Opinion ID: 1177355
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: removes constitutional limits on cruel, unusual, or vindictive death sentences

Text: Question: Shall capital punishment for aggravated murder be exempted from Constitutional prohibitions against cruel, unusual, disproportionate and vindictive punishments? Explanation: Amends State Constitution. Article I, sections 15 and 16 of the Bill of Rights now prohibit vindictive justice, and cruel and unusual or disproportionate punishments. The measure would permit aggravated murder laws authorizing the death penalty on unanimous jury findings, to be statutorily defined, even if the imposition of the sentence was vindictive, cruel and unusual, or disproportionate. Where death was not imposed, the penalty would continue as life imprisonment with a mandatory minimum. We allowed a motion permitting Stephen Kanter to intervene and file a written memorandum in this case. He presents many of the same arguments as does petitioner Clark. He offers several alternative ballot titles. [2] The Attorney General argues that the principal purpose of the measure is to require the death penalty for aggravated murder. The intervenor contends that this position is incorrect because the measure does not define aggravated murder, set criteria or procedures for determining when convicted aggravated murderers would be condemned to death beyond stating that there must be some sort of unanimous jury findings, specify the nature of the execution or specify the mandatory minimum term of imprisonment. These details are all contained in the companion measure that proposes to amend the aggravated murder statutes. We agree that the ballot title prepared by the Attorney General is insufficient because it does not disclose the purpose of the measure; that is, exempting the death penalty for aggravated murder from the constitutional guarantees embodied in Article I, Sections 15 and 16 of the Oregon Constitution. See Hall v. Paulus, 292 Or. 787, 643 P.2d 343 (1982). We find the following caption to be fair and sufficient: