had the prevailing party raised the alternative basis for affirmance below.” Perhaps even more significantly for the Supreme Court: neither party had any opportunity to develop an argument regarding the appropriateness of the evidentiary burden that the Court of Appeals described. The Supreme Court therefore reversed the Court of Appeals decision and remanded to that court, to resolve the issue framed by the parties.
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