Court Opinion

ID: 9852754
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:36:10.788128+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:34.054341
License: Public Domain

FADELEY, J.,
specially concurring.
The Solicitor General argued for the government of this state on September 4 that the condemned has a right to *152die, as we are secondarily informed that he desires to do. The Solicitor General also argued that those who find that the government’s assisting him to do so is repugnant have no legal basis to interfere with that right where he was condemned legally.
Those among our citizenry who wish him a reformed life rather than a retributive death have done their best, but they are not the condemned. They have succeeded only in demonstrating that a process designed to correct constitutionally erroneous sentences is available under our law, but has not been invoked by the only person who could do so. He has not attempted or completed that process.
The condemned judges himself to be evil; he desires death at the hands of the government for his terrible crimes. He does not join in the efforts to have his death sentence process reviewed for fundamental, prejudicial legal errors. Saying that is sufficient to answer the citizens seeking to avert an “erroneous” execution. This is not the time, nor was this case contested between real parties in interest sufficiently to permit, a constitutional interpretation of an age-old guarantee about the judicial system, a guarantee of independence of the courts from the other holders of governmental power. That guarantee, Article I, section 10, of the Oregon Constitution, which has been improved and maintained over the centuries, was erected so that courts can protect individual’s lives, property, and religious and political activities from the other holders of governmental power.
All that is necessary is that the court do nothing, because the condemned has brought no real case before it. Because that choice by the court would not be legally wrong, I join in the disposition of this case. I find it unnecessary, therefore, and also unwise in this case, to consider the merits of the other issues to which the majority speaks.