Wednesday, December 16, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
so there are really two tri-
als in an aggravated murder
case: one to decide guilt and
one to impose sentence. This
most recent Oregon Supreme
Court decision, which dealt
with the penalty phase only,
is not the end of the matter
by any means. Dayton Leroy
Rogers was recently sen-
tenced to death in Portland
after his fourth penalty phase
trial for murders he com-
mitted in the 1980s. He is a
serial killer, and the facts of
the murders he committed
are also gruesome.
I was elected as Lincoln
County district attorney in
1988 and took office in 1989.
I served three terms — or 12
years — in that capacity, and
left that job in 2001. During
the entire time I was in office
these cases were pored over
and analyzed at conferences
and workshops. Here we are,
27 years after Guzek was
first convicted and sentenced
to death and he has not been
executed. Had he been exe-
cuted during the time I was
district attorney I would not
be writing this piece, but he
has been on death row dur-
ing my entire tenure in that
job and then again the same
period of time. He probably
will not be executed in the
near term.
Governor Kitzhaber, stat-
ing the death penalty system
was broken, imposed a mor-
atorium on the death penalty
Looking
Outward
Dan Glode
Columnist
Time to move on from
the death penalty?
Idealism is fine, but as it
approaches reality, the cost
becomes prohibitive.
— William F. Buckley, Jr.
The name Randy Guzek
is likely familiar to every-
one who lives in Deschutes
County. He was found guilty
of two counts of aggravated
murder in 1988 for the 1987
murders of Rod and Lois
Houser in Terrebonne and he
was sentenced to death.
The facts of the case are
gruesome.
A few weeks ago the
Oregon Supreme Court
upheld his last death sen-
tence from 2010. He has had
three retrials for the death
sentence and been sentenced
to death four times total.
In Oregon, the jury
imposes the death penalty
in Oregon and that suspen-
sion has been renewed by
Governor Brown. So, in
some sense, the recent sen-
tence of Rogers and the one
upheld on Guzek are moot.
But even if there were no
death penalty moratorium
these killers would not be
executed.
It may be time to move on
from the death penalty. Don’t
get me wrong: I think these
men and the other 32 on
death row in this state proba-
bly deserved to be executed.
The acts they committed on
human beings were unspeak-
ably horrible. Some of my
liberal friends cringe when
I tell them that my opposi-
tion to the death penalty is
not based on humanitarian
grounds. In a state where we
have death with dignity for
all, I am sure we could find
some humane way of put-
ting these people to death. I
will leave the discussion of
whether the death penalty is
inhumane to the theologians
and ethicists.
Most death-penalty advo-
cates talk of the need for
justice and the unspeakable
crimes committed by these
defendants. They are right;
the crimes were horrible.
For me the reason for aban-
doning the death penalty in
Oregon is simple: we just
don’t execute anyone.
There are 35 inmates on
death row in Oregon; all
but one are men. They are
segregated from the general
population. It is much more
expensive to maintain an
inmate on death row than
in the general population —
much more. Then there is
the cost of what seems like
endless appeals. It is a multi-
step process from beginning
to end with appeals in both
the state and federal sys-
tems. Then there are post-
conviction appeals, habeas
corpus, etc. Every individual
is afforded an attorney along
the way at all stages of the
appellate process and, of
course, the state is a party to
all these appeals. The death-
penalty system we have
generates a huge amount of
appellate work for attorneys.
We have had a very
expensive legal machine
running just for these cases
for almost 30 years.
In Oregon we are victims
of our own success. I know
you have heard of stories in
Texas and Louisiana, where
defendants are wrongly
convicted and sentenced to
death. That does not hap-
pen here. This state bends
over backwards at all stages
of the process. Mistakes are
not tolerated here and if any
be made, they are picked up
somewhere in the process.
The criminal justice sys-
tem in this country does not
always do right by crime vic-
tims. As a district attorney
19
you try to make crime vic-
tims whole again after a
crime is committed but in
reality there is no way to
do that. How do you bring
a loved one back? You can
only soften the blow. For the
victims and loved ones of
aggravated murder victims
it can be even more difficult
since getting to a point of
closure involves some cer-
tainty as to what is going to
happen to the defendant. To
them, it seems like it goes on
and on — and it does.
For many years now
Oregon has provided an
alternative for juries con-
templating the death penalty:
true life. When this sentence
is imposed a defendant is
imprisoned without the pos-
sibility of parole or early
release. You could call this
locking them up and throw-
ing away the key. They go
in with the general popula-
tion and are kept there until
they die. So far this sentence
has been upheld. It is much
less costly and gives some
needed finality to these
cases.
I can think of many other
uses for the millions upon
millions we spend on a death
penalty system, which does
not work. It may be time
to try something else. Let’s
move on.
Dan Glode is an attorney
and former district attorney
for Lincoln County.
Serving h e Sisters, Camp Sherman and Black Butte Ranch Areas
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