Whitney M. Woodworth

Statesman Journal

Most of the 35 people on Oregon's death row have intellectual disabilities, mental illness, brain injury or were convicted as adolescents, according to a recently released report.

Harvard Law School's Fair Punishment Project conducted a study of Oregon's death row and determined that 25 percent of the people there have evidence of intellectual disability or traumatic brain injury. The same amount had symptoms of mental illness, and one-third of death row inmates had a history of severe childhood or emotional trauma. Six were under the age of 21 at the time of their crimes.

Death penalty opponents have cited the report as another sign of the need to carefully re-examine the state's stance on capital punishment.

“The report calls into question whether Oregon has met the constitutional standard of limiting the death penalty to the most serious crimes and the most culpable perpetrators," said Alice Lundell, director of communication for the Oregon Justice Resource Center.

People on Oregon’s death row are "not all the worst of the worst" of convicted murderers, Lundell argued.

“A sizable majority of individuals on Oregon’s death row suffer from crippling mental impairments, or are so young in age, that they appear to be nearly indistinguishable from the categories of people whom the Supreme Court has said it is unconstitutional to execute due to their diminished culpability,” said Rob Smith, director of the Fair Punishment Project.

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The report cited several death penalty cases, including that of Randy Guzek. The report describes Guzek, who shot and killed Rod and Lois Houser while robbing their Central Oregon home in 1987, as a "boy... just one month past his eighteen birthday and who appears to have been high on meth at the time of the crime" — a description Clatsop County District Attorney Joshua Marquis called "deceptive."

Marquis, as chief deputy district attorney in Deschutes County and special prosecutor, argued Guzek's case three times. He said Guzek was the ringleader and instigator of the slaughter of two good people. While breaking into the home with two accomplices, Guzek "chased a terrified Mrs. Houser at 3 a.m. into a linen closet where he shot her several times," Marquis said.

Guzek then ransacked the house, stole many of their possessions and later bragged of the murders. His two co-defendants testified against him and are serving life sentences.

"He was a star student at Redmond High, a teacher's pet, recipient of an Elk's Scholarship but unknown to most he was raping his younger sister and ran an armed burglary ring as a juvenile, for which he was never caught," Marquis said, referring to testimony that came up during the trial.

When his father asked Guzek if it was worth it, he replied: "You bet!"

In November, David Bartol, 45, was sentenced to death for stabbing an inmate at Marion County jail.

Bartol's defense attorneys argued that he should be spared the death penalty because he was intellectually disabled and has a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. The untreated symptoms of the disorder caused him to act violently and irrationally, said defense attorney David Kuhns during the sentencing phase of his weeks-long trial.

The report mentioned death row inmate Isaac Agee, stating he has a psychotic disorder, suffers from partial fetal alcohol syndrome and has brain defects, a low IQ and the adaptive functioning equivalent to that of a 7-year-old child. Agee was sentenced to death in 2011 after he and another inmate at Oregon State Penitentiary beat and stabbed an inmate to death. In December 2015, the Oregon Supreme Court overturned the death sentence and ordered a new hearing to determine whether he is intellectually disabled.

The report's authors argue that even if the murders meet the threshold of being among the most aggravated homicides, it is difficult to understand how an abused, brain-damaged man with an IQ score in the low 60s is more culpable than an intellectually disabled person who could never receive a death sentence or how an abused, addicted 18-year-old meets the independent moral culpability threshold when someone one year younger would be unable to reach that same bar.

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People with IQs below 70 to 75 cannot be executed, per U.S. Supreme Court decision, Marquis said; and he added, Oregon spends more per capita than any other state in America on capital defense litigation.

No inmate has been executed since 1997. In 2011, then-Gov. John Kitzhaber placed a moratorium on all executions. After taking office, current Gov. Kate Brown upheld the moratorium and made her personal opposition to the death penalty clear. In November, she re-affirmed her commitment to the moratorium.

Oregon is among 31 states that have the death penalty. Four of those states, including Washington and Oregon, have a gubernatorial moratorium in place. With 30 projected death sentences in 2016, the Death Penalty Information Center said the United States has seen a historical decline in death penalty use. Oregon was one of only 13 states to sentence at least one person to death.

The Oregon Justice Resource Center called on Brown to use her constitutional powers to commute the sentences of those on death row to life without parole.

"This would address the serious concerns over our death penalty and free up tax dollars to invest in education, public safety and infrastructure,” Lundell said.

Email wmwoodwort@statesmanjournal.com, call 503-399-6884 or follow on Twitter @wmwoodworth

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