Opinion ID: 1282788
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: capital cases under oregon's article i, section 11

Text: A guilty plea also can leave doubts under the aggravated murder law unresolved when the prosecution excludes the death penalty, but that is not unusual; pleas of guilty to felonies carrying prison sentences often do not accurately match the exact statutory crimes that the defendant in fact has committed. See Rise v. Board of Parole, 304 Or. 385, 396, 745 P.2d 1210 (1987) (Linde, J., concurring). This tolerance for inaccuracy need not exclude murders defined as aggravated in ORS 163.095 as long as the death penalty is not an issue. The unique and irreversible nature of that penalty makes error on the side of death intolerable in capital cases. The heightened demand for certainty is reflected in at least two provisions. As already stated, the death penalty law demands of courts the assurance that this state's officials not put anyone to death in the name of the people of Oregon beyond the criteria set by the law and by constitutional bounds. Also, Article I, section 11, of the Oregon Constitution makes distinctions between capital cases and other criminal prosecutions that clearly seek a higher threshold of certainty before a sentence of death may be imposed and executed, certainty sufficient when tested to convince a jury unanimously beyond a reasonable doubt. Article I, section 11, provides: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall have the right to public trial by an impartial jury in the county in which the offense shall have been committed; to be heard by himself and counsel; to demand the nature and cause of the accusation against him, and to have a copy thereof; to meet the witnesses face to face, and to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor; provided, however, that any accused person, in other than capital cases, and with the consent of the trial judge, may elect to waive trial by jury and consent to be tried by the judge of the court alone, such election to be in writing; provided, however, that in the circuit court ten members of the jury may render a verdict of guilty or not guilty, save and except a verdict of guilty of first degree murder, which shall be found only by a unanimous verdict, and not otherwise;    The majority dismisses the exclusion of capital cases by explaining that the 1932 amendment was designed to allow criminal trials before a court without a jury, which the section previously prevented, and that defendants long had been allowed to plead guilty to capital crimes as to any other crimes. That is a historically correct statement, but it misses the point. The question is not why the 1932 amendment allowed defendants to waive a jury and be tried by the judge alone, with the judge's consent. The question is why the amendment for the first time created a distinction and did not allow defendants to do so in capital cases. The reason could not be to relieve judges of a difficult burden, because the amendment required the judge's consent in any case. Rather, the exclusion of capital cases points to another concern, to the same concern that explains the exclusion of first degree murder when the section was again amended in 1934 to allow convictions by less than unanimous jury verdicts. That concern, of course, is to assure the highest degree of certainty by a unanimous jury that every element of a capital crime has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt before a court may order a defendant to be put to death. The heightened demand for certainty reflected in the amended Article I, section 11, is frustrated if a defendant can foreclose jury scrutiny of each element of a capital crime simply by pleading guilty. It is no answer that a defendant is free to waive a procedure that is provided for his protection, for the 1932 amendment does not permit the defendant in a capital case to waive a jury and be tried by the court alone. To repeat, more than the defendant's self-interest is at stake. A number of those states that have the death penalty at all do not allow defendants at will to plead guilty and be sentenced to death. The majority opinion reviews cases cited by the Public Defender and painstakingly distinguishes the laws in those states from Oregon's laws. Those cases and laws indeed differ, but that does not deny their significance for the issue before us. It was expressed by the Supreme Court of North Carolina as a matter of judicial policy before a statute reversed it: The idea that a person should be allowed to decree his own death has been unacceptable, not only to the judiciary, but to the citizens at large. This State has inflicted the supreme penalty only when a jury of twelve has been convinced beyond a reasonable doubt of the guilt of the accused after a trial conducted with all the safeguards appropriate to such a proceeding. State v. Watkins, 283 N.C. 17, 30, 194 S.E.2d 800, 809-10, cert den 414 U.S. 1000, 94 S.Ct. 353, 38 L.Ed.2d 235 (1973). The same policy is necessarily implied in Article I, section 11. Whatever may have been the early practice, after the 1932 amendment there is no acceptable explanation for an interpretation that would let a defendant circumvent the section's requirement of a unanimous verdict in a capital case by pleading guilty yet not by choosing a trial by the court without a jury. The sensible interpretation is that a defendant cannot circumvent that requirement at all.