Oregon Supreme Court 11-04-10
From OCDLA Library of Defense
by: Abassos • November 3, 2010 • no comments
Read the full article for details about the following new cases:
- Haugen death penalty review
Released by the Oregon Supreme Court today: State v. Haugen - an ag murder committed in prison
- Neither Oregon nor Federal law bars a judge from excluding a non-English speaker from jury duty. Here, two jurors were released, sua sponte, from the jury venire by the judge because the jurors needed interpreters.
- Evidence of bias may be excluded if it is cumulative. Here, the state's witness, after testifying, walked by the defendants on his way out and said "How do you like me now?". The defense wanted to present that statement as evidence of the witness's hostility toward defendants. The Court finds that the witness's hostility was sufficiently displayed during his testimony when he was verbally aggressive with defense attorneys and repeatedly indicated that defendants had made his life miserable. Thus, the proposed testimony was cumulative and the trial judge had the discretion to exclude.
- Where the court makes a pretrial ruling that a witness's testimony is generally admissible but reserves for trial the possibility of objections to discrete pieces of evidence then an objection to such evidence must be made during trial. Even if a written pretrial motion was submitted. Here, defense counsel moved in limine to exclude testimony by psychologists on future dangerousness. They also filed detailed written motions setting forth the basis of their objections to such testimony. The judge ruled that the motion was premature because there was no indication that any of the 5 psychologists were going to testify about future dangerousness. They were being called for other reasons. When one of the 5 did testify regarding future dangerousness, it was incumbent upon defense counsel to make an objection at that time. The judge had said he would hold a hearing out of the presence of the jury once it was clear that the objection was not premature. Defense counsel didn't object or bring it up during trial. Thus, the objection to that testimony was unpreserved.
- Despite the fact that ORS 137.123 requires that a sentence for a crime committed in prison be run consecutive to the sentence that put the person in prison, a death sentence for a crime committed in prison can be executed immediately. Defendant committed an aggravated murder while serving a life sentence. He argues on appeal that he can't get death until after his life sentence is over - ie when he dies in prison. Creative argument. The Court says that the legislature's specific intent in authorizing the death penalty for a murder committed in prison outweighs the general intent captured in the consecutive sentencing statute.
