UPDATE: The Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office said Tuesday afternoon that it would not yet share the cause and manner of Jesse Banks’ death Saturday at the Oregon State Penitentiary.
“Investigations are still pending, so we’re not ready to release any info yet,” according to Kelsey Evans, the agency’s forensic administrator.
Original story below:
Oregon State Police are investigating the death of a 35-year-old Beaverton man who died in the Oregon State Penitentiary on Saturday, April 1, according to officials of the state’s prison agency.
The state Department of Corrections provided little information about the death of Jesse M. Banks in its public announcement the day after he died. The agency confirmed he was found “unresponsive” in his cell in response to questions from Salem Reporter.
The corrections department declined to say whether Banks’ death was the result of violence involving inmates or corrections officers.
As of Tuesday, the Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office has not disclosed the cause and manner of Banks’ death.
Banks died the morning of April 1 at the state penitentiary.
The penitentiary, the only maximum-security prison in Oregon, holds around 2,000 people, according to the agency’s news release.
Department spokeswoman Amber Campbell said that the agency reports all in-custody deaths to the state police to investigate. The state police agency also operates the state medical examiner division.
Banks was born and raised in Portland. He graduated from Beaverton High School and attended Portland Community College for three years, according to a 2015 forensic evaluation at the Oregon State Hospital.
As of then, the report said he had worked various earlier jobs including a UPS warehouse, a car wash, construction, a temp agency, a call center, food service and a cleaning service.
Banks entered the state prison system on Nov. 1, 2022, from Marion County after a conviction for two counts of aggravated harassment and assaulting a public safety officer. His earliest release date was set for March 20, 2025, according to the corrections department’s news release.
His criminal convictions date back to 2006, including for two incidents in which he assaulted a deputy and three corrections officers.
State judges have found Banks was unfit to stand trial due to a mental illness in four instances since 2014 and ordered that he be committed to the Oregon State Hospital, according to court documents.
In the criminal case that most recently landed Banks in prison, Marion County Circuit Court Pro Tem Judge Natasha Zimmerman found in June 2022 that he was unfit to proceed and committed him to the state hospital.
Circuit Judge Erious Johnson found four months later in October 2022 that Banks could then participate in his own defense, court records showed.
Banks pleaded guilty that same month to spitting on a corrections officer, urinating on a second officer and injuring a third in separate incidents between December 2019 and October 2020. All the officers worked at the state penitentiary.
He was sentenced to three years and one month in prison, with three years of post-prison supervision.
This is a developing story.
Contact reporter Ardeshir Tabrizian: [email protected] or 503-929-3053.
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Ardeshir Tabrizian has covered criminal justice and housing for Salem Reporter since September 2021. As an Oregon native, his award-winning watchdog journalism has traversed the state. He has done reporting for The Oregonian, Eugene Weekly and Malheur Enterprise.
