PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) — Oregon will no longer pursue a case against a federal agent who ran a stop sign and struck and killed a woman who had the right of way, the Marion County District Attorney’s Office said Friday. The agent was involved in an undercover operation at the time of the crash.
The state’s decision came after federal courts found that Drug Enforcement Administration agent Samuel Landis had federal immunity from prosecution by the state when he struck Marganne Allen with his vehicle in Salem on March 28, 2023.
“This decision was made after carefully weighing whether to take the rare step of petitioning the United States Supreme Court and the potential impact such a decision could have on future cases,” the county DA’s office said.
On the day of the deadly crash, Landis was working undercover to conduct surveillance of a suspected drug trafficker after an informant bought 1,000 pills of fentanyl from the suspect, according to a court document.
While making a right turn in his pickup truck from Leslie Street onto High Street in Salem, Landis did not stop at the stop sign and, while traveling 18 mph, hit Allen, who was riding her bicycle. Allen was taken to a hospital where she died from her injuries.
Landis did not see Allen before hitting her, according to the court document.
A Marion County grand jury indicted Landis on a charge of criminally negligent homicide in August 2023.
But Landis requested that his case be moved to federal court because, he argued, he had immunity as a federal agent. A federal judge agreed, moved the case to federal court and eventually dismissed the charge against Landis, agreeing with him that he had immunity. The state of Oregon appealed the decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, but that court sided with the lower court.
“Marganne Allen’s death was a tragic loss for her husband, children, other family members and our community,” Marion County District Attorney Paige Clarkson said in a news release. “While we respect the legal process and the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, it is nonetheless disappointing that the criminal charge cannot proceed and there will be no justice for the family.”
In a statement dated Feb. 13, Allen’s family said they had been “through a living nightmare.”
Her husband and two children “will never have [their] day in court,” the family wrote.
Supremacy Clause Immunity
According to U.S. District Judge Michael McShane’s Jan. 2, 2025, ruling, both sides did not dispute the facts of the case.
“They agree that although Agent Landis was negligent, he acted with no malice or ill intent in colliding with Margane Allene,” the judge wrote.
McShane’s decision, then, turned on a legal question. “Whether it was ‘necessary and proper’ for Landis to run the stop sign to perform his duties that day as a DEA Special Agent enforcing the nation’s drug laws,” the judge wrote.
Citing a previous case from 1977, the judge said the U.S. Supreme Court had decided more than 125 years ago that “‘a federal officer cannot be held on a state criminal charge where the alleged crime arose during the performance of his federal duties.’”
It is known as Supremacy Clause Immunity, and it is based in the U.S. Constitution.
In Landis’s case, the judge said the agent believed that he needed to drive through the stop sign without stopping because it was necessary to catch up with the other members of his team to avoid losing track of the suspect that they were surveilling.
The judge concluded that it was “necessary and proper” for Landis to go through the stop sign, without stopping, to perform his duties as a federal agent.
“After careful consideration, [the Oregon Department of Justice] concluded that pursuing this case to the Supreme Court carried a real risk of producing a ruling that would make it harder — not easier — to hold people accountable in future cases,” the Marion County District Attorney’s Office wrote in its news release on Friday as to why the state would no longer pursue the case. “ODOJ did not want this tragedy to become the vehicle for that outcome.”
In their statement, Allen’s family thanked everyone who supported and helped them in the case, especially to the neighbors who helped Allen at the crash site, turned over door camera videos, held a vigil for her and created a memorial at the site.
“To the family, you will always be our heroes, and this intersection will always be a sacred place,” they wrote.
