From www.thehighroad.com:

Something for the Minnesota Supreme Court to read.

http://www.publications.ojd.state.or.us/S53457.htm

Long story made short: There is no discernable "duty to retreat" in Oregon’s deadly force statutes. Courts are required to turn to the language of the statute first, rather than resort to caselaw instead. An examination of the statutory language reveals no duty to retreat.

The State, relying on the earlier decision made in State v. Charles, argued that the presence of the phrase in the pertinent statute “. . .and the person may use a degree of force which the person reasonably believes to be necessary for the purpose” implies that for any degree of deadly force to be necessary, all other reasonable attempts to avoid using deadly force must be taken.

In the earlier case, Charles, a jury instruction that was worded to declare there was no duty to retreat under Oregon law was rejected by the trial court and that rejection was upheld on through the denial of cert by the Oregon Supreme Court.

This time, the Court accepted the opportunity to take a detailed look at the legal confusion over the duty to retreat, or not, in Oregon and found the Charles decision wanting. Since the Oregon Supreme Court ruling in Sandoval, this new ruling, is unanimous, it is now abundantly clear that there is no duty to retreat prior to the employment of deadly force under Oregon law.

So it is not so much that the Court talked out of both sides of its mouth, it simply failed to speak back when Charles was decided and they admit now that the decision should have never been allowed to stand for the proposition that there was ever a duty to retreat. Since it could be said that the jury convicted Sandoval on the strength of a faulty statement of the law, his conviction was overturned.