Court Opinion

ID: 9503288
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 19:40:18.782167+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:03:22.238392
License: Public Domain

WALTERS, J.,
concurring.
I concur in the court’s decision to affirm defendant’s conviction and, with respect to each assignment of error that the court discusses, I concur with its reasoning. Although I also concur in the court’s decision to affirm defendant’s sentence of death, I must explain more fully.
Defendant raises many arguments as to the constitutionality of the death penalty that this court previously has rejected. I did not participate in those decisions, and although I reserve my right to reconsider some or all of them, I feel constrained, at least in this case, by the doctrine of stare decisis. That doctrine requires the balancing of the “undeniable importance of stability in legal rules and decisions” with the “important need to be able to correct past errors.” Stranahan v. Fred Meyer Inc., 331 Or 38, 53, 11 P3d 228 (2000).
Recently, jurists who had voted many times to affirm sentences of death have reassessed the constitutionality of *594the death penalty in light of their experiences with its administration and objective evidence of the evolving standards of decency. See Baze v. Rees, _ US _ , 128 S Ct 1520, 1551, 170 L Ed 2d 420 (2008) (Stevens, J., concurring) (stating that, in his experience, “the death penalty represents the pointless and needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purposes! ]” (citation omitted)); Doss v. State, _ So 2d _ , _ , 2008 WL 5174209, *15-16 (Miss 2008) (Diaz, J., dissenting) (drawing upon judicial and state experience to conclude that despite efforts to limit arbitrary or disproportionate sentences, state system “does not answer Eighth Amendment concerns — it exacerbates them”).
This court also has emphasized that the pull of precedent “ ‘is strong, but it is not inexorable.’ ” Stranahan, 331 Or at 53 (quoting Hungerford v. Portland Sanitarium, 235 Or 412, 415, 384 P2d 1009 (1963)). The degree to which any opinion binds future tribunals “depends, of necessity, on [that opinion’s] agreement with the spirit of the times or the judgment of subsequent tribunals upon its correctness as a statement of the existing or actual law.” Id. at 54 (internal quotation marks, citations, and emphasis omitted).
The strength of the bond of an earlier ruling is directly proportionate to the moral and intellectual authority that continues to inform our understanding of that earlier holding. When presented with the opportunity to do so, I urge this court to consider our state’s experience in imposing the death penalty and to examine its constitutionality anew.