Case Title: State v. Guzek

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: oregon

Court: Oregon Supreme Court

Date: 2004-03-04T00:00:00Z

Document:
FILED:  March 4, 2004
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF OREGON
STATE OF OREGON,
Plaintiff on Review,
v.
RANDY LEE GUZEK,
Defendant on Review.
(CC 87-CR-0373-TM; SC S45272)
On automatic and direct review of the sentence of death
imposed by the Deschutes County Circuit Court.
Pierre Van Rysselberghe, Judge.
Argued and submitted January 11, 2002.
J. Kevin Hunt, Oregon City, argued the cause for defendant
on review.  With him on the brief was Eric M. Cumfer, Salem.
Rolf C. Moan, Assistant Attorney General, Salem, argued the
cause for plaintiff on review.  With him on the briefs were Hardy Myers, Attorney General, Michael D. Reynolds, Solicitor General, and Robert B. Rocklin and Holly A. Vance, Assistant Attorneys General.
Before Carson, Chief Justice, and Gillette, Durham, Riggs,
and De Muniz, Justices.*
RIGGS, J.
The sentence of death is vacated, and the case is remanded
to the circuit court for further proceedings.
Durham, J., concurred and filed an opinion.
Gillette, J., concurred in part and dissented in part and
filed an opinion, in which Carson, C. J., joined.
*Leeson, J., resigned January 31, 2003, and did not
participate in the decision of this case.  Balmer and Kistler,
JJ., did not participate in the consideration or decision of this
case.
RIGGS, J.
This case is before us on automatic and direct review
of a judgment that imposed a sentence of death for aggravated
murder.  Former ORS 163.150(1)(g) (1997), repealed by Or Laws
1999, ch 1055, § 1. (1)  This court previously affirmed
defendant's conviction of two counts of aggravated murder, State
v. Guzek, 310 Or 299, 304, 797 P2d 1031 (1990) (Guzek I), but
twice vacated his sentence of death and remanded for further
penalty-phase proceedings, as discussed below.  On this third
review, the state concedes -- and we agree -- that the trial
court erred in failing to instruct the jury on the "true-life"
sentencing option and that this court again must vacate the
sentence of death.  Accordingly, as discussed further below, we
vacate the sentence of death and remand to the trial court for
further proceedings.  In the discussion that follows, we also
address issues of law that are likely to arise on retrial, if the
state again pursues a death sentence.  See, e.g., State v. Smith,
310 Or 1, 21-22, 791 P2d 836 (1990) (court addressing issues
likely to arise on remand despite already having determined that
remand was necessary).
I. FACTS
The following facts are taken from this court's opinion
in Guzek I, 310 Or at 301-02, and from the record from
defendant's third penalty-phase proceeding.  The victims, Rod and
Lois Houser, knew defendant because he had been a high school
acquaintance of their niece, who lived with them in rural
Deschutes County.  Defendant and the niece had dated.  After the
niece ended their relationship, defendant acted with hostility
toward her -- in her words, "stalk[ing]" her -- prompting Rod
Houser to warn defendant away from the Housers' home.
In June 1987, defendant and two associates planned to
burglarize a particular residence and kill its occupant.  When
the three men arrived at that residence, however, they were
thwarted by the presence of too many people.  One of defendant's
associates suggested that they target the Housers' home instead. 
The three men then went to defendant's home, obtained a rifle and
a pistol, and went to the Housers' home with the intention of
killing the Housers and stealing their property.  
When Rod Houser answered defendant's knock at the door,
one of defendant's associates, at defendant's prompting, shot Rod
Houser repeatedly, killing him.  Defendant then found and shot
Lois Houser three times, killing her.  The three men then
ransacked the home and stole a great deal of personal property. 
The Housers' niece was not at home at the time.  
The Housers' two daughters went to their parents' home
two days later, worried because they had not been able to reach
their parents by telephone.  The daughters discovered their
parents' bodies inside the ransacked home.  Later, the daughters
saw and identified their parents' belongings in defendant's
possession.  As noted, defendant ultimately was convicted of two
counts of aggravated murder and sentenced to death. 
II. PROCEDURAL HISTORY 
Beginning with defendant's first appeal, we describe
the procedural history of this case in some detail, because that
history provides important background information for much of the
discussion that follows.  First, we note that, after defendant's
first penalty-phase trial, in an unrelated case on remand from
the United States Supreme Court, this court concluded that the
Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution (2) requires
that a penalty-phase jury consider and answer a general
mitigation question, to ensure that the jury has the opportunity
to give effect to any mitigating evidence relevant "outside or
beyond" particular statutory issues submitted to the jury.  State
v. Wagner, 309 Or 5, 13, 786 P2d 93, cert den, 498 US 879 (1990)
(Wagner II).  Because the court in defendant's case had not
submitted a general mitigation question to the jury, this court
vacated defendant's sentence and remanded the case for a new
penalty-phase proceeding.  Guzek I, 310 Or at 305-06.
The next year, another decision of the United States
Supreme Court again affected defendant's penalty-phase
proceedings.  According to the interpretation of the Eighth
Amendment in effect at the time of defendant's crimes, the
introduction of "victim-impact" evidence in the penalty phase of
a capital trial constituted cruel and unusual punishment under
the Eighth Amendment.  See Booth v. Maryland, 482 US 496, 509,
107 S Ct 2529, 96 L Ed 2d 440, reh'g den, 483 US 1056 (1987)
(so holding).  However, in 1991, the Supreme Court overruled
Booth in part, concluding that that decision had "deprive[d] the
State of the full moral force of its evidence" in a death-penalty
case.  Payne v. Tennessee, 501 US 808, 825, 111 S Ct 2597, 115 L
Ed 2d 720, reh'g den, 501 US 1277 (1991). (3)  The Supreme
Court held in Payne that the Eighth Amendment did not erect a per
se bar to victim-impact evidence.  Id. at 827.  In the wake of
Payne, the state offered, and the trial court admitted, victim-impact evidence against defendant in his second penalty-phase
proceeding.  Defendant again received a sentence of death.
On review of that second death sentence, defendant
argued that the victim-impact evidence that the state had
introduced against him was not relevant to any of the questions
that the jury was required to consider under the applicable
death-penalty statutory scheme, ORS 163.150(1)(b) (1989). (4) 
This court agreed and remanded the case for further proceedings. 
State v. Guzek, 322 Or 245, 270, 906 P2d 272 (1995) (Guzek II).
After a third penalty-phase proceeding, defendant again
was sentenced to death.  That sentence is before us now.
III.  TRUE-LIFE SENTENCING OPTION
We turn to the reason for which, as the state concedes,
we must vacate defendant's sentence of death. 
Defendant's third penalty-phase proceeding began in
1997.  The statutes then in effect required the trial court,
after this court's remand in Guzek II for further penalty-phase
proceedings, to sentence defendant to life imprisonment or, at
the state's election, to empanel a jury for a new penalty-phase
proceeding to determine if defendant should be sentenced to
death, to life imprisonment without the possibility of release or
parole ("true life"), or to life imprisonment with the
possibility of release or parole ("ordinary life").  Former ORS
163.150(5)(a)(A), (B) (1997), renumbered as ORS 138.012(2)(a)(A),
(B) (1999).  However, the constitutional protections against ex
post facto laws contained in Article I, section 21, of the Oregon
Constitution and Article I, section 10, of the United States
Constitution (5) prohibited the retroactive application of the
true-life sentencing option to defendant's case, because that
option did not exist at the time when defendant committed his
crimes.  See State v. Wille, 317 Or 487, 505, 858 P2d 128 (1993)
(retroactive imposition of true-life sentencing option, over the
defendant's objection, violates state and federal ex post facto
prohibitions).  
In his third penalty-phase proceeding, defendant moved
to have the trial court instruct the jury on the true-life
sentencing option.  To that end, he expressly waived all ex post
facto guarantees that otherwise would have protected him from
retroactive application of the true-life option.  The trial court
denied defendant's motion and did not instruct the jury regarding
true life.    
After a jury again sentenced defendant to death, this
court explained that a criminal defendant may waive protection
from ex post facto laws, including the protection against the
application of a later-enacted version of the death-penalty
statutory scheme.  State v. McDonnell, 329 Or 375, 388, 987 P2d
486 (1999).  This court reiterated those principles in State v.
Langley, 331 Or 430, 439, 16 P3d 489 (2000).  Accordingly, as the
state recognizes, the trial court's decision not to instruct the
jury regarding the true-life sentencing option was reversible
error.  We therefore must vacate defendant's sentence of death
and remand for further proceedings.
IV.  ISSUES LIKELY TO ARISE ON REMAND
Defendant raises other issues on review.  Below, we
address some of those issues, which are likely to arise on
remand.  Specifically, we address (1) the admissibility of "any
aggravating evidence" and victim-impact evidence against
defendant pursuant to the current versions of ORS 163.150(1)(a)
and (c)(B), (6) in light of defendant's state and federal
protections against ex post facto laws; and (2) the admissibility
of certain evidence that the trial court excluded during
defendant's third penalty-phase proceeding that defendant again
might offer in a subsequent penalty-phase proceeding.  
A.  Admission of "Any Aggravating Evidence" and Victim-Impact
Evidence
At the time of defendant's crimes in 1987, ORS
163.150(1)(a) (1985) required that any evidence introduced in a
penalty-phase proceeding must be "relevant to sentence."  Former
ORS 163.150(2) (1985), renumbered as ORS 163.150(1)(b)(A) - (C)(1987), in turn, set out three statutory questions for the jury's consideration:
"(a) Whether the conduct of the defendant that
caused the death of the deceased was committed
deliberately and with the reasonable expectation that
death of the deceased or another would result;
"(b) Whether there is a probability that the
defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that
would constitute a continuing threat to society * * *;
and
"(c) If raised by the evidence, whether the
conduct of the defendant in killing the deceased was
unreasonable in response to the provocation, if any, by
the deceased." (7)
The state was required to prove affirmative answers to those
questions beyond a reasonable doubt.  See former ORS 163.150(3)
(1985), renumbered as ORS 163.150(1)(d) (1989) (so providing). 
Further, defendant also was permitted to introduce general
mitigating evidence that militated against imposition of the
death penalty.  See Wagner II, 309 Or at 14 (mitigating evidence
beyond scope of three statutory issues admissible under pre-1989
version of ORS 163.150(1)(a)).
Before defendant's second penalty-phase proceeding, the
1989 Legislative Assembly enacted a "fourth question," set out at
ORS 163.150(1)(b)(D), encompassing general mitigating evidence
that a defendant previously might have proffered under the
reasoning set out in Wagner II, 309 Or at 14.  See ___ Or at ___
(slip op at 42) (setting out ORS 163.150(1)(b)(D) (1989)).  The
1991 Legislative Assembly subsequently amended that question,
still in effect today, to ask a penalty-phase jury "[w]hether the
defendant should receive a death sentence."  ORS
163.150(1)(b)(D); Or Laws 1991, ch 885, § 2.  That fourth
question, unlike the first three statutory questions set out in
ORS 163.150(1)(b)(A) to (C), is not subject to any burden of
proof.  See, e.g., State v. Fanus, 336 Or 63, 70, 79 P3d 847
(2003) (because fourth question frames discretionary
determination for jury, it imposes no burden of proof). (8)
Before defendant's third penalty-phase proceeding, the
1995 Legislative Assembly amended the death-penalty statutory
scheme expressly to permit the introduction of relevant
"aggravating" evidence and victim-impact evidence, adding the
following text to ORS 163.150(1)(a):
"In the [penalty-phase] proceeding, evidence may be
presented as to any matter that the court deems
relevant to sentence including, but not limited to,
victim impact evidence relating to the personal
characteristics of the victim or the impact of the
crime on the victim's family and any aggravating or
mitigating evidence relevant to the issue in paragraph
(b)(D) of this subsection[.]" (9)
Or Laws 1995, ch 531, § 2 (emphasis added).  The reference to
"paragraph (b)(D) of this subsection" pertained to the fourth
statutory question for the jury, discussed above.
Two years later, the 1997 Legislative Assembly
incorporated the 1995 amendment to ORS 163.150(1)(a) into the
jury instruction on the fourth question, by adding the following
text to ORS 163.150(1)(c)(B):
"The court shall instruct the jury to answer the
question in paragraph (b)(D) of this subsection 'no'
if, after considering any aggravating evidence and any
mitigating evidence concerning any aspect of the
defendant's character or background, or any
circumstances of the offense and any victim impact
evidence as described in subsection (1)(a) of this
section, one or more of the jurors believe that the
defendant should not receive a death sentence."
Or Laws 1997, ch 784, § 1 (emphasis added).  
In his third penalty-phase proceeding, defendant argued
that retroactive application of the foregoing 1995 and 1997
amendments to ORS 163.150(1)(a) and (c)(B) violated the
prohibitions against ex post facto laws contained in Article I,
section 21, of the Oregon Constitution and Article I, section 10,
of the United States Constitution.  The trial court disagreed,
and the state thereafter introduced evidence, discussed further
below, falling within the parameters of the amendments.
In any subsequent penalty-phase proceeding, the state
is likely to offer the same or similar aggravating and victim-evidence against defendant, and defendant is likely to make the
same objections.  Accordingly, we address those objections here,
beginning with defendant's state constitutional challenge to
retroactive application of the "any aggravating evidence"
provisions of the 1995 and 1997 amendments.  See, e.g., State v.
Montez, 324 Or 343, 363, 927 P2d 64 (1996), cert den, 520 US 1233
(1997) (addressing defendant's state constitutional argument
before addressing his federal constitutional argument).
1.  Retroactive Application of "Any Aggravating Evidence"
Provisions of ORS 163.150(1)(a) and (c)(B) to
Defendant's Remanded Penalty-Phase Proceeding
As noted, at the time of his crimes in 1987, defendant
was permitted under ORS 163.150(1)(a) (1985) to introduce general
mitigating evidence that militated against imposition of the
death penalty.  Wagner II, 309 Or at 14.  Further, in Guzek II,
this court concluded that, in enacting the 1989 version of ORS
163.150(1)(b)(D) (that is, the original "fourth question"), the
legislature intended to submit to the jury the question "whether
any mitigating circumstances exist that would justify a sentence
of life rather than death."  322 Or at 263 (emphasis in
original).  By contrast, after the 1995 and 1997 amendments to
ORS 163.150(1)(a) and (c)(B), the death-penalty statutory scheme
now allows admission of "any aggravating evidence" under the
fourth question.
