Opinion ID: 2616699
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: plea negotiations and sentence review

Text: Defendant contends that the trial court erred in denying his motion to require the state to produce the results of other jury verdicts in all capital cases for purposes of a proportionality review. [16] As noted, the state voluntarily produced that information for Douglas County, the venue of this case. The trial court denied defendant's motion for additional information from other Oregon counties. The reasons that defense counsel gave the trial court for seeking the additional statewide information were that it pertained to the possibility of resolving the case without a trial and that it was needed to give the jury some idea of what goes on in the world so they don't focus exclusively on one case. We understand defendant's reason for asking for the statewide information so that he could make a comparison of the sentences of similarly situated defendants charged with aggravated murder throughout Oregon to determine whether he was unfairly denied a particular plea offer or sentence. Noting that some states have statutes that require some sort of proportionality review to be carried out either at trial or on appeal, he argued that the jury should be able to consider information about the disposition of other factually similar cases in Oregon where defendants were charged with similar crimes and received life sentences rather than the death penalty. [17] Defendant argues that he was entitled to the statewide information under Article I, section 20, of the Oregon Constitution, and under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, set out supra at note 11. Because defendant cites no statutory basis for the statewide information and we find none, we turn to the issue of whether defendant was entitled to the information under Article I, section 20.
Article I, section 20, of the Oregon Constitution, provides: No law shall be passed granting to any citizen or class of citizens privileges, or immunities, which, upon the same terms, shall not equally belong to all citizens. This court has dealt with somewhat similar proportionality arguments in terms of prosecutors' choices whether or not to enter into plea negotiations with certain defendants. See, e.g., State v. McDonnell, supra, 313 Or. at 493, 837 P.2d 941; State v. Farrar, supra, 309 Or. at 138-42, 786 P.2d 161. In Farrar, this court stated, we assume that standardless or irrational plea bargaining or a refusal to plea bargain for an improper purpose would be a governmental act within Article I, section 20. 309 Or. at 139, 786 P.2d 161. This court went on to state: Assuming the `privilege or immunity' clause involves plea bargaining or the prosecution's willingness to enter into a plea agreement, the appropriate persons for the analysis of disparate treatment are those who have been charged in Marion County with aggravated murder   . Id. at 140, 786 P.2d 161. In Farrar, the court found no violation of Article I, section 20, where the district attorney's decision was not based on class discrimination, animus to defendant or his attorney, or on concerns collateral to fair prosecution of defendant for aggravated murder. Id. at 141, 786 P.2d 161. In State v. McDonnell, supra, 313 Or. at 493, 837 P.2d 941, this court declined the defendant's invitation to attempt to inquire into the proportionality or the availability of plea bargaining. In State v. Buchholz, 309 Or. 442, 444, 788 P.2d 998 (1990), the defendant asserted that a district attorney's failure to offer the same plea bargain to the defendant as had been offered to a codefendant violated the privileges and immunities clause of Article I, section 20. This court stated: [E]ven when a decision rests within the discretion of the district attorney, that decision is subject to judicial scrutiny. State v. Freeland [, 295 Or. 367, 370, 667 P.2d 509 (1983) ]. On the other hand, the mere presence of discretion does not necessarily present any inherent section 20 problems, id. at 371 [667 P.2d 509], so long as the exercise of discretion `adheres to sufficiently consistent standards to represent a coherent, systematic policy.' Id. at 375 [667 P.2d 509]. Stated differently, the exercise of discretion meets the constitutional standard if `made by permissible criteria and consistently applied.' Id. at 377 [667 P.2d 509]. State v. Buchholz, supra, 309 Or. at 446-47, 788 P.2d 998. The court went on to hold that ORS 135.405(4), which provides that similarly situated defendants should be given equal plea bargaining opportunities, represented a coherent, systematic policy. Id. at 445, 447, 788 P.2d 998. In the present case, one of the reasons why defense counsel sought the statewide information on other defendants charged with aggravated murder was to establish that similar cases were resolved by plea agreement. Again, as in Farrar, we assume that standardless or irrational prosecutorial decisions on whether to plea bargain would violate Article I, section 20. However, as noted in Farrar, whether such standardless or irrational prosecutorial decisions have been made is determined by comparing a defendant's situation with the situation of others who have been charged with the same crime in the same county. 