Opinion ID: 836508
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: facts

Text: Shortly after 3:00 a.m. on October 9, 1992, the Washington County 911 Center dispatched a Hillsboro Police Officer to Cornell Road, on the outskirts of Hillsboro, to investigate a telephone call about shots being fired. When the officer arrived at the scene, he found an unoccupied car on the side of the road. The car was riddled with bullet holes, and there was blood on the front seat. Within a few moments of finding the car, the Hillsboro Police received information about a man down on 231st Streetless than half a mile from where the car had been found. When officers arrived at the scene, they found Bryant, the car's owner, unconscious and lying in the road. Bryant had been shot in the back and in the head. She died a few hours later, without regaining consciousness. An extensive investigation followed. Some six months later, the police concluded that defendant probably was Bryant's killer. Defendant ultimately was charged with four counts of aggravated murder: (1) intentionally killing Bryant in the course of kidnaping her, ORS 163.095(2)(d); (2) killing Bryant to conceal his identity as the kidnapper, ORS 163.095(2)(e); (3) killing Bryant in the course of an attempted rape, ORS 163.095(2)(d); and (4) killing Bryant to conceal his identity as the perpetrator of the attempted rape, ORS 163.095(2)(e). At defendant's trial, the state's theory was that defendant intercepted Bryant, a nurse-midwife, as she drove home from work at Tuality Hospital. According to the state, defendant forced Bryant's car off the road with gunfire, injuring Bryant. Defendant then dragged the wounded Bryant out of her car and into his own and drove with her to another location, where he attempted to rape her. Then, the state suggested, after Bryant's injuries forced defendant to abandon the rape, he shot her in the temple, execution-style, and dumped her body in the road. A jury found defendant guilty of all four counts. After a separate penalty-phase proceeding, the same jury imposed the death penalty. Defendant challenges those verdicts and the resulting judgment in 26 assignments of error. [1] His challenges fall into three categories: Eleven pertain to the voir dire process, ten to the guilt phase, and five to the penalty phase of defendant's trial. We divide our discussion accordingly.