Defendant argues that the 1995 and 1997 amendments to
ORS 163.150(1)(a) and (c)(B) fundamentally altered the nature of
the fourth question, by allowing the state to introduce new and
different evidence than it was permitted to introduce at the time
when defendant committed his crimes.  Thus, defendant argues,
retroactive application of the later-enacted amendments to his
penalty-phase proceedings violates the ex post facto prohibition
set out in Article I, section 21, see ___ Or at ___ n 5 (slip op
at 6 n 5) (setting out provision), which this court recently
analyzed in State v. Fugate, 332 Or 195, 210-15, 26 P3d 802
(2001).
The state responds, first, that the ex post facto
prohibition of Article I, section 21, applies to only those
changes in the rules of evidence that make conviction more
likely.  Therefore, the state contends, that prohibition does not
apply to changes in the law concerning the admissibility of
evidence in penalty-phase proceedings, because such proceedings
are sentencing proceedings only.  Alternatively, the state argues
that the 1995 and 1997 amendments to ORS 163.150(1)(a) and (c)(B)
did not expand the range of aggravating evidence that could have
been admitted in a penalty-phase proceeding at the time of
defendant's crimes in 1987.  It follows, the state argues, that
retroactive application of the amendments to defendant's remanded
penalty-phase proceeding does not amount to a state ex post facto
violation.
We begin with the discussion of Article I, section 21,
that this court offered in Fugate.  In that case, this court
reiterated that Article I, section 21, prohibits the application
of the types of laws that the framers of the Oregon Constitution
understood to be prohibited by the Ex Post Facto Clause of the
United States Constitution.  332 Or at 214.  Those laws fall into
the four categories that Justice Chase identified in his opinion
in Calder v. Bull, 3 US (3 Dall) 386, 390-91, 1 L Ed 648 (1798),
quoted in Fugate, 332 Or at 212:
"'I will state what laws I consider ex post facto
laws, within the words and the intent of the
prohibition. 1st.  Every law that makes an action done
before the passing of the law, and which was innocent
when done, criminal; and punishes such action. 2d. 
Every law that aggravates a crime, or makes it greater
than it was, when committed. 3d.  Every law that
changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater
punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when
committed. 4th. Every law that alters the legal rules
of evidence, and receives less, or different testimony,
than the law required at the time of the commission of
the offence, in order to convict the offender.  All
these and similar laws are manifestly unjust and
oppressive.'"
(Emphasis in Fugate.)  In Fugate, this court explicitly held what
it had implied in an earlier decision, State v. Cookman, 324 Or
19, 31, 920 P2d 1086 (1996), namely, that Article I, section 21,
prohibited laws that fit within the "fourth category" of Calder,
that is, "laws that alter the rules of evidence in a one-sided
way that makes conviction of the defendant more likely."  Fugate,
332 Or at 213.
As noted above, the state first seeks to distinguish
the "any aggravating evidence" provisions of the 1995 and 1997
amendments to ORS 163.150(1)(a) and (c)(B) from those laws that
belong in Calder's "fourth category" by emphasizing that the
death-penalty statutory scheme describes a proceeding for
"sentencing," not "convicting," a defendant.  Although we agree
that penalty-phase proceedings are "sentencing" proceedings, we
disagree that identifying them in that way exempts them from the
prohibition described in Calder's fourth category, as explained
below.
First, we note that the categories described in Calder
are general ones, used to summarize the types of ex post facto
laws that the federal constitutional provision then prohibited. 
Justice Chase made that clear in his opinion by stating that the
laws described in those categories and "[a]ll * * * similar laws
are manifestly unjust and oppressive."  3 US (3 Dall) at 390-91
(emphasis added).  The question before us, then, is whether a
change in the rules of evidence applicable to a penalty-phase
proceeding that permits "different testimony than the law
required at the time of the commission of the offen[s]e," id. at
390, to sentence a defendant to death is sufficiently similar to
the laws described in Calder's fourth category to proscribe the
application of that change in the law on ex post facto grounds.
We turn to the proceedings under ORS 163.150.  Although
those proceedings concern what sentence a court must impose, they
are otherwise similar to a criminal trial that results in a
conviction.  For example, the state is required to prove its case
under the first three statutory questions set out in ORS
163.150(1)(b)(A) to (C) beyond a reasonable doubt.  See ORS
163.150(1)(d) (so stating).  The decision whether the defendant
may be sentenced to death is made by the jury, ORS 163.150(1)(a),
and it must be unanimous, ORS 163.150(1)(e).  Moreover, by
contrast to other sentencing proceedings, the Oregon Evidence
Code applies.  OEC 101(4)(d). (10)  In our view, those
characteristics of a penalty-phase proceeding make it
sufficiently similar to an ordinary trial, and its outcome
sufficiently similar to a "conviction," to consider changes in
the rules of evidence that apply in such proceedings the same,
for purposes of an ex post facto analysis, as changes in the
rules of evidence that apply in guilt-phase proceedings of other
kinds of trials. (11)  Therefore, when a change in the law
alters the rules of evidence in a one-sided way that makes a
sentence of death more likely than it would have been at the time
that a defendant committed aggravated murder, application of that
law to the defendant offends the ex post facto prohibition of
Article I, section 21, as explained in Fugate. 
Turning to the 1995 and 1997 amendments to ORS
163.150(1)(a) and (c)(B) that provided for admission of "any
aggravating evidence," we agree with defendant that they amounted
to "one-sided" changes, Fugate, 332 Or at 213, that made a
sentence of death more likely than it would have been before the
changes.  As noted above, at the time of defendant's crimes, the
state's only express statutory avenue for introducing evidence
against a defendant during a penalty-phase proceeding was in
relation to the first three questions now set out at ORS
163.150(1)(b)(A) to (C).  Specifically, the state could introduce
evidence that was relevant to only the questions whether a
defendant's conduct had been committed deliberately and with the
reasonable expectation that death would result; whether a
probability existed that the defendant would commit violent criminal acts constituting a continuing threat to society; and
whether the defendant's conduct had been unreasonable in response
to any provocation by the victim.  Further, the state's evidence
on the first three statutory questions was (and still is) subject
to a burden of proof, in that the state was required to prove
affirmative answers to those questions beyond a reasonable doubt. 
The defendant, by contrast, was permitted to introduce general
mitigating evidence, subject to no burden of proof requirement,
that supported imposition of a sentence other than death. 
After the 1995 and 1997 amendments to ORS 163.150(1)(a)
and (c)(B), the state now has an additional express statutory
avenue to introduce evidence against a defendant, because it now
may introduce "any aggravating evidence" that is not relevant to
the first three statutory questions and that pertains to a
statutory question that is not subject to any burden of proof. 
That amounts to a "one-sided" change that benefits only the state
and, effectively, makes a sentence of death more likely than it
would have been before the change.  Therefore, Article I, section
21, prohibits retroactive application of the "any aggravating
evidence" provisions of ORS 163.150(1)(a) and (c)(B) to defendant
on remand, as discussed in Fugate.
The state nonetheless argues that, because it was
permitted at the time of defendant's crimes in 1987 to introduce
a broad range of aggravating evidence under the first three
statutory questions, "it is difficult to hypothesize [any]
aggravating evidence that, while admissible [under the amendment
to ORS 163.150(1)(a)] in 1995, would not have been admissible in
1987."  The state continues that the scope of its aggravating
evidence at the time of defendant's crimes went beyond the first
three statutory questions because the state permissibly could
have introduced aggravating evidence to controvert any mitigating
evidence that defendant offered in his behalf.  Finally, the
state emphasizes that, under the 1995 amendment to ORS
163.150(1)(a), any evidence offered in aggravation still must be
"relevant to sentence."  In the state's view, given the broad
scope of its potential evidence at the time of defendant's crimes
in 1987, coupled with the continued requirement that its evidence
be relevant to the sentencing determination, it is highly
unlikely that any relevant aggravating evidence against defendant
would have been subject to exclusion in 1987.
Although we agree with the state that, at the time of
defendant's crimes in 1987, it was permitted to introduce a broad
range of aggravating evidence, we disagree that the 1995 and 1997
amendments essentially effected no change to the state's ability
to introduce aggravating evidence against defendant at a remanded
penalty-phase proceeding.  As explained above, the state now may
introduce "any aggravating evidence" that is not relevant to the
first three statutory questions and that pertains to a statutory
question that is not subject to any burden of proof; further,
such evidence is not limited to rebutting any particular
mitigating evidence offered by a defendant.  Stated differently,
the 1995 and 1997 amendments had the effect of removing two
limitations on the state's evidence that heretofore ran in a
defendant's favor, that is, the requirements that all evidence
introduced against the defendant (and therefore supporting
imposition of the death penalty) would (1) be limited in its
relevance either to the first three statutory questions or to
rebut any particular mitigating evidence that the defendant
proffered; and (2) respecting the first three statutory
questions, ultimately implicate the highest possible burden of
proof.  Such a change in the law undoubtedly qualifies as a "one-sided" change that makes imposition of a sentence of death more
likely, retroactive application of which would contravene Article
I, section 21.
In sum, we conclude that, in defendant's remanded
penalty-phase proceeding, the trial court is precluded from
retroactively applying the "any aggravating evidence" provisions
of the 1995 and 1997 amendments to ORS 163.150(1)(a) and (c)(B). 
Any determination of the relevance of the state's aggravating
evidence against defendant therefore must be in relation to the
first three statutory questions set out in ORS 163.150(1)(b)(A)
to (C) or in relation to rebuttal of any particular mitigating
evidence offered by defendant. (12)
2.  Retroactive Application of Victim-Impact Evidence
Provisions of ORS 163.150(1)(a) and (c)(B) to
Defendant's Remanded Penalty-Phase Proceeding
As discussed above, in addition to adding a provision
allowing for "any aggravating evidence," the 1995 amendment to
ORS 163.150(1)(a) also provided for the admission of "victim
impact evidence relating to the personal characteristics of the
victim or the impact of the crime on the victim's family."  See
___ Or at ___ (slip op at 9-10) (quoting Or Laws 1995, ch 531, §
2).  The 1997 amendment to ORS 163.150(1)(c)(B) similarly
required that the jury consider, as part of its consideration of
the fourth question, "any victim impact evidence as described in
subsection (1)(a) of this section."  See ___ Or at ___ (slip op
at 10) (quoting Or Laws 1997, ch 784, § 1).
In defendant's third penalty-phase proceeding, the
state introduced evidence of the victims' personal
characteristics and of the impact that their murders had on their
two daughters, on their niece and nephew, and on Rod Houser's
brother.  Defendant objected to the state's victim-impact
evidence, arguing that, like the "any aggravating evidence"
provisions of the 1995 and 1997 amendments to ORS 163.150(1)(a)
and (c)(B), retroactive application of the victim-impact evidence
provisions violated the state and federal constitutional
prohibitions against ex post facto laws.  The trial court
disagreed, and the jury considered the evidence.  On review,
defendant renews both his state and federal challenges, which we
discuss in turn below.
a. Oregon Constitution
As defendant points out, under the 1989 version of the
death-penalty statutory scheme in place at the time of his second
penalty-phase proceeding (and, indisputably, under the 1985
version of that statute in place at the time of his crimes in
1987), the admission of victim-impact evidence constituted
reversible error.  Guzek II, 322 Or at 270.  Defendant argues
that, accordingly, the victim-impact evidence provisions of the
1995 and 1997 amendments to ORS 163.150(1)(a) and (c)(B)
constituted "one-sided" changes in the law that now allow the
state to introduce different evidence than it was permitted to
introduce at the time when defendant committed his crimes.  As
with his challenge to the "any aggravating evidence" provision,
defendant argues that retroactive application of those provisions
violates the ex post facto prohibition of Article I, section 21,
under Fugate.  
The state counters that the state constitutional ex
post facto prohibition does not proscribe retroactive application
of the victim-impact evidence provisions of the 1995 and 1997
amendments to ORS 163.150(1)(a) and (c)(B) because those changes
in the law were not "one-sided."  That is so, the state argues,
because a defendant also "conceivably could benefit from the
introduction of victim-impact evidence."  Alternatively, the
state argues that, even if Article I, section 21, formerly
proscribed the admission of victim-impact evidence against
defendant, that proscription will not apply on remand because it
has been superseded by Article I, section 42, of the Oregon
Constitution, which, among other things, confers on victims the
"right * * * to be heard" at sentencing in criminal proceedings.  
We need not resolve the parties' dispute as to whether
retroactive application of the victim-impact evidence provisions
of the 1995 and 1997 amendments to ORS 163.150(1)(a) and (c)(B)
would violate the state constitutional prohibition against ex
post facto laws.  As explained below, even if defendant's state
ex post facto analysis were correct, we agree with the state that
a victim's "right * * * to be heard" under Article I, section
42(1)(a), of the Oregon Constitution supersedes any Article I,
section 21, protection applicable to defendant, as explained
below.  
The voters adopted what is now Article I, section 42,
of the Oregon Constitution as a legislatively referred
constitutional amendment in 1999.  Among other things, that
amendment provided that crime victims have "[t]he right * * * to
be heard at * * * the sentencing * * * disposition[.]"  Or Const,
Art I, § 42(1)(a).  The amendment further provided that the
rights set out therein applied to all criminal proceedings
"pending or commenced on or after" the effective date of the
amendment, that is, December 2, 1999.  Or Const, Art I, § 42(2).  
The state's argument that, on remand, Article I,
section 42(1)(a) will require admission of relevant victim-impact
evidence against defendant presents a two-part question.  First,
we must determine whether the state's offering of the type of
victim-impact evidence that the 1995 amendment to ORS
163.150(1)(a) describes, that is, evidence "relating to the
personal characteristics of the victim or the impact of the crime
on the victim’s family," qualifies as a victim's "right * * * to
be heard" under Article I, section 42(1)(a).  Because we conclude
that it does, and because, by its terms, Article I, section 42,
will apply to any subsequent penalty-phase proceeding in this
case, we must address a second question:  Whether the victims'
right to be heard requires the trial court on remand to admit
relevant victim-impact evidence against defendant despite any
protection against ex post facto laws that Article I, section 21,
might afford him. 
We begin with the text of Article I, section 42.  See
Shilo Inn v. Multnomah County, 333 Or 101, 116-17, 36 P3d 954 
(2001), modified on recons on other grounds, 334 Or 11, 45 P3d
107 (2002) (when interpreting referred constitutional provision,
court’s task is to discern intent of voters; best evidence of
voters' intent is text of provision).  It provides, in part:  
"(1) To preserve and protect the right of crime
victims to justice, to ensure crime victims a
meaningful role in the criminal and juvenile justice
systems, to accord crime victims due dignity and
respect and to ensure that criminal and juvenile court
delinquency proceedings are conducted to seek the truth
as to the defendant's innocence or guilt, and also to
ensure that a fair balance is struck between the rights
of crime victims and the rights of criminal defendants
in the course and conduct of criminal and juvenile
court delinquency proceedings, the following rights are
hereby granted to victims in all prosecutions for
crimes and in juvenile court delinquency proceedings:
"(a) The right to be present at and, upon specific
request, to be informed in advance of any critical
stage of the proceedings held in open court when the
defendant will be present, and to be heard at the
pretrial release hearing and the sentencing or juvenile
court delinquency disposition;
"* * * * *
"(2) This section applies to all criminal and
juvenile court delinquency proceedings pending or
commenced on or after the effective date of this
section. Nothing in this section reduces a criminal
defendant's rights under the Constitution of the United
States. Except as otherwise specifically provided, this
section supersedes any conflicting section of this
Constitution. * * *
"(3) As used in this section:
"* * * * *
"(c) 'Victim' means any person determined by the
prosecuting attorney to have suffered direct financial,
psychological or physical harm as a result of a crime
and, in the case of a victim who is a minor, the legal
guardian of the minor. In the event that no person has
been determined to be a victim of the crime, the people
of Oregon, represented by the prosecuting attorney, are
considered to be the victims. * * *"
(Emphasis added.)  
The text of Article I, section 42, permits us to answer
the first question quickly.  Article I, section 42(1)(a), confers
the "right * * * to be heard" on those persons that the state
deems to have suffered harm as a result of a crime (defined in
section (3)(c) as "[v]ictim[s]").  We need not consider the full
breadth of that right to conclude that it generally encompasses
the more narrowly defined victim-impact evidence mentioned in the
1995 amendment to ORS 163.150(1)(a) and, relatedly, in the 1997
amendment to ORS 163.150(1)(c)(B).  The right of a murder
victim's family member (who also can qualify as a "victim" under
Article I, section 42) "to be heard" in a penalty-phase
proceeding means, at a minimum, the right to offer relevant
evidence of the murder victim's personal characteristics and of
the impact of the crime upon the murder victim's family.  In the
context of a capital penalty-phase proceeding, the state's
ability to offer victim-impact evidence under ORS 163.150(1)(a)
ordinarily will serve as the mechanism for the exercise of that
right.
Because, as noted above, Article I, section 42,
"applies to all criminal * * * proceedings pending or commenced
on or after" December 2, 1999, it follows that the Housers'
family members will have the right in any subsequent penalty-phase proceeding in this case to offer evidence of the Housers'
personal characteristics and of the impact of the crimes on their
family.  That conclusion conflicts with defendant's contention
that Article I, section 21, insulates him from the introduction
of victim-impact evidence through its prohibition against ex post
facto laws.  Accordingly, assuming, without deciding, that
defendant is correct respecting the applicability of Article I,
section 21, we must determine which "right" will govern the
question of the admissibility of victim-impact evidence in any
further proceeding in this case:  the victims' right to be heard
or defendant's right to be free from application of an ex post
facto law.  To answer that question, we again turn to the text of
the Article I, section 42.
Article I, section 42(2), provides, in part:
“Nothing in this section reduces a criminal defendant’s
rights under the Constitution of the United States. 
Except as otherwise specifically provided, this section
supersedes any conflicting section of this
Constitution."
By providing that Article I, section 42, does not "reduce[]" a
defendant's federal constitutional rights and that it supersedes
any conflicting section of the Oregon Constitution, that text
anticipates that the victim's right to be heard might be
incompatible with a criminal defendant's constitutional right in
a particular case.  At the same time, the text establishes that
the voters intended the anticipated conflict to be resolved in
one of two ways, depending on the source of the criminal
defendant's conflicting right.  
According to the first of the two sentences quoted
above, the voters made clear that they did not intend to attempt
to change any right previously guaranteed to a criminal defendant
under the United States Constitution.  Accordingly, in the event
of a conflict between a victim's right to be heard and a criminal
defendant's federal constitutional right, it is the victim's
right to be heard that must give way. (13)  By contrast to that
deference to federal constitutional law, Article I, section 42,
provides that it will supersede any conflicting section of the
Oregon Constitution.  Read in context, that statement makes clear
that, in the event of a conflict between a victim's right to be
heard under Article I, section 42(1)(a), and a criminal
defendant's right under the Oregon Constitution, it is the
victim's right that has constitutional priority.
Applying the foregoing understanding of Article I,
section 42, to this case, we conclude the following.  In a
subsequent death-penalty proceeding in this case, the Housers'
family members will have the right under Article I, section
42(1)(a), to offer relevant victim-impact evidence as described
in the 1995 amendment to ORS 163.150(1)(a) and later included in
the 1997 amendment to ORS 163.150(1)(c)(B).  Although retroactive
application of those amendments to defendant might implicate the
ex post facto prohibition under Article I, section 21,
defendant's right to be free from retroactive application of the
amendments is superseded in this context by the right conferred
on the Housers' family members under Article I, section 42(1)(a).
b.  United States Constitution
Defendant also argues that retroactive application of
the victim-impact evidence provisions of the 1995 and 1997
amendments to ORS 163.150(1)(a) and (c)(B) to his remanded
penalty-phase proceeding violates the prohibition of ex post
facto laws set out in Article I, section 10, of the United States
Constitution.  See ___ Or at ___ n 5 (slip op at 6 n 5) (setting
out provision).  The state counters that, according to the
analysis that the United States Supreme Court set out in Carmell
v. Texas, 529 US 513, 120 S Ct 1620, 146 L Ed 2d 577 (2000), it
does not.  For the reasons set out below, we agree with the
state's ex post facto analysis under federal law.
When interpreting the prohibition against ex post facto
laws set out in Article I, section 10, of the United States
Constitution, the Supreme Court relies on Calder's categories. 
The Court, like this one, has held that alterations to the rules
of evidence in a manner that makes conviction more likely fall
into the fourth category of laws under Calder that violate ex
post facto principles.  Carmell, 529 US at 522-25. (14) 
However, the Court has offered a specific interpretation, as a
matter of federal constitutional law, of the kind of change in
the rules of evidence that facilitates an easier conviction. 
Under Article I, section 10, as the Court explained in Carmell, a
change in the rules of evidence that facilitates an easier
conviction -- like changes in the law relating to Calder's first
three categories -- is one that "subverts the presumption of
innocence." (15)  Id. at 532.  Specifically, the evidentiary
change must be one that alters the sufficiency-of-evidence
standard or otherwise "reduc[es] the quantum of evidence
necessary to meet the burden of proof" to convict.  Id. at 532-33.  Applying that standard to a penalty-phase proceeding, we
construe it as a standard that focuses on whether the change in
the law lowers the minimum quantum of evidence required to obtain
a sentence of death.  
With that standard in mind, we again turn to the 1995
and 1997 amendments to ORS 163.150(1)(a) and (c)(B) that permit
the admission of victim-impact evidence.  We agree with the state
that nothing about those amendments lowers the quantum of proof
necessary for the state to obtain a sentence of death.  The state
must prove each issue submitted to the jury under ORS
163.150(1)(b)(A) to (C) beyond a reasonable doubt, ORS
163.150(1)(d), just as Oregon law previously required it to do. 
Although the retroactive application of a change in the law that
permits the state to introduce a new kind of evidence against a
defendant might tip the balance in favor of the state, it does
not "unfair[ly]" tip it, Carmell, 529 US at 533 n 23, for
purposes of the federal Ex Post Facto Clause, as does a change in
the law that reduces the sufficiency of the evidence standard. 
That distinction is dispositive.  As the Supreme Court explained
in Carmell, not every rule that increases the state's likelihood
of success on the merits constitutes an ex post facto law under
Article I, section 10.  For example, the Court observed that
rules that permit evidence to be admitted at trial, whether one-sided or not,  
"* * * do not at all subvert the presumption of
innocence, because they do not concern whether the
admissible evidence is sufficient to overcome the
presumption.  Therefore, to the extent one may consider
changes to such laws as 'unfair' or 'unjust,' they do
not implicate the same kind of unfairness implicated by
changes in rules setting forth a sufficiency of the
evidence standard." 
Id. (emphasis in original).  Accordingly, the admission of
victim-impact evidence against defendant under the 1995 and 1997
amendments to ORS 163.150(1)(a) and (c)(B) does not violate the
Ex Post Facto Clause of the United States Constitution.
B.  Exclusion of Evidence Offered to Impeach Testimony of State
Witnesses Wilson and Cathey
We turn to defendant's assignments of error concerning
the trial court's decision to exclude evidence that defendant
offered to impeach the transcript testimony of state witnesses
Wilson and Cathey.   
Wilson and Cathey were codefendants of defendant Guzek. 
The three men had gone to the Housers' home together.  Wilson had
shot Rod Houser at defendant's prompting, and Cathey had stabbed
Rod Houser in an effort to make the murder appear to have been a
"cult killing."  Both Wilson and Cathey entered into plea
agreements.  They pleaded guilty to aggravated murder, agreed to
cooperate in the prosecution of defendant, and received sentences
of life imprisonment.  
Wilson and Cathey testified against defendant during
the guilt phase of defendant's first trial.  They described their
actions before the murders, including the preparations that they
had made and their intent to kill the Housers.  They described
what had happened once they had arrived at the Housers' home,
including the instructions that defendant had given them.  They
also described what had happened after the murders, including
defendant's payment to them for their participation.
The state sought to call Wilson and Cathey as witnesses
against defendant in his second penalty-phase proceeding, but
they refused to testify.  The state again sought to call them
during this third penalty-phase proceeding.  Wilson and Cathey
again refused.  Cathey appeared in court and stated, without
explanation, that he refused to testify.  Wilson appeared by
telephone and stated that, on the advice of counsel in connection
with his federal habeas corpus proceedings, he was invoking his
right under the Fifth Amendment not to testify.  The trial court
determined that Cathey and Wilson were unavailable as witnesses,
as described in Rule 804(1) of the Oregon Evidence Code, and it
permitted the state to introduce the transcripts of their prior
testimony. (16)  
Defendant sought to refute Wilson's and Cathey's
transcript testimony by offering evidence that tended to
contradict that testimony, including evidence of inconsistent
statements by the witnesses themselves.  For example, defendant
made an offer of proof that he would call as a witness a lawyer
who had worked on defendant's second penalty-phase trial and to
whom Cathey had stated in 1991 that Cathey, Wilson, and defendant
had had no intention to kill the Housers before arriving at their
home.  That lawyer also would have testified that Cathey had told
her that defendant had not directed Wilson to shoot Rod Houser. 
Defendant further made an offer of proof that he would have
called as a witness an investigator to whom Wilson had stated in
1997 that there had been no "leader" among the codefendants and
that they had not had any plan to kill the Housers.  The trial
court sustained the state's objections to admission of the
foregoing evidence. (17)  On review, defendant argues, among
other things, that his proffered evidence refuting Wilson's and
Cathey's transcript testimony did not qualify as hearsay was
relevant for impeachment purposes.
At the outset, we offer an important point of
clarification.  Under ORS 138.012(2)(b), after remand for a new
penalty-phase proceeding, the guilt-phase proceeding transcripts
are admissible in the new penalty-phase proceeding.  For that
reason alone, Wilson's and Cathey's transcript testimony from the
guilt phase of defendant's first trial was admissible in
defendant's third penalty-phase proceeding.  However, the state
did not offer the transcripts only because they were transcripts
from the guilt-phase proceeding.  Instead, the state relied on
Wilson's and Cathey's transcript testimony, in lieu of their live
testimony, also to prove two elements of the state's case in the
penalty-phase proceeding, namely, that defendant had acted
deliberately within the meaning of ORS 163.150(1)(b)(A) and that
a probability existed that defendant would commit violent
criminal acts in the future, thus posing a continuing threat to
society within the meaning of ORS 163.150(1)(b)(B).  In other
words, even though Wilson's and Cathey's transcript testimony
introduced during the penalty-phase proceeding consisted of their
testimony from the guilt phase, the state put that testimony to
an additional use in the penalty phase, specifically, to prove
that defendant should receive a sentence of death.  That is
significant, because it demonstrates that the state made the
credibility of Wilson and Cathey relevant to the penalty-phase
proceeding and opened the door for defendant's impeachment of
their testimony.  See State v. Johanesen, 319 Or 128, 135-37, 873
P2d 1065 (1994) (discussing relevance of extrinsic evidence for
impeaching credibility of witness).
That said, we turn to the state's argument that the
trial court properly excluded defendant's proffered impeachment
evidence refuting Wilson's and Cathey's transcript testimony
because that evidence qualified as hearsay, not within any
exception.  The state asserts that defendant "does not appear to
dispute [the] proposition" that his proffered evidence was
hearsay.  We disagree.  Defendant does not concede that he
offered his evidence refuting Wilson's and Cathey's transcript
testimony only to prove the truth of the matter asserted therein. 
See OEC 801(3) ("'Hearsay' is a statement, other than one made by
the declarant while testifying * * *, offered in evidence to
prove the truth of the matter asserted.").  Instead, defendant
argues that his proffered evidence of inconsistent statements by
Wilson and Cathey was "very powerful" impeachment evidence, in
other words, that it tended to show that the jury should not
trust Wilson's and Cathey's transcript testimony about
defendant's role in the murders.  Because defendant offered his
evidence for that purpose, it did not qualify as hearsay, and the
trial court erred by excluding it on that basis. (18)  See Blue
Ribbon Bldgs. v. Struthers, 276 Or 1199, 1205, 557 P2d 1350
(1976) (testimony of out-of-court statement not hearsay, because
offered for impeachment purposes to show that opponent's witness
had made inconsistent statement).  
C.   Exclusion of Alibi Evidence
We now turn to defendant's argument that the trial
court erred in excluding his alibi evidence during his third
penalty-phase proceeding.
According to the state's case, the Housers were
murdered in the early morning hours of June 28, 1987.  At his
third penalty-phase proceeding, defendant sought the admission of
two items of evidence that tended to show that he could not have
been at the Housers' home at that time:  (1) the transcript of
defendant's grandfather's testimony, admitted during the guilt
phase, that defendant had been with him from 9:00 p.m. on June 28
until 2:00 a.m. on June 29, 1987; and (2) the testimony of
defendant's mother that defendant had been at her home from
shortly after 2:00 a.m. on the morning of June 29, 1987, and
that, when she awoke at 4:20 a.m. on the same day, defendant was
sleeping on a loveseat at her house.  The trial court excluded
that evidence, apparently on relevance grounds. (19)  
On review, defendant argues that the trial court erred
in excluding that evidence because it was "mitigating evidence"
relevant to the fourth question under ORS 163.150(1)(b), that is,
"[w]hether the defendant should receive a death sentence."  ORS
163.150(1)(b)(D).  The state responds that the trial court
properly excluded that evidence because alibi evidence, by
definition, is relevant to only a defendant's guilt of the crime
charged and, therefore, is not relevant to sentencing.
Because the analysis of their relevance is different,
we address separately the two different types of alibi evidence
that defendant sought to present to the jury.  The transcript of
defendant's grandfather's testimony -- like the transcript of any
other witness's testimony -- was relevant and subject to
consideration in the penalty phase, regardless of its substance,
because it was "previously offered and received" during the trial
on the issue of guilt.  ORS 163.150(1)(a); see also ORS
138.012(2)(b) (if reviewing court vacates death penalty,
transcript of all testimony, all exhibits, and other evidence
properly admitted in prior guilt- and penalty-phase proceedings
deemed admissible in remanded penalty-phase proceeding).  The
trial court therefore erred in sustaining the state's objection
to admission of that evidence.
We turn to the question of the relevance of defendant's
remaining alibi evidence -- specifically, his mother's testimony. 
The state begins its argument with the unassailable premise that
capital penalty-phase proceedings occur only if a jury has found
a defendant guilty of the substantive offense.  From that, the
state urges that we infer that evidence of innocence is
irrelevant to the penalty-phase proceeding.  However, as is clear
from this court's case law, as well as decisions of the United
States Supreme Court, the question of relevance of a capital
defendant's proffered evidence in a penalty-phase proceeding is
not that simple.  Its relevance is, instead, a matter of
statutory construction in the context of federal constitutional
requirements.  We now turn to that task, using the framework set
out in PGE v. Bureau of Labor and Industries, 317 Or 606, 610-12,
859 P2d 1143 (1993) (court first considers text and context of
statute at issue, as well as applicable case law construing
statute).  See also Swarens v. Dept. of Rev., 320 Or 326, 331,
883 P2d 853 (1994) (context includes "statute's development
through successive legislatures"). 
We begin by setting out the relevant parts of the
death-penalty statutory scheme.  ORS 163.150(1)(a) provides, in
part:
"In the [penalty-phase] proceeding, evidence may be
presented as to any matter that the court deems
relevant to sentence including, but not limited to,   
* * * mitigating evidence relevant to the issue in
paragraph (b)(D) of this subsection[.]"
(Emphasis added.)  ORS 163.150(1)(b) provides, in part:
"Upon the conclusion of the presentation of the
evidence, the court shall submit the following issues
to the jury:
"* * * * *
"(D) Whether the defendant should receive a death
sentence."
The jury instructions accompanying ORS 163.150(1)(b) are set out
in ORS 163.150(1)(c), which provides:
"(A) The court shall instruct the jury to
consider, in determining the issues in paragraph (b) of
this subsection, any mitigating circumstances offered
in evidence, including but not limited to the
defendant's age, the extent and severity of the
defendant's prior criminal conduct and the extent of
the mental and emotional pressure under which the
defendant was acting at the time the offense was
committed.
"(B) The court shall instruct the jury to answer
the question in paragraph (b)(D) of this subsection
'no' if, after considering any aggravating evidence and
any mitigating evidence concerning any aspect of the
defendant's character or background, or any
circumstances of the offense and any victim impact
evidence as described in paragraph (a) of this
subsection, one or more of the jurors believe that the
defendant should not receive a death sentence."
(Emphasis added.)
Our task here is to determine whether defendant's
proffered evidence constitutes "mitigating evidence" that is
"relevant" to the question set out in ORS 163.150(1)(b)(D), that
is, "[w]hether * * * defendant should receive a death sentence." 
Answering that question, in turn, requires that we determine the
intended scope of "mitigating evidence" relevant to ORS
163.150(1)(b)(D). 
At the outset, we note that the wording of ORS
163.150(1)(c)(B) -- instructing the jury to consider "any"
mitigating evidence concerning "any" aspect of the defendant's
character or background, or "any" circumstances of the offense --
suggests, on its face, that the statutory category of "mitigating
evidence" is quite broad and, possibly, unlimited. (20)  It
likely would follow under such a reading that defendant's
mother's testimony would qualify as "mitigating evidence" under
the statutory provisions, because it arguably relates to
circumstances surrounding the offense that mitigate in
defendant's favor (that is, defendant's argument that he had not
been involved in the crime).
However, we must read the applicable text in its proper
context, PGE, 317 at 611, which, here, most notably includes
earlier versions of the statutory scheme and its development
through successive legislatures.  As this court has explained
before (and as discussed further below), ORS 163.150(1)(b)(D) was
enacted in 1989 and originally provided:
"If constitutionally required, considering the
extent to which the defendant's character and
background, and the circumstance of the offense may
reduce the defendant's moral culpability or
blameworthiness for the crime, whether a sentence of
death be imposed."
Or Laws 1989, ch 790, § 135b (emphasis added).  Also in 1989, the
legislature created a statutory jury instruction pertaining to
all four questions set out in ORS 163.150(1)(b), now set out at
ORS 163.150(1)(c)(A), see ___ Or at ___ (slip op at 40) (setting
out ORS 163.150(1)(c)(A)), in substantially the same form as it
exists today.  See Or Laws 1989, ch 790, § 135b (enacting that
jury instruction as ORS 163.150(1)(c) (1989)); see also ORS
163.150(1)(b)(B) (1987) (text of jury instruction now set out as
ORS 163.150(1)(c)(A) originally set out as instruction on second
statutory question on future dangerousness).
In 1991, the legislature amended ORS 163.150(1)(b)(D)
to reflect its current wording, that is, "[w]hether the defendant
should receive a death sentence."  Or Laws 1991, ch 885, § 2. 
Also in 1991, the legislature enacted the jury instruction
specifically accompanying ORS 163.150(1)(b)(D), set out as ORS
163.150(1)(c)(B), in the following form:
"In determining the issue in subparagraph (D) of
paragraph (b) of this subsection, the court shall
instruct the jury to answer the question 'no' if one or
more of the jurors find there is any aspect of the
defendant's character or background, or any
circumstances of the offense, that one or more of the
jurors believe would justify a sentence less than
death."
Or Laws 1991, ch 885, § 2. (21)
Turning to the original version of ORS
163.150(1)(b)(D), the above-emphasized phrase, "[i]f
constitutionally required," clarified that the requirement that a
trial court instruct a jury respecting consideration of relevant
evidence admitted under that statutory provision hinged on
whether a constitutional provision required consideration of the
evidence.  The case law construing ORS 163.150(1)(b)(D) clearly
explains the constitutional source at issue, as well as the
intended scope of relevant "mitigating evidence" under the
statutory scheme in its current form, as discussed below.
In State v. Stevens, 319 Or 573, 580-82, 879 P2d 162
(1994), this court reviewed the legislative history of ORS
163.150(1)(b)(D), from its enactment in 1989 through its
amendment in 1991.  In short, the court explained that the
legislature originally had enacted that statute in light of the
United States Supreme Court's decision in Penry v. Lynaugh, 492
US 302, 328, 109 S Ct 2934, 106 L Ed 2d 256 (1989), abrogated in
part on other grounds by Atkins v. Virginia, 536 US 304, 122 S Ct
2242, 153 L Ed 2d 335 (2002), which had invalidated a three-question statutory death-penalty scheme on the ground that it did
not allow the jury to consider fully the effect of the
defendant's mitigating evidence regarding his diminished mental
capacity.  Stevens, 319 Or at 580-81.  More specifically, in
Penry, the Court held that, under the Eighth Amendment, a jury
"must be able to consider and give effect to any mitigating
evidence relevant to a defendant's background and character or
the crime."  Stevens, 319 Or at 581 (quoting Penry, 492 US at
328).  See ___ Or at ___ n 2 (slip op at 3 n 2) (setting out
Eighth Amendment).
The court in Stevens further explained that, shortly
after the legislature enacted ORS 163.150(1)(b)(D) in 1989, this
court held in Wagner II, 309 Or at 18-19, that that statute did
not satisfy the Eighth Amendment directive set out in Penry. 
Wagner II, 309 Or at 18-19.  Consequently, the legislature in
1991 amended ORS 163.150(1)(b)(D) to its present form (that is,
"[w]hether the defendant should receive a death sentence") and
enacted the corresponding jury instruction set out in ORS
163.150(1)(c)(B).  Stevens, 319 Or at 581-82.  The court in
Stevens specifically noted that, in amending ORS 163.150(1)(b)(D)
in 1991, the legislature intended to codify -- and indeed
precisely adopted -- this court's proffered wording from Wagner
II.  Stevens, 319 Or at 582.
After reviewing the development of ORS 163.150(1)(b)(D)
through its 1991 amendment, the legislative history of that
statute, the Supreme Court's decision in Penry, and this court's
decision in Wagner II, this court in Stevens concluded:
"The passage of the original fourth question after
Penry and the modification of that question following
Wagner II make it clear that the legislature intended
the scope of the statutory fourth question to be co-extensive with the scope of the fourth question held in
Penry and Wagner II to satisfy the requirements of the
Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of the United
States.  Accordingly, cases dealing with the Eighth
Amendment fourth question and with the evidence
relevant to that question inform our inquiry as to the
scope of the evidence that is relevant under the
statute."
319 Or at 582-83 (emphasis added).  See also Guzek II, 322 Or at
258 (citing Stevens for proposition that, in enacting fourth
question, legislature was "attempting to bring Oregon's death
penalty scheme in compliance with Penry").  The court in Stevens
then went on to examine Supreme Court decisions that discussed
the phrase "mitigating evidence relevant to a defendant's
background and character or the circumstances of the crime," 319
Or at 583 (internal quotation marks omitted), as those decisions
related to the evidentiary issue in Stevens. (22)
In sum, this court concluded in Stevens that, in using
the phrase "any aspect of the defendant's character or
background, or any circumstances of the offense" in the jury
instruction set out in ORS 163.150(1)(c)(B), the legislature
intended to limit the admission of "mitigating evidence" in
penalty-phase proceedings so as to satisfy the Eighth Amendment. 
Specifically, the legislature intended to ensure the
admissibility of such evidence that the Eighth Amendment requires
that a penalty-phase jury consider.  The remaining question,
then, involves a determination whether the alibi evidence that
defendant proffered at his third penalty-phase proceeding --
specifically, his mother's testimony -- fell within that federal
constitutional category.  As explained below, the Supreme Court's
Eighth Amendment jurisprudence suggests that defendant's alibi
evidence is the type of evidence that a defendant is
constitutionally entitled to introduce during the penalty phase
for the jury's consideration.
We begin our discussion with the plurality decision in
Lockett v. Ohio, 438 US 586, 98 S Ct 2954, 57 L Ed 2d 973 (1978),
which was a precursor to Penry.  The defendant in Lockett was
charged with aggravated murder resulting from a robbery of a
pawnshop.  According to the state's evidence, the defendant had
participated with others in the planning of the robbery; however,
she had remained in the car outside the pawnshop during the
robbery and ensuing murder of the pawnbroker.  During the guilt
phase, defense counsel initially had argued that the defendant
had been unaware that a robbery had taken place; however, the
defendant ultimately presented no evidence to rebut the state's
case. (23)  The jury convicted the defendant of aggravated
murder in the course of a robbery.  From the jury instructions
quoted in the plurality's opinion, it appears that the jury found
that the defendant intentionally had participated in the robbery
and that the circumstances of the robbery allowed the jury
further to find, by operation of state law, that the defendant
had intended to kill the pawnbroker.  438 US at 589-93.
Various psychiatric and psychological reports then were
prepared for a subsequent capital sentencing proceeding before a
judge.  Those reports, which contained, among other things,
statements from a codefendant that the defendant had not
participated in planning the robbery and had left the car to eat
during the robbery, were admitted into evidence at sentencing. 
438 US at 594, 594 n 2.
The applicable statutory scheme required the trial
court to sentence the defendant to death unless it found, by a
preponderance of the evidence, that one or more of three
statutory mitigating factors applied, relating to the potential
existence of duress, coercion, or provocation; the potential
existence of psychosis or mental deficiency; and the potential
role of the victim in the offense.  Finding that none of those
factors applied (particularly, the "psychosis or mental defect"
factor), the trial court sentenced the defendant to death.  438
US at 593-94.