309 Or at 140, 786 P.2d 161. In the present case, the state provided the requested information pertaining to other defendants in Douglas County. Defendant does not argue that he has been treated differently than other similarly situated defendants in Douglas County. Defendant cites no authority, and we are aware of none, for the proposition that the appropriate persons for the analysis of disparate treatment in plea bargaining or sentencing are those persons charged with identical crimes in all of the state's other counties, outside the venue of defendant's prosecution. Because he received the Douglas County information, defendant received the information relevant to making an Article I, section 20, challenge to the prosecutor's plea negotiations in this case. For the same reasons, we conclude that defendant's invitation for this court, or the trial court, or the jury, to attempt to engage in statewide comparative sentence review should be rejected. See State v. Montez, 309 Or. 564, 607, 789 P.2d 1352 (1990) (federal constitution does not require comparative sentence review of state death penalties); State v. Wagner, 305 Or. 115, 169-70, 752 P.2d 1136 (1988) (comparative sentence review not required by Oregon Constitution) vacated on other grounds 492 U.S. 914, 109 S.Ct. 3235, 106 L.Ed.2d 583 (1989). Defendant has failed to establish that he has an Article I, section 20, right to a review of the kind he seeks here.
Defendant asks this court to declare that a proportionality review of death sentences is required under the Eighth Amendment, made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and that the state is required by the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause to provide information pertinent to the proportionality inquiry. In support of his argument, defendant cites Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963). Defendant concedes that, in Pulley v. Harris, 465 U.S. 37, 104 S.Ct. 871, 79 L.Ed.2d 29 (1984), the United States Supreme Court rejected the idea that proportionality review of death sentences is required under the Eighth Amendment. As noted by the Court in that case: This sort of proportionality review presumes that the death sentence is not disproportionate to the crime in the traditional sense. It purports to inquire instead whether the penalty is nonetheless unacceptable in a particular case because disproportionate to the punishment imposed on others convicted of the same crime. 465 U.S. at 43, 104 S.Ct. at 876. Noting a number of cases in which proportionality review was considered to be an additional safeguard against arbitrarily imposed death sentences, id. at 50, 104 S.Ct. at 877, the Supreme Court said that it relied not on this point, but on the constitutionally necessary narrowing function of statutory aggravating circumstances found by a factfinder, to determine whether there had been a violation of the Eighth Amendment. Ibid Although recognizing that apparently some states by statute require proportionality review of death sentences, id. at 44, 104 S.Ct. at 876, the Court concluded that a state sentencing system does not violate the Eighth Amendment merely because it is without any requirement or practice of comparative proportionality review. Id. at 53, 104 S.Ct. at 881; see also State v. Montez, supra, 309 Or. at 607, 789 P.2d 1352 (citing Pulley v. Harris, supra , and rejecting claim that proportionality review was required under federal constitution). Defendant was not entitled to proportionality review of death sentences. Pulley v. Harris, supra .
We next turn to the question whether defendant had a Fourteenth Amendment due process right to obtain the statewide information for the reasons stated in his motion. Defendant concedes that his argument that he is entitled to this information under Brady v. Maryland, supra , is based on the premise that the statewide information is material, because he is entitled to a statewide comparative sentence review. Because defendant has failed to establish that he is entitled to a statewide comparative sentence review, he likewise has failed to establish that the statewide information he seeks for that review is material to punishment under Brady v. Maryland. See State v. McDonnell, supra, 313 Or. at 493, 837 P.2d 941 (same analysis applied under Equal Protection Clause of Fourteenth Amendment). Defendant has no federal constitutional right to obtain statewide information about similarly situated defendants throughout Oregon from the prosecution for use in his aggravated murder trial. State v. McDonnell, supra ; State v. Farrar, supra . The trial court did not err in denying defendant's motion to require the state to produce the results of other jury verdicts in capital cases.