Voters to face issue again
Senate rejects death penalty bill
By GREG WASSON
Of the Emerald
SALEM — Since the early
1900s, Oregon’s death penalty
has been an on-again, off-again
proposition. In January, the
state Supreme Court again
turned it off, and Wednesday
night the Senate Justice Com
mittee refused to repair the cir
cuitry.
By a vote of a 5-2, the panel
rejected SB803 — legislation
aimed at correcting the consti
tutional deficiencies the court
had identified in Oregon's
execution statute.
In that opinion, it was held
that the law allowed sentencing
judges too much discretion in
application of the supreme
punishment.
The committee's action is
sure to spark an initiative effort
to place the issue before the
voters again. All sides agree
that proponents will have little
trouble getting the signatures
required to force the election.
But testimony at
Wednesday’s hearing suggest
ed it would be impossible to
draft an initiative assured of
withstanding a constitutional
challenge.
Assistant attorney general
Steve Piefer told the committee
that his office — which helped
i
draft the bill and will aid in writ
ing the initiative petition — had
done the best it could to write a
constitutional bill.
“As far as guaranteeing
success of the death penalty, no
one can do that On any given
day, any judge in any court
could hold anything. And I can’t
guarantee what the Supreme
Court or any other judge in
Oregon is going to do,” Peifer
said.
In response, committee head
Sen. Jan Wyers, D-Portland,
said he doesn’t think that the
public shares that uncertainty.
‘ From the editorials I’ve been
reading," Wyers said, ”1 think
the public feels that it's sort of
like fixing a flat tire. Those are
very eloquent words you just
used — on any given day, any
give judge could find any given
law unconstition. If you look
around the country at the 700
people on death row, and the
four executions in the last 13 or
14 years, it looks like on most
given days, they found some
reason not to execute.”
Earlier in his testimony, Piefer
discussed the issue of Article I,
Section 15, of the Oregon con
stitution. That section says that
any punishment must encour
age reformation. In 1906, the
court ruled that a death penalty
ll
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legislative
issues
statute doesn’t violate that
provision, but according to
Pieter, the attitude is shifting,
"There are indications from
the United States Supreme
Court that the predominant jus
tification as far as the Supreme
Court is concerned, is retribu
tion. According to that theory, if
retribution is the only surviving
rationale for the death penatly,
then this section would prohibit
it.”
What this means is that ci
tizens who want to return Ore
gon to the death penalty might
have to amend the constitution
rather than simply passing a
statute. However, a constitu
tional amendment requires ad
ditional signatures.
Legislative supporters of
capital punishement admitted in
February that there was little
chance that the Legislature
would enact the death penalty
or send a death penatly mea
sure to the public. But the bill
was introduced anyway, to
force as many opponents as
possible to go on the record.
Although the committee had
reserved two hearing rooms for
Wednesday night’s meeting,
only about half of one was filled.
And only one witness favored
reinstatement of capital pun
ishment.
One of the opponents
reminded the committee of the
warning of Mahatma Gandhi
that the doctrine of an eye for
eye leads to a world of blind
people.
gabriel boehmer
reporter’s notebook
Relations between the sexes
are far from perfect — as this
week’s Women’s Symposium
reminds us — but some
progress has been made.
Witness the 1962 “Summer
Emerald.’’
Ted Mahar, then editor of the
weekly Summer Emerald, fea
tured a column entitled "A
Pretty Girl." Mahar is now
entertainment editor at the
Portland Oregonian.
The first “pretty girl" photo
was captioned: “This is a pretty
girl. Every week the Emerald will
run a picture of a pretty girl.
There is, of course, no
newsworthy reason for such
pictures at all, except that pretty
girls are nice to look at."
The photo credit was attribut
ed to Mahar.
Curiously enough, the next
week's pretty girl was Shirley
Mahar: “Believe it or don’t she
bears no relation whatever to
the editor of the crusading Ore
gon Summer Emerald. In fact,
the two have never met. And,
believe it, she looks a good deal
better than he does.”
Mahar declined to take credit
for this photo.
The July 11 issue featured
brunette Pat Provo. “She is a
foreign student from Texas, but
speaks almost with no trace of
an accent.”
The “Crusading Oregon
Summer Emerald Photo” was
attributed to Mahar.
Mahar was objective enough
to alternate between blondes
and brunettes each week.
Sha Kendall was named
pretty girl for the week of July
18. “Sha Kendall, this week’s
pretty girl, is not nearly so
ferocious as she looks here. In
fact, she’s rather kindly.”
Although Mahar’s descrip
tions of the first pretty girls were
a bit superficial, he painted a
real word portrait for the July 25
pretty gfrl, a smiling brunette
named Marcia Bullard.
“One of her favorite paintings
is the Mona Lisa,” Mahar wrote.
“During the regular academic
year Marcia is a secretary for the
Oregon Daily Emerald. One of
these days we’ll get around to
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finding out if she can type or file
things or take dictation.”
Photo by Mahar.
And Mahar didn’t have to look
far for his next week’s catch —
Gloria Darold, the second
brunette in a row,
‘‘She is not related to
Elizabeth Taylor. Like last
week's pretty girl, Gloria, too, is
a secretary for the Oregon Daily
Emerald. If you are interested in
working for the Oregon Daily
Emerald, you can sign up in 301
Allen Hall during registration
work of fall term.”
Photo by Mahar.
Writing the column must have
been a lot of fun. The next
week’s selection — Dulcy Moran
— attracted the efforts of several
Emerald male staff members.
And Mahar pulled out all the
stops.
"With slight alterations in
spelling, ‘dulcy’ means ‘Sweet’
in Spanish, French, Por
tuguese, Latin, and Italian. Ap
propriately enough. In addition
to her other virtues, she is also
the fiance of the editor. That’s
one way to get your picture in
the paper."
By the way, Mahar chose a
blonde.
The photo was by Phil
Cogswell, techincal consulta
tion by Bernie Freemesser and
produced by Mahar — a real
team effort.
Two issues later, Mahar pho
tographed the first non-causca
sian pretty girl, Janice Nakata.
"She will be teaching third
graders in California in the fall,”
Mahar wrote. "If she were
teaching high school, she
wouldn’t have to worry about
her male students playing
hooky.”
Mahar’s final pretty-girl
choice of the summer was Sue
Piper.
“She doesn’t say much, but
she smiles a lot. Because of this
she is very popular at parties
because people think she is
interested and amused by what
they say to her. Actually, she
sleeps with her eyes open and
with a smile on her face.”
Photo by Mahar.