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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 21, 1981)
State Supreme Court kills death penalty SALEM (AP) —' The Oregon Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that a death penalty law adopted by voters in 1978 is unconstitutional. The unanimous decision overturned death sentences im posed on John Quinn and Ed ward Warren, the first two peo ple sentenced under the law, and returned their cases to trial courts for resentencing. The decision also affects two other convicted killers who have been sentenced to death under the law. State law requires that murder convictions carry life prison terms if no death sen tence is handed down Republican legislators said following the ruling that they plan to propose a new death penalty measure meeting the court’s objections. But they said it will be difficult to get a bill approved by the Democrat-controlled Legisla ture. The capital punishment law was put on the ballot by initiative petition after the 1977 Legisla ture failed to approve a death penalty measure. The Supreme Court attacked a provision of the law requiring judges instead of juries to decide whether capital punish ment should be imposed. The justices said the require ment, done during a separate hearing following a jury convic Film series previews war, social protest Social responsibility and al ternative energy sources high light this term's Environmental Film Series sponsored by the Survival Center. “War Without Winners” will be shown tonight in the EMU Forum Room. The controversial film includes interviews with re tired government officials, bomb assemblers and others. The following Wednesday, Jan. 28, physician John Burk hardt, a member of Physicians for Social Responsibility, will discuss his recent trips to the Pentagon. The slideshow and discussion will deal with the Pentagon's programs and Burkhardt’s protests. Future films will feature alter native energy breakthroughs and renewed recycling efforts. All films begin at 8 p.m. Ad mission is free. IMPORTED coffee (Sb tea By the'Pound or by the Cup Kinko’s 764 E. 13th 344 .7894 Bean of the Month Kenya $4.45 lb. Compare Our Prices tion of murder, violates defen dants’ rights under the Oregon Constitution to a trial by jury on - all aspects of criminal charges. The ruling involves a change in murder laws made by the 1971 Legislature. The lawmakers eliminated degrees of murder and enacted a single statute defining murder as killing done intentionally "without any consideration or deliberation,” the court said By indirectly re-establishing a crime of deliberate murder pun ishable by death, the court said in an opinion by Justice Jacob Tanzer, “The initiative proposal impermissibly places respons ibility for finding the fact of the greater mental state (delibera tion) with the judge and not with the jury.” For that reason the law violates the Oregon Constitu tion’s provision "that a criminal defendant is entitled to a trial by jury of all of the facts constitut ing the crime for which he has been put in jeopardy," Tanzer said. He said the initative measure “was drafted in apparent dis regard of the amendments to Oregon's murder statutes made when there was no death pen alty. "Simply put, the resulting statutory scheme is a constitu tionally insufficient basis for im position of an enhanced penal ty” for murder, Tanzer said in the 6-0 ruling. Justice J.R. Campbell didn't take part in the decision because he was appointed to the court after it heard oral ar guments in the case. Justice Thomas Tongue said in a separate opinion that while he agreed with the court’s ruling, he would have held the death penalty law violates federal constitutional requir ements handed down by the U S. Supreme Court. In another separate opinion, Justice Edwin Peterson said no law is enforceable that limits the right to trial by jury in criminal cases. "The right of a jury trial as to every element of a criminal pro secution is an important right — in some person’s lives, it is their most important right, Peterson said.” Quinn, 21, was convicted of the 1979 strangling death of Matilda Strong, a 68-year-old Portland woman. Warren, 27, confessed last year to killing two teen-agers in Curry County. The victims were 19-year-old Coast Guardsman Ricky Hemphill of Riverside, Calif., and his girlfriend, Charla Toma, 18, of Lincoln City. The other State Penitentiary inmates who are under death sentences are Richard Bird, 21, and Dennis Brooks, 27. Bird was found guilty of the September 1979 strangulation death of 3-year-old Jessica Clark of Scappoose Brooks was convicted of the October 1979 killing of Kitty Coy of Chico, Calif., who had been tied to a tree in the Mount Hood National Forest and shot several times in the head. Thought it ■« back IN THE WATER s^wffisagasBffrf r*ciay> January 9o a> •»"»«*,„, [RlitD --—-* at a theatre neai
