pantslessman.jpg

A law enforcement officer led Jonathan Modesitt away from his wrecked car along Interstate 5 south of Eugene on Jan. 14.

(Oregon State Police)

The Oregon State Police employee who took this priceless photo deserves an award, or at least a credit with his or her name (state police submitted it to the media without one). The photo shows a pantless drunken driver emerging from a canal along Interstate 5 south of Eugene, his partially submerged Volkswagen in the background.





Flash forward six weeks and that man, Jonathan David Modesitt, 38, promised a Lane County Circuit judge that he'll never drink again, The Eugene Register-Guard reports.





Friday, the judge sentenced Modesitt to six months in jail for his crime spree. Modesitt repeatedly smashed his Volkswagen into a school bus, then crashed into another car, then led police on a 90-mph chase before -- well, you know the rest of the story.





Among other news from courts around the Northwest:

A woman who claims she hurt herself while walking in a Bend hospital is suing for $600,000 after she slipped and fell on melted snow tracked in by visitors. Attorneys for the St. Charles health system say the woman failed to look out for her own safety, The Bend Bulletin reports.

Oregonian columnist Steve Duin writes about a novel approach two state lawmakers are taking to helping the state’s poor receive legal assistance with landlord-tenant disagreements, fraud cases and family disputes. Their solution? Funnel unclaimed class-action awards to a legal aid endowment fund, they propose.

A Gig Harbor woman has been sentenced to 18 years in prison after paying a hit man $12,000 to kill her son-in-law, whose body was found dumped not far from the woman’s house. The woman claims she feared for her daughter's safety, so she offed her daughter's husband.





A University of Washington study has come out with a fascinating finding about race and the death penalty: While prosecutors have been slightly more likely to seek the death penalty against white defendants, jurors have been three times as likely to impose it on black defendants.



