# State v. Williams

> Oregon Supreme Court · March 8, 1996 · 322 Or. 620

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9529617

## Case

- **Full name:** STATE OF OREGON, Respondent, v. JEFFREY RAY WILLIAMS, Appellant
- **Court:** Oregon Supreme Court
- **Decided:** March 8, 1996
- **Citations:** 322 Or. 620; 912 P.2d 364; 1996 Ore. LEXIS 22
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Fadeley
- **Judges:** Hoomissen, Van Hoomissen, Fadeley, Durham
- **Cited by:** 15 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/9529617

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that trial court did not err in preventing arguments regarding consecutive sentences because such decision was reserved to trial court’s discretion
- stating that even unajudicated bad acts and crimes are admissible in penalty-phase proceeding

## Opinion text

FADELEY, J.,
dissenting.
The Supreme Court of the United States held that Oregon’s pre-1989 death penalty statute was constitutionally flawed. Penry v. Lynaugh, 492 US 302 , 109 S Ct 2934 , 106 L Ed 2d 256 (1989); Wagner v. Oregon, 492 US 914 , 109 S Ct 3235 , 106 L Ed 2d 583 (1989). This court (not the legislature) added 100 new words to the statute in an effort to correct its obvious defects, words that the legislative authority had not placed in the statute. See State v. *636 Moen, 309 Or 45, 101-06 , 786 P2d 111 (1990) (Fadeley, J., dissenting, detailing the 100-word addition). This court had no authority to write 100 new words into the statute. 1 ORS 174.010; Or Const, Art IV, § 1, and Art III, § 1. Therefore the statute remains, as it was, constitutionally flawed as a vehicle for imposing a sentence of death. It is that flawed statute that was in effect at the time of the 1988 criminal homicides in this case.
I would affirm defendant’s convictions and the resulting lawful sentences to imprisonment for life, but dissent from imposition of a sentence of death founded on a constitutionally flawed statute.
Furthermore, the effect of the later addition of 100 new words to the statute in this case is to increase the penalty for aggravated murder after the time it was committed. The Oregon Supreme Court had previously held in State v. Wagner, 305 Or 115 , 752 P2d 1136 (1988), that the statute, without the 100-word judicial addition, governed pre-1989 murder charges. Under the holding of the Supreme Court of the United States, there was no valid statute in 1988 for imposing the death penalty in Oregon, when defendant committed the homicides. After the homicides, this court rewrote and added to the statutory law, which, if applied here, increases the penalty from life to death and does so after the date of the crimes. That postfac-tum increase in punishment violates state and federal prohibitions against ex post facto criminal laws. Or Const, Art I § 21, US Const, Art I, § 10. This case should be remanded for resentencing to life imprisonment on each count, the only lawful sentences available.
Justice Durham joins in this dissenting opinion.
Article IV, section 1, of the Oregon Constitution states in part:
“The legislative power of the state * * * is vested in a Legislative Assembly.”
Article III, section 1, of the Oregon Constitution states:
“The powers of the Government shall be divided into three seperate (.sic) departments, the Legislative, the Executive, including the administrative, and the Judicial; and no person charged with official duties under one of these departments, shall exercise any of the functions of another, except as in this Constitution expressly provided.”

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9529617. Public record. Not legal advice.