CASE .. WHEN expression in Oracle SQL

It will be easier to do using decode.

SELECT
  status,
    decode ( status, 'a1','Active',
                     'a2','Active',
                     'a3','Active',
                     'i','Inactive',
                     't','Terminated',
                     'Default')STATUSTEXT
FROM STATUS

You could use an IN clause

Something like

SELECT
  status,
  CASE
    WHEN STATUS IN('a1','a2','a3')
    THEN 'Active'
    WHEN STATUS = 'i'
    THEN 'Inactive'
    WHEN STATUS = 't'
    THEN 'Terminated'
  END AS STATUSTEXT
FROM
  STATUS

Have a look at this demo

SQL Fiddle DEMO

Of course...

select case substr(status,1,1) -- you're only interested in the first character.
            when 'a' then 'Active'
            when 'i' then 'Inactive'
            when 't' then 'Terminated'
       end as statustext
  from stage.tst

However, there's a few worrying things about this schema. Firstly if you have a column that means something, appending a number onto the end it not necessarily the best way to go. Also, depending on the number of status' you have you might want to consider turning this column into a foreign key to a separate table.

---

Based on your comment you definitely want to turn this into a foreign key. For instance

create table statuses ( -- Not a good table name :-)
    status varchar2(10)
  , description varchar2(10)
  , constraint pk_statuses primary key (status)
    )

create table tst (
    id number
  , status varchar2(10)
  , constraint pk_tst primary key (id)
  , constraint fk_tst foreign key (status) references statuses (status)
    )

Your query then becomes

select a.status, b.description
  from tst a
  left outer join statuses b
    on a.status = b.status

Here's a SQL Fiddle to demonstrate.

You can rewrite it to use the ELSE condition of a CASE:

SELECT status,
       CASE status
         WHEN 'i' THEN 'Inactive'
         WHEN 't' THEN 'Terminated'
         ELSE 'Active'
       END AS StatusText
FROM   stage.tst