Before the Supreme Court, the defendant argued that the
statutory scheme violated the Eighth Amendment.  After reviewing
its jurisprudence, a plurality of the Court stated:
"* * * [W]e conclude that the Eighth and
Fourteenth Amendments require that the sentencer, in
all but the rarest kind of capital case,[ (24)] not
be precluded from considering, as a mitigating factor,
any aspect of a defendant's character or record and any
of the circumstances of the offense that the defendant
proffers as a basis for a sentence less than death."  
438 US at 604 (first emphasis in original; second emphasis
added).  The plurality added that "[n]othing in this opinion
limits the traditional authority of a court to exclude, as
irrelevant, evidence not bearing on the defendant's character,
prior record, or the circumstances of [the] offense."  Id. at 604
n 12.
The plurality then evaluated the statutory scheme at
issue in light of the foregoing rule and concluded that, in
permitting the consideration of only three specific mitigating
factors, that scheme violated the Eighth Amendment. 
Specifically, under the scheme,
"[t]he absence of direct proof that the defendant
intended to cause the death of the victim is relevant
for mitigating purposes only if it is determined that
it sheds some light on one of the three statutory
mitigating factors.  Similarly, consideration of a
defendant's comparatively minor role in the offense, or
age, would generally not be permitted, as such, to
affect the sentencing decision."
Id. at 608 (emphasis added).
In a companion case issued the same day, Bell v. Ohio,
438 US 637, 98 S Ct 2977, 57 L Ed 2d 1010 (1978), the same
plurality vacated a death sentence imposed on another defendant
under the same state statutory scheme.  A jury had convicted the
defendant in Bell of aggravated murder in the course of a
kidnapping. (25)  Among other things, the reports submitted at
his sentencing hearing noted the defendant's claim that he had
not been aware of the codefendant's actions when the codefendant
had killed the victim and also noted that the defendant allegedly
had been taking mescaline on the night of the crimes.  Also at
sentencing, the defendant testified that he had been under the
influence of drugs on the night of the crimes and that he had
gone along with the codefendant because he had been afraid. 
Finding that none of the statutory mitigating factors applied,
the trial court sentenced the defendant to death.  Bell, 438 US
at 639-41.
Before the Supreme Court, the defendant argued that his
youth, his cooperation with the police, and "the lack of proof
that he had participated in the actual killing strongly supported
an argument for a penalty less than death."  Id. at 641-42.  A
plurality of the Court agreed that, under Lockett, the
defendant's sentence violated the Eighth Amendment because the
statutory scheme had precluded the trial court "from considering
the particular circumstances of his crime and aspects of his
character and record as mitigating factors."  Id. at 642.
Almost four years after Lockett and Bell, a majority of
the Supreme Court adopted and applied the rule set out in those
cases, that is, that "the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments
require that the sentencer * * * not be precluded from
considering, as a mitigating factor, any aspect of a defendant's
character or record and any of the circumstances of the offense
that the defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than
death."  Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 US 104, 110, 102 S Ct 869, 71 L
Ed 2d 1 (1982) (quoting Lockett, 438 US at 604 (ellipses in
Eddings; original emphasis omitted).  In adopting that rule, the
court noted that, "[i]n some cases, such evidence properly may be
given little weight."  Id. at 115.
Lockett and its progeny stand for the proposition that,
under the Eighth Amendment, a court must allow a defendant to
present at sentencing, and a sentencer must be able to consider,
any evidence relevant to any circumstances of the offense that
mitigates against imposition of the death penalty.  As
demonstrated by Lockett and Bell, that includes evidence that a
defendant played an insignificant role in the offense or
otherwise possessed a less culpable mens rea, notwithstanding an
earlier guilt finding of intentional participation in capital
murder.  Further, the Court's statement in Eddings, 455 US at
110, that a sentencer is free to accord a defendant's proffered
mitigating evidence little weight clarifies that evidence that is
not particularly trustworthy still is admissible under the
command of the Eighth Amendment if it is relevant to a
defendant's character or record, or to the circumstances of the
offense.  See also generally Sawyer v. Whitley, 505 US 333, 342-43, 112 S Ct 2514, 120 L Ed 2d 269, reh'g den, 505 US 1244
(1992) (Lockett and its progeny hold that capital defendants
permitted to introduce "wide variety of mitigating evidence").
The foregoing reading of Lockett and Bell generally
supports the admission of defendant's alibi evidence, because
that evidence concerned "circumstances of the offense" (i.e.,
defendant's professed lack of involvement, notwithstanding his
earlier murder convictions) that, if believed, would have
mitigated against imposition of the death penalty.  However, we
acknowledge that the juries in Lockett and Bell appear to have
based their respective guilty verdicts for capital murder on
factual findings that the defendants actively had participated in
the underlying felonies of aggravated robbery (Lockett) and
aggravated kidnapping (Bell), which, by operation of state law,
allowed the juries also to find the defendants guilty of capital
murder.  Such guilt-phase findings therefore would have left open
the possibility that proffered sentencing-phase evidence that the
defendants had not intended to kill the victims, or otherwise had
played only peripheral parts in the underlying felonies (although
with the requisite intent respecting those felonies), would
mitigate against imposition of the death penalty, notwithstanding
the earlier capital murder convictions.  Defendant in this case,
by contrast, was convicted of the aggravated murders -- defined
in part as "intentionally" causing death, ORS 163.095; ORS
163.115(1)(a); ORS 163.005 -- of both victims.  Defendant's alibi
evidence was inconsistent with those convictions; by contrast,
the mitigating evidence at issue in Lockett and Bell was
consistent with the underlying convictions, because the
defendants could have been convicted of capital crimes
notwithstanding their lessened culpability respecting the capital
murders.
However, the foregoing factual distinction between
Lockett and Bell, on the one hand, and the case at bar, on the
other, is of no consequence in light of the Supreme Court's
decision in Green v. Georgia, 442 US 95, 99 S Ct 2150, 60 L Ed 2d
738 (1979), issued the year after Lockett and Bell.  The
defendant in Green had been convicted of murder, as had a
codefendant.  Unlike the defendants in Lockett and Bell, it
appears that the defendant in Green had been convicted of the
murder itself -- that is, of the intentional killing of the
victim -- rather than of more limited, intentional participation
in an underlying capital felony. (26)  At sentencing, the
defendant sought to introduce testimony of a third person that
the codefendant had stated to that person that the codefendant
had killed the victim after sending the defendant on an errand. 
The defendant had not sought to introduce that testimony during
the guilt phase of his trial.  The trial court excluded the
evidence on hearsay grounds, and the Georgia Supreme Court
affirmed.  422 US 95-96; Green v. State, 242 Ga 261, 272-73, 249
SE2d 1, 9-10 (1978). (27)
In a brief per curiam, eight-to-one decision, the
Supreme Court reversed.  The Court stated:
"Regardless of whether the proffered testimony
comes within Georgia's hearsay rule, under the facts of
this case its exclusion constituted a violation of the
Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.  The
excluded testimony was highly relevant to a critical
issue in the punishment phase of the trial, see Lockett
* * *, 438 US * * * [at] 604-05 * * *, and substantial
reasons existed to assume its reliability." (28)
Id. at 97 (emphasis added).  Thus, in Green, the Supreme Court
concluded that, under Lockett, the defendant's evidence that he
had not participated in the murder was a relevant circumstance of
the offense that the sentencer must consider, notwithstanding
that the defendant already had been convicted of the victim's
murder.
As can be seen, the facts of Green appear to be
analogous to the facts at issue here.  As in Green, defendant
here already had been convicted of the murders of the victims,
and, notwithstanding those earlier convictions, defendant sought
to introduce evidence at his third penalty-phase proceeding --
which he did not seek to introduce during the guilt phase --
that, if believed, would have shown that he had not been present
at the victims' home at the time of the murders.  Applying the
Court's reasoning in Green, we conclude that such evidence was
"highly relevant to a critical issue" in the penalty phase,
Green, 442 US at 97, and therefore was required to be considered
by the jury under the Eighth Amendment. (29)  It follows that
that evidence also qualified as "mitigating evidence" under the
statutory scheme set out in ORS 163.150(1)(a), (b)(D), and
(c)(B).  Accordingly, the trial court erred in excluding that
evidence at defendant's third penalty-phase proceeding, and, if
the state again pursues the death penalty on remand, and if
defendant again offers his alibi evidence, that evidence shall be
admissible. (30)
VI. CONCLUSION
As the state concedes, the trial court erred in
refusing to instruct the jury respecting the true-life sentencing
option, after defendant waived any ex post facto challenges to
that option under Article I, section 21, of the Oregon
Constitution and Article I, section 10, of the United States
Constitution.  In light of that error, we reverse defendant's
death sentence and remand for resentencing.
We further conclude that the prohibition against ex
post facto laws contained in Article I, section 21, of the Oregon
Constitution precludes the admission of "any aggravating
evidence" against defendant under the current versions of ORS
163.150(1)(a) and (c)(B) against defendant on remand.  However,
even if Article I, section 21, also would preclude the admission
of victim-impact evidence against defendant under those statutory
provisions, the victims' "right * * * to be heard" set out in
Article I, section 42, of the Oregon Constitution supersedes any
protection afforded to defendant under Article I, section 21. 
Additionally, the Ex Post Facto Clause of Article I, section 10,
of the United States Constitution does not preclude the admission
of victim-impact evidence against defendant under the current
versions of ORS 163.150(1)(a) and (c)(B), because the amendments
to those statutory provisions did not lower the minimum quantum
of evidence required to obtain a sentence of death.  
Further, in any subsequent penalty-phase proceeding, if
defendant offers evidence of inconsistent statements by state
witnesses to impeach their testimony, then the trial court must
determine whether that evidence has a nonhearsay purpose.  If it
does, then the evidence may not be excluded on the basis of the
hearsay rule alone.  Finally, under the "mitigating evidence"
provisions of ORS 163.150(1) and the Eighth Amendment to the
United States Constitution, as well as under the applicable
provisions of ORS 163.150(1)(a) and ORS 138.012(2)(b) (relating
to a capital defendant's "prior trial and sentencing proceeding"
and "all evidence previously offered and received"), any alibi
evidence that defendant proffers in mitigation shall be
admissible.  
We have reviewed the remaining assignments of error and
have concluded that they are without merit or are unlikely to
arise on remand.  Further discussion of those assignments would
not benefit the bench, bar, or public.
The sentence of death is vacated, and the case is
remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings.
DURHAM, J., concurring.
I concur in Justice Riggs's opinion for the court,
which vacates the sentence of death and remands the case for
further proceedings.
The opinion correctly answers several questions that
are likely to arise on remand if the state elects, under ORS
138.012(2)(a)(B), to conduct a new sentencing proceeding before a
new sentencing jury.  The questions that the court addresses
focus principally on the evidence that the parties may offer in
such a proceeding on remand.
The court's opinion does not address another argument
that defendant raises that, if sustained, would obviate the need
for a new sentencing proceeding.  Defendant urges this court to
reconsider and overrule its decision in State v. Wagner, 309 Or
5, 786 P2d 93 (1990) (Wagner II).  According to defendant, when
these murders occurred in 1987, Oregon's 1985 death penalty
statute was in effect and is applicable to this case.  Defendant
argues that that statute contained no provision requiring the
factfinder to consider any mitigating circumstances regarding the
murders.  For that reason, defendant asserts, Oregon's 1985
statute violated pertinent federal constitutional principles and
does not authorize imposition of a sentence of death in this
case.  See Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 US 302, 109 S Ct 2934, 106 L Ed
2d 256 (1989) (holding that similar Texas statute did not
authorize sentence of death, because it lacked provision
requiring consideration of mitigation factors).
I previously have expressed the view that the court
wrongly decided Wagner II and that the court should reconsider
that decision.  State v. Montez, 324 Or 343, 346-47 n 5, 927 P2d
64 (1996); State v. Pinnell, 319 Or 438, 449, 887 P2d 635 (1994)
(Durham, J., dissenting).  I adhere to that view.  The reasoning
that the court adopted in Wagner II is indefensible and warrants
no deference under this court's doctrine of stare decisis.
Wagner II, however, is not the last word on this
subject.  Since this court issued that decision, the legislature
has amended ORS 138.012(2)(b) and ORS 163.150(1)(c)(B) to require
the trial court to instruct the jury, in a sentencing proceeding
on remand, to consider any mitigating circumstances offered in
evidence, among other things.  Defendant may argue that those
legislative amendments occurred after the murders occurred, but
that argument alone does not establish that the amendments are ex
post facto laws or are inapplicable or invalid for some other
reason.
The court is in no position to disregard the
legislature's later enactments unless the parties' briefing
demonstrates that the legislature has exceeded its authority or
otherwise has failed to meet constitutional requirements.  In
regard to Wagner II, defendant must demonstrate not only that
this court wrongly decided Wagner II, but also that the error
entitles him to a different disposition notwithstanding the
legislature's later attempts to fix the problem.  The parties'
briefing does not sufficiently address, and the court's opinion
does not decide, that question.
I agree with the court's decision not to address
whether the error in Wagner II requires a different result in
this case.  From this vantage point, the court cannot determine
with certainty that the dispute over Wagner II is likely to arise
on remand.  If it does arise, then the parties should address in
detail the issues discussed in this opinion.
I concur.
GILLETTE, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I join all of the majority opinion in this unfortunate
case except for the majority's regrettable discussion and
disposition of defendant's assignment of error respecting the
trial court's refusal to permit him to present certain "alibi"
evidence.  As to that subject, and contrary to the majority, I
believe that the trial court's ruling excluding that evidence was
precisely correct.  I therefore respectfully dissent from that
part of the majority opinion.
One piece of context for the majority's analysis of the
problem –- and of mine –- cannot be overemphasized.  The jury in
this case was empaneled to decide only whether this defendant
should receive the death penalty; the question whether defendant
was personally, criminally responsible for the deaths of the two
victims had already been established by a separate jury trial,
and that verdict had been affirmed on appeal.  See State v.
Guzek, 310 Or 299, 304, 797 P2d 1031 (1990) (affirming
defendant's convictions for two counts of aggravated murder). 
