BEND — Abusers who cause their victims permanent physical injuries could serve an automatic 25-year prison term in Oregon under a proposed law announced Monday in Madras.

Three victims with severe injuries, their families and supporters crowded into the lobby of the Jefferson County Courthouse to hear District Attorney Steve LeRiche announce “Ezra’s Law.”

“I think all of us want to see the narrative change, from a narrative where criminals are put first and victims are forgotten,” he said. “Today, you see three people and their families who have a sentence they can’t look forward to completing. Their sentence is for their entire life.”

LeRiche said these cases are rare in his jurisdiction — one about every one to five years — and therefore deserve a rare penalty.

“As a society I hope we embrace people who have been offended in crimes and their lives altered in this way, and we put them first, and we take care of them first before anyone else,” he said.

The bill would work by allowing judges to determine if a permanent injury has resulted from a crime against a person. “Permanent physical injury” is defined in the statute as “permanently and significantly impairing a person’s cognitive function, vision or hearing or ability to walk, eat, breathe or move the person’s limbs.” If such a determination is made, the assumed sentence under the law would be 25 years, and judges could make exceptions for lighter sentences.

LeRiche said the law would have likely applied in two cases in the past seven years. Those two victims were in attendance.

Jessica Haynes, 29, used a cane to walk to her seat. She recently learned to walk again after an ex-boyfriend shot her in the head in 2013.

That man, Thomas Knapp, received a sentence of five years and eight months.

“It has affected me so much, and not just me, it’s affected my family so much,” she said.

Knapp is scheduled to be released from prison in May 2021.

The bill’s namesake, Ezra Jerome Thomas, was also there. His mom and grandmother told The Bulletin his health has improved since he appeared at the sentencing of the man who injured him, Josue Jair Mendoza-Melo.

Mendoza-Melo was 21 when a judge assigned him 12 years in prison but with the possibility of getting out a few years early.

Last session, a bill similar to Ezra’s Law sponsored by Sen. Sara Gelser was unsuccessful. But LeRiche thinks tweaks and added specifics as well as its bipartisan sponsors, Daniel Bonham, R-The Dalles, and Rep. Carla Piluso, D-Gresham, will improve the bill’s chance of success. Oregon’s short legislative session starts Monday.

“We’ve got Daniel Bonham on our side this time,” LeRiche said to applause. “And maybe more importantly, we got Tina (Jorgenson) and we got Liz (Crouch), and we have Jessica, and their story has been heard in Salem. And maybe when they see real people who are affected and hurt, and their lives altered forever, maybe they’ll feel the empathy that all of us feel for them, as well.”

Jorgenson is Ezra’s grandmother and guardian, and Crouch is Roy Fast’s grandmother and guardian. Jorgenson and Crouch met on the internet when the bill was being developed, and grew close sharing stories about their grandsons. Fast, now 7, was abused when he was 6 months old and diagnosed with shaken baby syndrome.

Crouch said she burst into tears Monday when she finally met her counterpart in person.