Opinion ID: 1282788
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: analysis and record lacking in sentencing proceeding

Text: The certainty required for a valid death sentence was similarly frustrated by the manner in which defendant was permitted to conduct the sentencing phase of his case. Like the aggravated murder law, the death sentence statute, ORS 163.150, bristles with difficulties. Some are pure questions of law; others require an adequate factual record. They obviously were beyond the competence of this or any unrepresented defendant. The statute provides that a defendant is to be sentenced to death if the jury affirmatively decides three issues: (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. In determining this issue, the court shall instruct the jury to consider 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; 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. ORS 163.150(1)(b)(A)-(C). The issues are to be decided on evidence taken at trial and in the sentencing proceeding. ORS 163.150(1)(a). The second of these issues poses the greatest problems of law and of fact. The text of paragraph (B) demands careful scrutiny. The first sentence calls for the jury to decide [w]hether there is a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society. The majority construes probability to mean more likely than not, as did the trial court. It leaves the meaning of the conditional would rather than the future will unexplained. Would if what? But harder problems remain unresolved. What are criminal acts of violence? Are they limited to bodily violence directed against a person or persons? The court could so limit the statute, but the words do not, and the limitation is not self-evident. Are arson and bombing of buildings acts of violence? Does a person with a propensity to get at his victims by killing or torturing their pets or other animals commit criminal acts of violence? [1] The statutory test is further qualified. The first sentence of the subsection, quoted again for emphasis, poses the issue [w]hether there is a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society.  What do the emphasized words qualify? What must constitute a continuing threat to society, the nature of the anticipated criminal acts of violence, or the degree of their probability? Moreover, the words make a distinction between probable criminal acts of violence that constitute a threat to society and others that do not. The distinction must have meaning; we are not free to treat it as surplusage. In the construction of a statute, the office of the judge is simply to ascertain and declare what is, in terms or in substance, contained therein, not to insert what has been omitted, or to omit what has been inserted; and where there are several provisions or particulars such construction is, if possible, to be adopted as will give effect to all. ORS 174.010. See also Portland Adventist Medical Center v. Sheffield, 303 Or. 197, 200, 735 P.2d 371 (1987). A defendant may not be sentenced to death rather than to prison whenever he or she is likely to engage in future criminal violence against someone or something, but only if this probability (or the violence, whichever the clause means) threatens society. Because the statute precludes treating every probable assault as a threat to society, does it exclude defendants whose violent propensities are narrowly focused on one or a few individuals? The world contains persons who do not willingly assault any human being but war against institutions with dynamite and sabotage, and others who lead highly respectable public lives and privately assault only their wives or their children. Which are and which are not a continuing threat to society? And do those words exclude probable violence limited to fellow prisoners, who have been removed from society for its protection? The answer can be crucial in assessing the danger to society posed by a defendant who is going to prison for a very long time. Once again, the present point is not that all these questions eventually need answers. The present point, rather, is that these crucial issues demand analysis and an evidentiary record, both of which are obviously beyond the capacity of an unrepresented defendant. They certainly were neither analyzed nor pursued in the record that led to this defendant's death sentence.