For various reasons, defendant's sentence of death for those two
murders has twice been reversed, and the present appeal is from
the third jury verdict determining that defendant should receive
the death penalty.
As the majority explains, State v. Guzek, ___ Or ___,
___, ___ P3d ___ (Mar 4, 2004) (slip op at 37-38), defendant in
this case proffered evidence from two relatives to the effect
that defendant could not have been one of the murderers, because
he was elsewhere at the time.  That is, he offered evidence that,
in spite of the aforementioned jury verdict to the contrary, he
was innocent of the crimes.
Defendant offered that evidence as "mitigating
evidence" under ORS 163.150(1)(b)(D), which requires a court to
submit to a jury in a case in which the defendant has been found
guilty of aggravated murder the question "[w]hether the defendant
should receive a death sentence."  A separate part of ORS
163.150(1) directs the trial court to give a specific instruction
to the jury in connection with the foregoing question.  It
provides, in part:
"The court shall instruct the jury to answer the
question in paragraph (b)(D) of this subsection 'no'
if, after considering any aggravating evidence and any
mitigating evidence concerning any aspect of the
defendant's character or background, or any
circumstances of the offense * * * one or more of the
jurors believe that the defendant should not receive a
death sentence." 
ORS 163.150(1)(c)(B) (emphasis added).  The issue in this case is
whether, under the emphasized wording of that statutorily
required jury instruction, defendant was entitled to have the
jury consider the evidence that he proffered.  The majority says
that he was.  I disagree.
The majority first divides the proffered evidence into
two separate categories.  ___ Or at ___ (slip op at 38-39). 
Respecting the testimony of defendant's grandfather, defendant
offered the transcript of the grandfather's testimony from a
previous trial of the case.  The trial court refused to admit it. 
As the majority correctly notes, ORS 138.012(2)(b) provides that,
in a sentencing proceeding conducted after reversal of an earlier
proceeding, a transcript of all testimony, exhibits, and other
evidence property admitted in the former proceedings is
admissible in the later proceeding.  Thus, the majority
concludes, the trial court's contrary ruling respecting the
grandfather's testimony was error.  ___ Or at ___ (slip opinion
at 39).
I disagree that the trial court erred, because it is
not clear to me that the statute automatically makes admissible
all evidence, whatever its subject matter, from prior trials. 
The statute provides, in part that, in a new sentencing
proceeding:
"A transcript of all testimony and all exhibits and
other evidence properly admitted in the prior trial and
sentencing proceeding are admissible in the new
sentencing proceeding.  Either party may recall any
witness who testified at the prior trial or sentencing
proceeding and may present additional relevant
evidence."
ORS 138.012(2)(b) (emphasis added).  The question is not free
from doubt, but I would read the legislature's use of the
qualifying word, "relevant," in the final sentence of ORS
138.012(2)(b) as indicating the legislature's intention to limit
the admissibility of any evidence in the later proceeding to
"relevant" evidence.  Certainly, and in any event, if the
grandfather's testimony would not have been relevant to any issue
properly left for the jury to decide –- as I believe to be the
case –- defendant can claim no prejudicial error in denying
admission of the transcript of the grandfather's
testimony. (31)
The focus of the majority's analysis is the testimony
of defendant's mother, which had not been offered previously and
which, like that of the grandfather, would (if believed) be
wholly exculpatory.  The majority does an admirable job of
tracing the lineage of the wording of ORS 163.150(1)(b)(D) and
(c)(B).  ___ Or at ___ (slip op at 40-47).  That history
establishes, as the majority acknowledges, that what the
legislature intended to allow as "mitigating" evidence was
precisely what the United States Supreme Court would require
pursuant to the federal constitution; nothing more, nothing less. 
Thus, the true question in the case boils down to this:  Would
the United States Supreme Court, if faced with the question, hold
that a defendant in the position of defendant here would be
entitled, in a penalty phase proceeding, to assert that he should
receive a sentence less than death because, in fact, he is
innocent of the underlying crime?
In my view, there is no clear binding authority
respecting the issue.  A majority of the Supreme Court never has
dealt with the question.  However, a four-judge plurality of that
Court did address an analogous issue in 1988 in a way that is (in
my view) so clear (and so clearly right) that I am content simply
to adopt the plurality's view now:
"At the outset, we note that this Court has never
held that a capital defendant has a constitutional
right to an instruction telling the jury to revisit the
question of his identity as the murderer as a basis for
mitigation.  Petitioner suggests that our discussion of
the 'residual doubt' question in Lockhart v. McCree,
476 US 162, 180-182, [106 S Ct 1758, 90 L Ed 2d 137]
(1986), supports his position that he has such an
entitlement. * * * But all that this aspect of the
Lockhart opinion stands for is the simple truism that
where 'States are willing to go to allow defendants to
capitalize on "residual doubts,"' such doubts will
inure to the defendant's benefit.  Lockhart, supra, at
181.  Lockhart did not endorse capital sentencing
schemes which permit such use of 'residual doubts,' let
alone suggest that capital defendants have a right to
demand jury consideration of 'residual doubts' in the
sentencing phase.  Indeed, the Lockhart dissent
recognized that there have been only a 'few times in
which any legitimacy has been given' to the notion that
a convicted capital defendant has a right to argue his
innocence during the sentencing phase.  476 US, at 205-206 (Marshall, J., dissenting).  The dissent also noted
that this Court has not struck down the practice in
some States of prohibiting the consideration of
'residual doubts' during the punishment trial. Ibid."
Franklin v. Lynaugh, 487 US 164, 172-73, 108 S Ct 2320, 101 L Ed
2d 155 (1988) (White, J., plurality opinion) (emphasis in
original) (footnote omitted).  That is the line that this court should follow,
unless and until the Supreme Court, forced to face the issue,
tells us that we are wrong.  
The majority argues that it has found a contrary
holding in the Court's brief, eight-to-one per curiam decision in
Green v. Georgia, 442 US 95, 99 S Ct 2150, 60 L Ed 2d 738 (1979),
but I find it impossible to imagine how, nine years later, four
members of the Court could say what they said in Lynaugh, if this
court's majority correctly understands Green.  In my view, as
explained below, this court's majority has not correctly
understood Green.
The majority explains that, in Lockett v. Ohio, 438 US
586, 98 S Ct 2954, 57 L Ed 2d 973 (1978), and Bell v. Ohio, 438
US 637, 98 S Ct 2977, 57 L Ed 2d 1010 (1978), a plurality of the 
Supreme Court held that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments
require that a sentencing jury be allowed to consider, "as a
mitigating factor, any aspect of a defendant's character or
record and any of the circumstances of the offense that the
defendant proffers as a basis for a sentence less than
death." (32)  Lockett, 438 US at 604 (emphasis in original). 
The majority appears to recognize that, as interpreted in Lockett
and Bell, "circumstances of the offense" relates to facts that
would tend to reduce a defendant's relative moral culpability for
the crime, such as evidence of the defendant's minor
participation in the killing of the victim, for which he was held
liable on an aiding-and-abetting theory.  ___ Or at ___ (slip op
at 52-54).  On the basis of Green, however, the majority
concludes that alibi evidence tending to prove that defendant did
not participate at all in the crime is relevant to a
"circumstance of the offense," as interpreted by the Supreme
Court, and, therefore, such evidence must be admitted during the
penalty phase pursuant to the Eighth Amendment.  According to the
majority, Green supports that conclusion, because that case
involved the introduction of testimony that contradicted the
jury's earlier finding of direct liability for the murder and
because it includes the following sentence:  "The excluded
testimony was highly relevant to a critical issue in the
punishment phase of the trial, see [Lockett, 438 US at 604-05]
(plurality opinion); id., at 613-616 (opinion of Blackmun, J.),
and substantial reasons existed to assume its reliability." 
Green, 442 US at 97. 
There are three problems with placing Green so
prominently within the Court's Eighth Amendment-Lockett
jurisprudence.  First, I disagree with the conclusion that the
defendant in Green, like defendant in this case, sought to
introduce evidence that contradicted the jury's guilt-phase
findings and would have led to an acquittal.  Second, the
citation to Lockett reflects nothing more than the Court's
conclusion that the defendant sought to introduce evidence about
his minor participation in the actual killing of the victim,
which was precisely the type of evidence made relevant by both
the plurality and concurring opinions in Lockett.  Third, the
circumstances surrounding Green and its actual holding minimize
its significance as a useful precedent for this case.
I begin with the majority's first major premise, which
is that "the defendant in Green had been convicted of the murder
itself –- that is, of the intentional killing of the victim –-
rather than of more limited, intentional participation in an
underlying capital felony."  ___ Or at ___ (slip op at 54).  The
Supreme Court's opinion in Green suggests otherwise.  In the
factual description of the case, the Court states that "[t]he
evidence at trial tended to show that petitioner and Moore
abducted Allen from the store where she was working alone and,
acting either in concert or separately, raped and murdered her." 
Green, 442 US at 96 (emphasis added).  The Court's disjunctive
description indicates that the defendant in Green was tried for
murder either as one of the killers or as a participant in the
underlying felony, as was possible under the Georgia murder
statute.  See Scott v. State 252 Ga 251, 252, 313 SE2d 87, 88
(1984) (explaining that, under Georgia Code Annotated 26-1101, a
defendant may be convicted of felony murder when "acting in
concert" with a codefendant in committing a crime and a death
occurred).  The Court's description also echoes in general the
elements of felony murder -- the defendant, or someone acting in
concert with the defendant, caused the death of another person
during the course of committing a felony.  See, e.g., Erwin S.
Barbre, Annotation, Criminal Liability Where Act of Killing Is
Done by One Resisting Felony or Other Unlawful Act Committed by
Defendant, 56 ALR3d 239, 249 (1974) (discussing cases holding
that "in order to convict a defendant under the felony-murder
rule the act of killing must be that of defendant and that to be
his act, the act must be committed by defendant or one acting in
concert with him") (emphasis added).  Thus, the Court may have
thought that the defendant in Green was convicted on a felony-
murder theory.
That approach would make sense from the state's
perspective in Green.  The state had clear evidence of
defendant's participation in the kidnapping and the acts taken in
concert with his codefendant.  Once the murder conviction was
secured, the state then could argue -- as it did during the
penalty phase -- that the defendant was directly involved in
shooting the victim because she suffered two wounds, and the
defendant should receive the death penalty for his participation
in the killing.  Green, 442 US at 96 n 2.  That argument by the
state would have been unnecessary if the guilt-phase jury –-
which also sat during the penalty phase –- already had found that
Green was directly responsible for the victim's death.  
 Green also cites both the Lockett plurality and Justice
Blackmun's concurrence.  Green, 442 US at 97 (citing Lockett, 438
US at 604-05; id. at 613-16 (Blackmun, J., concurring)).  The
Court's citation to Justice Blackmun's concurrence is revealing,
because, in Lockett, Justice Blackmun took a narrower approach
than the plurality.  He would have held only that a state court
may not sentence an aider-and-abettor to death without allowing
the sentencer to consider the extent of that person's
involvement, and degree of mens rea, in the commission of the
homicide.  Lockett, 438 US at 614.  By citing Justice Blackmun's
concurrence and its discussion of aiding-and-abetting liability,
the Court reveals that the "critical issue" in Green is whether a
defendant -- who, along with a codefendant, has been found guilty
of murder -- may show that his relative culpability for the crime
is minimal because he neither participated in the killing nor
intended it to occur. 
The majority asserts that, because neither the state lower
courts nor the Supreme Court suggested otherwise, the defendant
in Green must have been indicted and convicted for intentionally
killing the victim.  ___ Or at ___ (slip op at 54 n 26).  I do
not find that inference from silence persuasive.  In my view,
unlike defendant in this case, the Court did not view the
defendant in Green as attempting to challenge his liability for
the crime.  Rather, just as in Lockett, the defendant in Green
attempted to reduce, but not eliminate, his relative culpability
by arguing that he did not intend the killing to occur.  Under
that more limited reading, which I think accurately describes the
Court's understanding of the facts before it, the majority's
effort to place Green in the same factual posture as the present
case fails.
I turn to my second disagreement with the majority's
application of Green.  To make Green work, the majority not only
must find a factual similarity between that case and this case;
the majority also must decide that, as a matter of law, Green
concluded that the Eighth Amendment requires that, if offered,
certain exculpatory evidence must be submitted at the penalty
phase.  To that end, the majority relies on the following
sentence:  "The excluded testimony was highly relevant to a
critical issue in the punishment phase of the trial, see
[Lockett, 438 US at 604-05] (plurality opinion); id., at 613-616
(opinion of Blackmun, J.), and substantial reasons existed to
assume its reliability."  Green, 442 US at 97.  The majority's
reliance on that sentence for its view of Green's legal
conclusion is unavailing. 
First, the quoted sentence does not identify the
"critical issue" to which it refers.  As explained above, the
facts and procedural history of Green are sufficiently ambiguous
to suggest that the Court viewed the excluded testimony as
relevant because it showed that defendant was a minor participant
in a crime for which he properly was held liable -- again, an
uncontroversial view after Lockett.
Moreover, Green does not mention the Eighth Amendment,
and the citation to Lockett comes within the context of a
discussion of the relevance and reliability of the proffered
testimony.  As I read the Court's opinion, Green's citation to
Lockett simply supports the claim that the evidence is logically
relevant to the issues at the penalty phase.  Stating that
evidence is relevant to the critical issue of defendant's
culpability is distinguishable, however, from holding that
evidence must be admitted at the penalty phase under the Eighth
Amendment.  Yet the majority suggests that Green sweeps precisely
that broadly.  ___ Or at ___ (slip op at 56 n 29).  
Finally, the majority purports to find an Eighth
Amendment holding in Green on the basis of the particular factual
circumstances of the case and the citation to Lockett.  Answering
the Eighth Amendment question, however, was unnecessary to the
Court's disposition of the case.  Once the Court concluded that
the proffered hearsay testimony met the minimal requirements of
relevance and reliability, it took the safer route and applied
the established due process rule of Chambers v. Mississippi, 410
US 284, 302, 93 S Ct 1038, 35 L Ed 2d 297 (1973) ("[T]he hearsay
rule may not be applied mechanistically to defeat the ends of
justice.").  The Court's approach left for another day the more
controversial question of whether, and under what circumstances,
the Eighth Amendment requires the admission of certain mitigating
evidence at the penalty phase.  As the majority notes, the Court
reached that conclusion three years after Green, in Eddings, 455
US at 114.  
