# State v. Davis

> Oregon Supreme Court · December 31, 2008 · 345 Or. 551

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9503288

## Case

- **Full name:** STATE OF OREGON, Respondent, v. MICHAEL ANDRE DAVIS, Appellant
- **Court:** Oregon Supreme Court
- **Decided:** December 31, 2008
- **Citations:** 345 Or. 551; 201 P.3d 185; 2008 Ore. LEXIS 1067
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Walters
- **Judges:** Linder, Walters
- **Cited by:** 85 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9503288

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- concluding that the trial court did not err in its pretrial ruling that the defendant did not suffer undue prejudice by the loss of a 9-1-1 recording or by the evidentiary ruling that defendant could not elicit a description from a written report because defen- dant could have…
- concluding that the defendant was not denied a fair trial even though the prosecutor stated during opening statements that a witness— who never appeared or testified—was expected to testify that the defendant confessed to murders
- recognizing that the standards for determining adequacy of counsel under the state constitution are functionally equivalent to those for determining the effectiveness of counsel under the federal constitution

## Opinion text

WALTERS, J.,
concurring.
I concur in the court’s decision to affirm defendant’s conviction and, with respect to each assignment of error that the court discusses, I concur with its reasoning. Although I also concur in the court’s decision to affirm defendant’s sentence of death, I must explain more fully.
Defendant raises many arguments as to the constitutionality of the death penalty that this court previously has rejected. I did not participate in those decisions, and although I reserve my right to reconsider some or all of them, I feel constrained, at least in this case, by the doctrine of stare decisis. That doctrine requires the balancing of the “undeniable importance of stability in legal rules and decisions” with the “important need to be able to correct past errors.” Stranahan v. Fred Meyer Inc., 331 Or 38, 53 , 11 P3d 228 (2000).
Recently, jurists who had voted many times to affirm sentences of death have reassessed the constitutionality of *594 the death penalty in light of their experiences with its administration and objective evidence of the evolving standards of decency. See Baze v. Rees, _ US _ , 128 S Ct 1520, 1551 , 170 L Ed 2d 420 (2008) (Stevens, J., concurring) (stating that, in his experience, “the death penalty represents the pointless and needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purposes! ]” (citation omitted)); Doss v. State, _ So 2d _ , _ , 2008 WL 5174209 , *15-16 (Miss 2008) (Diaz, J., dissenting) (drawing upon judicial and state experience to conclude that despite efforts to limit arbitrary or disproportionate sentences, state system “does not answer Eighth Amendment concerns — it exacerbates them”).
This court also has emphasized that the pull of precedent “ ‘is strong, but it is not inexorable.’ ” Stranahan, 331 Or at 53 (quoting Hungerford v. Portland Sanitarium, 235 Or 412, 415 , 384 P2d 1009 (1963)). The degree to which any opinion binds future tribunals “depends, of necessity, on [that opinion’s] agreement with the spirit of the times or the judgment of subsequent tribunals upon its correctness as a statement of the existing or actual law.” Id. at 54 (internal quotation marks, citations, and emphasis omitted).
The strength of the bond of an earlier ruling is directly proportionate to the moral and intellectual authority that continues to inform our understanding of that earlier holding. When presented with the opportunity to do so, I urge this court to consider our state’s experience in imposing the death penalty and to examine its constitutionality anew.

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9503288. Public record. Not legal advice.