explaining that a “legitimate complaint about a court-appointed lawyer is one that is based on an abridgement of a criminal defendant’s constitutional right to counsel” (internal quotation marks omitted)
How later courts described this case
- explaining that a “legitimate complaint about a court-appointed lawyer is one that is based on an abridgement of a criminal defendant’s constitutional right to counsel” (internal quotation marks omitted)
- observing that a "legitimate complaint" about appointed counsel "is one that is based on an abridgement of a criminal defendant's constitutional right to counsel," which "requires adequate performance of an appointed lawyer's professional assistance"
- explaining that a “legitimate complaint” about counsel is one “based on an abridgement of a criminal defendant’s constitutional right to counsel”
- concluding there was sufficient evidence of torture for aggravated murder where the victim’s body was “elaborately bound,” including with “duct tape . . . wrapped three times around her head”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
*273 FADELEY, J.,
dissenting.
I dissent for the reason stated in the first three paragraphs of the dissenting opinion in State v. Williams, 313 Or 19, 44-45 , 828 P2d 1006 (1992).
Specifically, the homicide in this case occurred at a time when the Oregon statute did not meet federal constitutional muster. The Supreme Court of the United States vacated the sentence and remanded a death penalty case to this court in Wagner v. Oregon, 492 US 914 , 109 S Ct 3235 , 106 L Ed 2d 583 (1989). Thereafter, this court, by a majority vote, added 100 words to the statute in an effort to save it from the constitutional infirmity. See State v. Moen, 309 Or 45, 102-04 , 786 P2d 111 (1990) (Fadeley, J., dissenting, detailing the 100-word addition to statute). The statute had been initiated and adopted in 1984. This court had no authority to make a substantial, significant, and after-the-fact addition to the 1984 statute that the people, by their vote adopting it, did not include. Thus, the majority has affirmed a sentence based on judicial amendment to a penalty statute.
Only the legislative branch may enact penal laws. State v. Isom, 313 Or 391, 395 , 837 P2d 491 (1992) (“the power of punishment is legislative”). I dissent.