Baker City has been the county seat of Baker County — and the site of its courthouse — since 1868. But the city wasn't the first county seat. Auburn had that distinction from 1862, when the Oregon Legislature created Baker County, until 1868, when county voters made the change.

A Vale man who served four and a half years in state prison for the January 2020 fatal shooting of Angela Parrish in Baker City has filed a notice with Baker City that he might file a civil lawsuit claiming a former police detective violated his civil rights.

Shawn Quentin Greenwood, 53, filed the tort claim notice in August.

People who plan to sue a government agency first have to file a tort claim notice. The notice is not a lawsuit, and according to court records Greenwood has not filed a suit.

Greenwood was released from prison on July 5 of this year.

On April 24, a three-judge panel of the Oregon Court of Appeals concluded that one of the three counts to which Greenwood pleaded no contest in September 2021 — first-degree burglary — must be dismissed because a Baker City Police detective violated his constitutional rights by listening to phone calls he had with his attorney, Jim Schaeffer of La Grande, in September 2020.

Greenwood was sentenced to 90 months in prison in September 2021. The burglary count had the longest sentence, at 66 months.

During a hearing July 3 in Baker County Circuit Court, Judge Matt Shirtcliff said he could not, based on appeals court’s ruling, sentence Greenwood to a longer prison term than was part of his plea agreement in 2021.

With the 66-month term for the burglary no contest plea off the table due to the Appeals Court’s ruling, the remaining sentence was 24 months. Greenwood had already been in prison longer than that.

Greenwood, who was arrested in January 2020 and charged with Parrish’s murder, had been in custody since then, first in the Baker County Jail and, since September 2021, at Snake River Correctional Facility near Ontario.

In the tort claim notice, Greenwood wrote that detective Shannon Regan violated his civil rights by listening to his phone calls with Schaeffer.

Greenwood wrote that during his “illegal imprisonment,” he was unable to say good-bye to several relatives who died, including hhis paternal grandmother and maternal grandfather.

Greenwood’s appeal

Following his plea agreement in September 2021 that led to the 90-month prison sentence, Greenwood appealed, claiming that Regan, the Baker City Police detective who led the investigation into Parrish’s murder, violated his constitutional rights by listening to telephone calls between Greenwood and Schaeffer in which they discussed potential trial strategy.

The Appeals Court judges agreed, describing Regan’s conduct as “grossly shocking and outrageous.”

The Appeals Court ruling, in addition to dismissing two of the eight counts for which Greenwood was indicted, gave Greenwood the option of withdrawing his no contest plea.

Greenwood chose not to do so.

Had he withdrawn his plea, Baker County District Attorney Greg Baxter could have sought to file new charges against Greenwood, raising the possibility that he could be convicted on charges that were dismissed as part of the 2021 plea agreement.

By choosing not to withdraw that plea, Greenwood left the original agreement in place, resulting in Judge Shirtcliff’s conclusion that he had no option but to resentence Greenwood to the original terms, including the 24-month prison sentence which Greenwood had already served.

Following the July 3 hearing, Baxter said he was disappointed in the outcome, but that he understood the legal restrictions resulting from the Appeals Court’s ruling.

Baxter said the outcome, with Greenwood released from prison a couple days later, is “not what I would like to happen.”

“A lady was shot in the chest,” Baxter said, referring to Parrish.