Opinion ID: 2611126
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the 1989 amendment can only apply to future cases

Text: The Supreme Court's opinion in Penry v. Lynaugh, supra , was announced on June 26, 1989, a few days before the end of the 1989 legislative session. Correctly understanding that Penry invalidated Oregon's three-issue death penalty formula, the Department of Justice rushed to attach to a pending bill a last-minute amendment that adds a new fourth issue for the jury to decide in death penalty cases. Because today's majority opinion rightly avoids reliance on the 1989 amendment to revive the invalid death sentence in this 1985 murder case, that amendment requires only brief discussion. The amendment adds to the three issues stated in ORS 163.150(1)(b)(A)-(C), supra note 1, a new paragraph (D): If constitutionally required, considering the extent to which the defendant's character and background, and the circumstances of the offense may reduce the defendant's moral culpability or blameworthiness for the crime, whether a sentence of death be imposed. As the majority observes, the new provision is ungrammatical and obscure. The initial conditional phrase (If etc.) leaves in doubt whether considering is supposed to bear on constitutionally required. The final phrase, be imposed, lacks an active verb. The new provision also may fall short of what Penry requires insofar as it incorporates the state's position that mitigating circumstances must relate to defendants' culpability or blameworthiness for the crime, a position that today's majority opinion rejects. But those problems are for the future. The amendment also provided that, in case a death sentence is set aside, certain provisions should apply in a resentencing proceeding under ORS 163.150(1). The new ORS 163.150(5)(c) states: The provisions of this section are procedural and shall apply to any defendant sentenced to death after December 6, 1984. One may and probably should credit the drafters with knowing that a substantive provision would not become procedural by self-declaration. Retroactive application of a substantively revised death penalty law, newly enacted to replace an invalid law, would violate the prohibition of Article I, section 21, of the Oregon Constitution, supra note 3. State v. Smith, 56 Or. 21, 107 P. 980 (1910). Had the prior statute not been unconstitutional, the new ORS 163.150(1)(b)(D) might be a provision mitigating the otherwise applicable penalty and not contravene the ex post facto clause. State v. Smith, 56 Or. at 26, 107 P. 980. But because the 1984 penalty provisions were not valid, no death penalty could validly be applied under those provisions. If this court had correctly so decided in 1988, would anyone maintain that the legislature in 1989 could have provided for resentencing this defendant to death under a new, revised statute? The answer must be no. How could one now defend a different holding merely because the majority in 1988 failed correctly to apply the constitutional standard? Retroactive application of the 1989 statute would not be less ex post facto because this court erred. [4]