A 42-year-old Portland man who bit a stranger's ear so severely it was left hanging by a small strip of skin has been sentenced to 90 days in jail, avoiding a mandatory prison term that could have stretched past five years. Devarn Maxwell pleaded guilty to menacing and attempted assault in connection with the random, unprovoked attack outside a downtown apartment building, and a judge on Friday emphasized that his path forward hinges almost entirely on one thing: staying on his medication.
According to The Oregonian/OregonLive, Maxwell was off his medication and experiencing a mental-health crisis at the time of the attack, when he approached a stranger outside the building in 2025 and asked for a cigarette. When the victim said he didn't have one, Maxwell bit into his ear, leaving it attached by only a small amount of skin, per the outlet's report. Doctors were able to reattach the ear, and the victim has since made a full recovery, the outlet reported.
The case originally carried the weight of Oregon's Ballot Measure 11, the 1994 voter-approved law that strips judges of sentencing discretion for a list of violent and sexual offenses. Under Measure 11, a full second-degree assault conviction would have triggered a mandatory minimum of 70 months, or five years and ten months, in state prison with no chance at early release, according to the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission. Assault in the second degree was, in fact, the single most frequently charged Measure 11 offense in the state between 2013 and 2018, according to Criminal Justice Commission data analyzed by OPB.
How the Plea Deal Sidestepped a Mandatory Prison Term
Maxwell avoided that mandatory minimum by pleading down to attempted assault, a legal maneuver spelled out under Oregon law. Attempting a Class B felony like second-degree assault reclassifies the charge as a Class C felony, which falls outside Measure 11's mandatory minimums and restores a judge's discretion to hand down probation or local jail time instead of state prison, per the Oregon State Legislature. A Class C felony carries a statutory maximum of five years, and per the outlet's report Maxwell had faced a possible maximum of six years in prison along with $131,000 in fines across two counts before the plea.
Maxwell had already spent 10 months in custody since the attack, the outlet reported, and was found competent to stand trial. He remained silent when given the opportunity to make a statement in court Friday. Another victim was also threatened by Maxwell that night, according to the report, though neither victim appeared in court Friday and neither provided the prosecution with a formal impact statement.
Judge Ties Freedom to Medication Compliance
Judge Jenna Plank stressed the importance of Maxwell remaining on his medication going forward, telling the court that going off it could increase the chance he returns to court, the outlet's report noted. Plank said staying medicated is probably key to his success on probation. Maxwell reportedly remained compliant with his medication while in county jail, and he will have the opportunity for early release and probation as part of the sentence, with a plan to send him to an inpatient reentry and homelessness support program.
That framework reflects a broader supervision structure the county has built for justice-involved people with serious psychiatric diagnoses. Multnomah County operates a specialized Mental Health Court and a dedicated probation unit within its Department of Community Justice designed to supervise people through court-monitored medication management and housing support, according to the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office, though qualification requires a formal diagnosis such as major depression, bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, or schizophrenia. Maxwell has an unspecified history of mental-health conditions, per the outlet's report.
A Courtroom Delay Rooted in a Jail Emergency
Maxwell's plea hearing itself was pushed back from Thursday to Friday, part of a wave of delays that hit the Multnomah County Circuit Court docket that day. The disruption traced back to the death of a man in custody at Inverness Jail, where, according to the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office, a 48-year-old inmate suffered an unresponsive medical event in his cell at roughly 5:10 a.m. that morning. It marked the second in-custody death in a Multnomah County jail within a three-day span, following a separate incident on August 18.
A separate hearing has been set for November 13 to consider a $3,000 restitution request tied to the case, the outlet reported. Oregon law requires prosecutors to investigate and present evidence of a crime victim's economic losses at sentencing or within a 90-day window afterward to establish court-ordered restitution, according to the Oregon State Legislature.
The attack adds to a string of unprovoked public violence incidents that have unsettled Portland residents in recent months. In April, a MAX rider was bloodied in an unprovoked platform attack near the Moda Center, an incident that similarly raised public questions about safety in the city's downtown core. Maxwell's case now moves toward supervised release, with the county's mental-health infrastructure — bolstered in part by a $4 billion budget the Board of Commissioners adopted in June that preserved funding for high-risk post-prison mental health supports and a planned 24/7 crisis stabilization center — tasked with keeping him on track.