In sum, the legal discussion in Green (such as there
is) provides no persuasive support for the view that the Eighth
Amendment requires certain alibi evidence to be admitted during
the penalty phase. 
As to my final disagreement with the majority's
application of Green, I observe that the circumstances of Green
also militate against the majority's interpretation of that case. 
The defendant in Green argued that he should have been allowed to
offer in evidence a confession that his codefendant made to a
third party, which indicated that the codefendant was solely
responsible for the murder.  According to the Court, under
Georgia's evidence rules, the confession was admissible during
the guilt phase of the codefendant's trial, and the state freely
relied on it in winning a conviction.  When it came time for the
defendant to use the same confession during the penalty phase of
his trial, however, the state argued that it was inadmissible
hearsay.  The trial court accepted that theory, and then the
state expressly invited the penalty-phase jury to infer that the
defendant was a direct participant in the killing.  Thus, the
mechanistic application of the hearsay rule deprived the
defendant of presenting not only effective evidence regarding his
lack of culpability, but evidence that would counter an express
argument that the state had made during the penalty phase.  
Faced with such a "heads we win, tails you lose"
interpretation in a death-penalty case, the Court summarily
granted certiorari, vacated the opinion below without argument,
and issued a short, three-paragraph per curiam opinion that
relied on Chambers to hold that the state's approach to the
hearsay rule violated the Due Process Clause.  The Court took
pains to limit its opinion.  The Court stated at the outset that,
"under the facts of this case," the exclusion of the evidence at
the penalty phase violated the Due Process Clause, not the Eighth
Amendment.  Green, 442 US at 97.  The subsequent discussion
focused on the reliability of the confession, and the Court
particularly noted that the state had relied on the confession
during the codefendant's earlier trial.  Again calling attention
to the "unique circumstances" of the case, the Court concluded by
stating that "the hearsay rule may not be applied mechanistically
to defeat the ends of justice."  Id. 
Those circumstances demonstrate to me that Green is a
species of "shocks-the-conscience" opinion.  The Court simply was
not going to let the state of Georgia get away with that approach
in a death-penalty case.  Thus, I am not persuaded that Green
resolves whether certain alibi evidence is relevant and must be
admitted pursuant to the Eighth Amendment.  That holding would
have been much more controversial and, for the Court's purposes
in Green, was unnecessary. 
Outside of its troubling reliance on Green, the
majority faces an additional problem:  Supreme Court cases
discussing "residual doubt" arguments strongly suggest that alibi
evidence is not relevant to a "circumstance of the offense" and,
therefore, the Eight Amendment does not require its admission.  
In Lockhart v. McCree, 476 US 162, 106 S Ct 1758, 90 L
Ed 2d 137 (1986), the Court held that it was constitutionally
permissible to exclude jurors who objected to imposing the death
penalty prior to the guilt-phase of defendant's trial.  To
support that holding, Justice Rehnquist cited capital defendants'
interest in having a unitary jury to which they could argue
"residual doubt."  Id. at 181.  In dissent, Justice Marshall
disparaged the Court's concern with the defendant's ability to
argue residual doubt.  He stated that "this case will stand as
one of the few times in which any legitimacy has been given to
the power of a convicted capital defendant facing the possibility
of a death sentence to argue as a mitigating factor the chance
that he might be innocent," and he further noted that the Court
had denied certiorari in state cases that had refused to allow
defendants to make residual doubt arguments during capital
sentencing proceedings.  Id. at 205-06 (Marshall, J.,
dissenting).  Justice Marshall (who was no advocate of the death
penalty) did not even cite Green, which he certainly should have
done, if that case stood for the proposition for which the
majority now cites it.  More fundamentally, as Justice Marshall's
dissent makes clear, it is difficult to see how a court that was
reluctant to give any legitimacy to capital defendants' residual
doubt arguments as of 1986 could have concluded seven years
earlier that the Eighth Amendment required evidence intended to
raise residual doubts to be admitted at the penalty phase.
As I have noted, Franklin confirms that impression.  In
Franklin, the plurality suggested in the strongest terms that a
defendant had no constitutional right to argue, during the
penalty phase, that the defendant's life should be spared because
there was a possibility that he was innocent:
"At the outset, we note that this Court has never
held that a capital defendant has a constitutional
right to an instruction telling the jury to revisit the
question of his identity as the murderer as a basis for
mitigation. Petitioner suggests that our discussion of
the 'residual doubt' question in [Lockhart] supports
his position that he has such an entitlement. * * * But
all that this aspect of the Lockhart opinion stands for
is the simple truism that where 'States are willing to
go to allow defendants to capitalize on "residual
doubts," such doubts will inure to the defendant's
benefit.'  Lockhart did not endorse capital sentencing
schemes which permit such use of 'residual doubts,' let
alone suggest that capital defendants have a right to
demand jury consideration of "residual doubts" in the
sentencing phase.  Indeed, the Lockhart dissent
recognized that there have been only a 'few times in
which any legitimacy has been given' to the notion that
a convicted capital defendant has a right to argue his
innocence during the sentencing phase.  The dissent
also noted that this Court has not struck down the
practice in some States of prohibiting the
consideration of 'residual doubts' during the
punishment trial.  
"Our edict that, in a capital case, '"the
sentencer * * * [may] not be precluded from
considering, as a mitigating factor, any aspect of a
defendant's character or record and any of the
circumstances of the offense,"' in no way mandates
reconsideration by capital juries, in the sentencing
phase, of their 'residual doubts' over a defendant's
guilt.  Such lingering doubts are not over any aspect
of petitioner's 'character,' 'record,' or a
'circumstance of the offense.'  This Court's prior
decisions, as we understand them, fail to recognize a
constitutional right to have such doubts considered as
a mitigating factor." 
Franklin, 487 US at 172-74 (footnotes and citations omitted)
(emphasis in original).
Justice O'Connor would have reached the constitutional
issue directly and precluded any consideration of residual doubt
as a mitigating factor.  Id. at 187 (O'Connor, J., concurring)
("Our cases do not support the proposition that a defendant who
has been found to be guilty of a capital crime beyond a
reasonable doubt has a constitutional right to reconsideration by
the sentencing body of lingering doubts about his guilt.").
I acknowledge that Franklin and Lockhart do not dictate
the outcome here.  Lockhart's discussion is dicta, and a strict
view of Franklin's actual holding is that a defendant does not
have a constitutional right to a jury instruction specifically
calling attention to any lingering doubts about defendant's
guilt.  Neither case delineates the scope of evidence that a jury
must be allowed to consider at the penalty phase.  
Nevertheless, Franklin and Lockhart shed light on the
Court's view of whether evidence suggesting that defendant may be
innocent is relevant mitigating evidence under its interpretation
of Lockett and its progeny.  Franklin suggests that, just as
residual doubt is not a constitutionally mandated mitigating
factor that a jury must be allowed to consider, the Court also
would hold that evidence intended to raise residual doubts about
the defendant's guilt is not relevant to any constitutionally
mandated mitigating factor.  In other words, given that the Court
has allowed states to bar residual doubt arguments, it appears to
follow ineluctably that, consistent with the Eighth Amendment,
the Court would allow states to exclude evidence that is relevant
only because it would bolster those arguments -- that is,
evidence intended only to challenge the accuracy of the
underlying guilty verdict.
I therefore disagree with the majority's attempt to
minimize the significance of Franklin.  ___ Or at ___ (slip op 57
n 30).  Franklin is not simply a jury instruction case, as
suggested by the majority.  Rather, by discussing the scope of
what constitutes a "circumstance of the offense," a majority of
the Court necessarily communicated its view regarding the
relevance under the Eighth Amendment of evidence intended to
raise doubts about the accuracy of the guilty verdict.  Because
it suggests that such evidence is not "relevant mitigating
evidence" as understood by the Court, Franklin cannot be
dismissed so easily. 
Other than that footnote, the majority does not address
the concept of residual doubt.  As I understand its view, the
majority today holds that, as a matter of federal constitutional
law, defendant's alibi evidence must be admitted as relevant to
the mitigating factor of "circumstances of the offense," but the
opinion need not and does not decide that the Eighth Amendment
requires a jury to consider, or a defendant to have the
opportunity to raise, any residual doubts about the defendant's
guilt at the penalty phase.  I do not share that view of either
the correctness or scope of the majority's holding.
In order to be admitted, the defendant's alibi evidence
must be "relevant mitigating evidence." (33)  Eddings, 455 US
at 114.  In my view, the alibi evidence in this case is
"relevant" and "mitigating" only in the sense that it challenges
the accuracy of the underlying guilty verdict.  It is intended to
create or play upon any lingering doubts that the jury might have
about the evidence that was used to convict the defendant.  The
alibi evidence does not describe the reason that defendant
committed the offense, his conduct during the offense, his
relative participation in the offense, or any other fact or
circumstance regarding the offense itself that would reduce his
moral responsibility.  In fact, the proposed testimony quite
literally does not say anything about defendant's offense at
all. (34)  See Lockett, 438 US at 604 n 12 (stating that a
court may exclude, as irrelevant, "evidence not bearing on the
defendant's character, prior record, or the circumstances of his
offense") (emphasis added); see also Blystone v. Pennsylvania,
494 US 299, 304, 110 S Ct 1078, 108 L Ed 2d 255 (1990) ("[The
death penalty in Pennsylvania] is imposed only after a
determination that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the
mitigating circumstances present in the particular crime
committed by the particular defendant, or that there are no such
mitigating circumstances.  This is sufficient under Lockett and
Penry.") (emphasis added).  Rather, the alibi evidence's only
relationship to the offense is temporal, and its relevance is
only to establish that, in fact, defendant committed no offense
at all.
The proposed testimony, therefore, is distinguishable
from the evidence offered in Lockett, Bell, and Green.  In those
cases, the evidence concerned facts about the commission of the
crime.  See, e.g., Bell, 438 US at 642 (holding that the Eighth
Amendment required consideration of "the particular circumstances
of [defendant's] crime and aspects of his character and record as
mitigating factors" (emphasis added)); see also Woodson v. North
Carolina, 428 US 280, 304, 96 S Ct 2978, 49 L Ed 2d 944 (1976)
(stating that "circumstances of the particular offense" are "a
constitutionally indispensable part of the process of inflicting
the penalty of death" (emphasis added)).  As those cases
demonstrate, the purpose of requiring consideration of the
"circumstances of the offense" is to allow the jury to decide
whether the relative heinousness of the defendant's crime merits
the death penalty.
In the present case, the alibi evidence is not related
to any mitigating fact that informs the jury's consideration of
the severity of the crime.  Rather, the evidence is a naked
collateral attack on the sufficiency of the evidence supporting
defendant's conviction.  Regardless of the merits or
effectiveness of that approach, Franklin strongly suggests that
the state does not violate the Eighth Amendment if, during the
penalty phase, it prohibits arguments or evidence intended to
demonstrate that defendant is, in fact, innocent.  
This defendant has been adjudged guilty of the two
murders in question.  Whatever the concept of "any aspect of the
defendant's character or background, or * * * circumstance of the
offense" may encompass, I cannot in reason believe that the
Supreme Court, when faced with the issue directly, would hold
that it encompasses revisiting the issue of guilt or innocence of
the underlying offense. (35)  The majority's contrary
conclusion is wrong.
I respectfully dissent.
Carson, C. J., joins in this separate opinion.
1. This court's authority to review sentences of death now
is found in ORS 138.012(1). 
2. The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution
provides that "[e]xcessive bail shall not be required, nor
excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments
inflicted."  (Emphasis added.)  The Eighth Amendment is
applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.  See
Robinson v. California, 370 US 660, 667, 82 S Ct 1417, 8 L Ed 2d
758, reh'g den, 371 US 905 (1962) (so demonstrating).
3. The Supreme Court noted in Payne that that case did not
involve evidence of the family’s opinions about the crime and
about the appropriate sentence.  501 US at 830 n 2.  Accordingly,
the holding in Booth that that type of evidence constituted cruel
and unusual punishment may remain valid after Payne.
4. In accordance with the statutory framework in place at
that time, the trial court asked a general mitigation question in
compliance with Wagner II.  We discuss both the original and
current versions of that question, set out at ORS
163.150(1)(b)(D), later in this opinion.  See ___ Or at ___, ___
(slip op at 40, 42-43).
5. Article I, section 21, of the Oregon Constitution
provides, in part, that "[n]o ex-post facto law * * * shall ever
be passed * * *."   Article I, section 10, of the United States
Constitution provides, in part, that "[n]o State shall * * * pass
any * * * ex post facto Law * * *."
6. Those statutory provisions will govern defendant’s
penalty-phase proceeding on remand.  See ORS 138.012(2)(b) (ORS
163.150(1) to (3) and (5) govern new penalty-phase proceeding
after remand). 
7. The current version of ORS 163.150(1)(b)(A) to (C) is
virtually identical to the part of former ORS 163.150(2)(a) to
(c) (1985) that is quoted in the text above.
8. As this court recently noted in Fanus, 336 Or at 66 n
4, the jury considers the third question set out in ORS
163.150(1)(b)(C), regarding victim provocation, only when that
question is relevant under the facts at hand.  In defendant's
third penalty-phase proceeding that third statutory question was
not relevant, and the trial court therefore submitted only three
questions -- the first, second, and fourth questions under ORS
163.150(1)(b) -- to the jury. 
9. That text remains in the current version of the
statute.  At the time of defendant's crimes in 1987, that part of
ORS 163.150(1)(a) provided as follows:
"In the proceeding, evidence may be presented as to any
matter that the court deems relevant to sentence[.]"
ORS 163.150(1)(a) (1985).
10. That rule provides that the Oregon Evidence Code does not
apply in sentencing proceedings, "except proceedings under ORS
138.012 and 163.150," concerning death-penalty proceedings, "or
as required by ORS 137.090," concerning proceedings to determine
circumstances in aggravation or mitigation of punishment in other
criminal cases.
11. The United States Supreme Court also has recognized
that penalty-phase proceedings in capital trials are analogous to
guilt-phase proceedings for the purpose of analyzing
constitutional protections that must be afforded the accused. 
See, e.g., Strickland v. Washington, 466 US 668, 686-87, 104 S Ct
2052, 80 L Ed 2d 674, reh'g den, 467 US 1267 (1984)
(concluding that capital sentencing proceedings under Florida law
were indistinguishable from ordinary trial for purposes of right
to counsel, because they were "sufficiently like a trial in
[their] adversarial format and in the existence of standards for
decision").  As the Court noted in its opinion in Monge v.
California, 524 US 721, 731-32, 118 S Ct 2246, 141 L Ed 2d 615
(1998):
"The penalty phase of a capital trial is undertaken to
assess the gravity of a particular offense and to
determine whether it warrants the ultimate punishment;
it is in many respects a continuation of the trial on
guilt or innocence of capital murder."  
12. In the "preservation" section of his assignment of
error challenging retroactive application of the "any aggravating
evidence" provisions of the 1995 and 1997 amendments ORS
163.150(1)(a) and (c)(B), defendant refers to general evidence of
"misconduct" on his part, including evidence of an act of
perjury, that the state successfully introduced at his third
penalty-phase proceeding over his objection, apparently to
establish that defendant had exhibited a pattern of antisocial
behavior.  Defendant does not elaborate on the particular
evidence that, in his view, the state introduced under the
current "any aggravating evidence" provisions.
We acknowledge the possibility that the evidence that
defendant points to in his brief might have been admissible as
evidence of "future dangerousness" under the second statutory
question set out in ORS 163.150(1)(b)(B).  As we have clarified
in the text above, on remand, the trial court must determine if
such evidence is relevant and, therefore, generally admissible
under ORS 163.150(1)(b)(B) (or under the other statutory
questions on which the state bears the burden of proof), or
whether the evidence qualifies solely as "any aggravating
evidence" not relevant to the first three questions and not
rebutting any particular mitigating evidence offered by
defendant.
13. What we emphasize here is that the victim’s right to be
heard must give way as a matter of Oregon constitutional law,
because Article I, section 42(2), of the Oregon Constitution
specifically provides for a criminal defendant’s federal
constitutional rights not to be “reduce[d]” if in conflict with
the victim’s right to be heard.  It is of no consequence to our
discussion that the victim’s right to be heard must give way in
such circumstances as a matter of federal constitutional law,
regardless of the wording of Article I, section 42.
14. The Supreme Court in Carmell also recognized that
Justice Chase had set out alternative wording of the four
categories of ex post facto laws identified in Calder.  As to the
fourth category, Justice Chase's alternative wording provided:  
"[Ex post facto laws] violated the rules of evidence,
to supply a deficiency of legal proof, by admitting one
witness, when the existing law required two; by
receiving evidence without oath; or the oath of the
wife against the husband; or other testimony which the
courts of justice would not admit."
Carmell, 529 US at 522 n 9 (quoting Calder, 3 US (Dall) at 389).  
In Stogner v. California, ___ US ___, 123 S Ct 2446,
2452, 156 L Ed 2d 544 (2003), the Supreme Court quoted Calder's
alternative wording with approval in determining that a
retroactive statute of limitations extension likely would fall
into the fourth category.  See also id. at 2450-52 (applying
alternative wording of second category to invalidate extended
statute of limitations at issue); and 2458 (citing Carmell for
proposition that Calder's alternative descriptions remain
viable).
15. In Fugate, this court specifically rejected that
interpretation insofar as the Oregon Constitution is concerned. 
332 Or at 213.  As noted in Fugate, this court's inquiry under
Article I, section 21, concerns the understanding of the ex post
facto prohibition that the framers of the Oregon Constitution had
in mind.  That understanding was influenced by Calder and by the
interpretation of Calder that had been offered in 1822 by the
Indiana Supreme Court in interpreting Article I, section 24, of
the Indiana Constitution, on which Article I, section 21, of the
Oregon Constitution is based.  332 Or at 211.  The United States
Supreme Court's inquiry, by contrast, concerns the understanding
of the ex post facto prohibition offered in Calder as further
interpreted by the Court in its decisions over the course of two
hundred years.  See Carmell, 529 US at 525 (citing Court's
decisions from 1867 through 1997 that relied on Calder's fourth
category).  
16. Defendant assigns error on review to the trial court's
admission of the Wilson and Cathey transcripts.  We conclude that
the trial court properly admitted those transcripts, and we
decline to address defendant's argument further here.  
17. The trial court had several reasons for excluding the
evidence at issue.  We do not address each of those reasons;
instead, we limit our discussion to the parties' arguments
respecting the admissibility of that evidence.  
18. Of course, defendant's evidence of inconsistent
statements by Wilson and Cathey also had a possible hearsay
purpose:  To prove that defendant had not intended to kill the
Housers before he had arrived at their residence or to prove that
defendant had not played a leadership role in the murders.  A
limiting instruction to the jury that prior inconsistent
statements by a witness are admissible solely for purposes of
impeachment often assists in guarding against a jury using such
statements for the wrong purpose.  
We also note that our conclusion that defendant's
proffered evidence had a nonhearsay purpose does not require that
that evidence be admitted at any subsequent penalty-phase
proceeding.  Whether the evidence is admissible in a subsequent
proceeding will depend, first, on the purpose for which defendant
offers it and, second, on the trial court's evaluation of any
objection that the state might raise.  Our conclusion here is
solely that we disagree with the state that defendant proffered
evidence of inconsistent statements by Wilson and Cathey for a
hearsay purpose only.
19. The parties do not cite to the record when referring to
the trial court's ruling in that regard.  We also have not been
able to confirm in the record the parties' position that the
trial court excluded the alibi evidence on relevance grounds. 
However, a precise description of the trial court's actual ruling
is not necessary to our opinion, because we focus on the issue as
it may arise on remand.   
20. "Any" is defined, in part, as follows:
"1 :  one indifferently out of more than two : one or
some indiscriminately of whatever kind; * * * b : one,
no matter what one : EVERY -- used as a function word
esp. in assertions and denials to indicate one that is
selected without restriction or limitation of choice  
* * * 3 a : great, unmeasured, or unlimited in amount,
quantity, number, time, or extent : up to whatever
measure may be needed or desired * * *[.]"
Webster's Third New Int'l Dictionary 97 (unabridged ed 1993).
21. As discussed earlier in this opinion, the legislature
in 1997 amended the jury instruction set out in ORS
163.150(1)(c)(B) as follows:
"The court shall instruct the jury to answer the
question in paragraph (b)(D) of this subsection 'no'
if, after considering any aggravating evidence and any
mitigating evidence concerning any aspect of the
defendant's character or background, or any
circumstances of the offense and any victim impact
evidence as described in subsection (1)(a) of this
section, one or more of the jurors believe that the
defendant should not receive a death sentence."
Or Laws 1997, ch 784, § 1 (emphasis added).  That 1997 version of
ORS 163.150(1)(c)(B) is essentially identical to the current
version of the statute. 
As can be seen, the 1997 Legislative Assembly added the
terms "aggravating evidence," "mitigating evidence," and "victim
impact evidence" to the jury instruction accompanying the fourth
question.  However, the substance of the original wording of that
instruction -- "any aspect of the defendant's character or
background, or any circumstances of the offense" -- remained
unchanged after the 1997 amendment.  As explained in the text
below, that particular wording is drawn in its entirety from
United States Supreme Court jurisprudence respecting mitigating
evidence under the Eighth Amendment.  That jurisprudence
therefore informs our understanding of the parameters of that
wording.
22. The issue in Stevens was whether testimony of the
defendant's wife regarding the potential effect on defendant's
daughter of imposition of the death penalty on defendant fell
within the scope of "mitigating evidence relevant to the issue in
[ORS 163.150(1)(b)(D)]."  ORS 163.150(1)(a).  The court
ultimately concluded that the testimony qualified as "mitigating
evidence" under the statutory scheme because it suggested
something particular about the defendant's "character" or
"background," as the Supreme Court had applied those terms in
earlier cases.  Stevens, 319 Or at 583-85.
23. The defendant had attempted to call two witnesses in
her behalf; however, they both invoked the Fifth Amendment and
did not testify.  The defendant similarly invoked the Fifth
Amendment.  438 US at 592-93.
24. The court cited as a possible exception an intentional
homicide committed by a prisoner or escapee serving a life
sentence.  Lockett, 438 US at 604 n 11.
25. It appears that, similar to Lockett, the jury likely
found the murder to have been intentional by operation of state
law, stemming from its guilt finding on the kidnapping charge.
26. The Supreme Court's decision stated that the defendant
had been indicted, with a codefendant, of rape and murder, and
had been convicted separately of murder.  442 US at 95. 
Likewise, the Georgia Supreme Court decision subject to review,
as well as that court's decision following a new guilt-phase
proceeding, both stated that the defendant had been convicted of
murder, and the initial state court decision also discussed
evidence of an admission on the defendant's part that he
personally had killed the victim.  Green v. State, 242 Ga 261,
261, 249 SE2d 1, 3-4 (1978); Green v. State, 246 Ga 598, 598, 272
SE2d 475, 479 (1980).  No description of the facts or procedural
history by either court suggests that, like the defendants in
Lockett and Bell, the defendant in Green had been indicted and
convicted of murder on any felony-murder or aid-and-abet theory
of guilt.
27. The Georgia Supreme Court surmised that the defendant
had not introduced the disputed evidence during the guilt phase
because that evidence would have demonstrated that the defendant
"actively and knowingly [had] participated in the entire criminal
enterprise[,] including the robbery, kidnapping, and rape of the
victim," as well as leaving the victim with the armed codefendant
(who had made murderous statements to the defendant), helping to
dispose of the victim's body, and leaving the state with the
victim's car, the murder weapon, and part of the robbery
proceeds.  Green, 242 Ga at 272, 249 SE2d at 9.
28. The Court's reference to, and subsequent discussion of,
the "reliability" of the hearsay statement pertained to the
parameters of the constitutionally based exception to the hearsay
rule discussed in Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 US 284, 302, 93 S
Ct 1038, 35 L Ed 2d 297 (1973).
29. The Supreme Court ultimately grounded its conclusion in
Green in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to
the United States Constitution, in light of the Court's
application of the exception to the hearsay rule established in
Chambers, 410 US at 302.  In reaching that conclusion, the Court
emphasized the fact that, contrary to its objection to the
evidence at issue in mitigation in Green, the state had
introduced the hearsay evidence at issue in aggravation in the
capital trial of the Green defendant's codefendant.  In that
connection, the Court concluded that the defendant in Green
unconstitutionally had been denied a fair trial.  Green, 442 US
at 97.
However, the fact that the Supreme Court ultimately
relied on the Due Process Clause to reverse the defendant's
conviction in Green does not lessen the import of the Court's
citation to Lockett for the principle that the evidence at issue
was "highly relevant" to a "critical issue" in the sentencing
determination.  Green, 442 US at 97.  When read in full, the
Court's reasoning in Green can be broken down into the following
analytical conclusions:  (1) the Eighth Amendment required that
the jury not be precluded from considering the defendant's
mitigating evidence respecting a circumstance of the offense --
specifically, evidence that he was not present during the actual
murder; (2) the evidence was supported by factors tending to
establish its reliability; and (3) given that the evidence was
relevant under the Eighth Amendment and sufficiently reliable,
the Chambers hearsay exception applied.  In short,
notwithstanding its ultimate conclusion under the Due Process
Clause, the Court's reliance on Lockett was illustrative of its
view that mitigating evidence under the Eighth Amendment includes
evidence of a less-than-significant role in the capital offense,
including evidence that a defendant previously convicted of
murder was not present during the capital offense.  Again, the
Court made that point in the context of a case in which neither
that Court nor the state supreme court had suggested that the
defendant had been convicted on anything less than a theory of
direct liability for murder.
30. We note that, in Franklin v. Lynaugh, 487 US 164, 172,
174, 108 S Ct 2320, 101 L Ed 2d 155, reh'g den, 487 US 1263
(1988); id. at 187-88 (O'Connor, J., concurring), a plurality of
the Supreme Court strongly suggested, and the concurrence would
have held, that the Eighth Amendment does not require an
instruction that a penalty-phase jury consider any residual or
lingering doubts remaining from the guilt phase.  However,
nothing in that decision lessened the direction from Lockett,
Bell, Eddings, and Green that the Eighth Amendment does require
that a defendant be permitted to introduce, and a jury be able to
consider, mitigating evidence relevant to any circumstances of
the offense, such as evidence that would lessen the defendant's
culpability in the offense.  Simply stated, a "residual" or
"lingering doubt[]" remaining from the guilt phase, Franklin, 487
US at 174, is qualitatively different from actual "evidence"
proffered during the penalty phase.
31. For some reason, the state did not, in its extensive
briefing in this case, separately discuss either the
grandfather's or the mother's testimony.
32. The plurality holding of Lockett ripened into a
majority holding of the Court in Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 US 104,
102 S Ct 869, 71 L Ed 2d 1 (1982). 
33. As noted, the majority correctly holds that the scope
of mitigating evidence relevant to the fourth question is
coextensive with what is required to be considered under the
Eighth Amendment.
34. Indeed, it is conceivable that, after this opinion,
scientific evidence challenging the accuracy of eyewitness
testimony or fingerprint evidence admitted during the guilt phase
could be considered relevant to a "circumstance of the offense."  
35. The foregoing point is made even more forcefully when
one considers that revisiting the issue of guilt or innocence is
permitted in specified circumstances, such as (1) the discovery
of new evidence (if that is what happens) (ORS 136.535; ORCP 64
B(4)); (2) post-conviction proceedings, where it is alleged that
counsel failed to perform adequately and, had counsel done so,
evidence of innocence would have been discovered (ORS 138.510 to
138.686); or (3) executive clemency or pardon.