# State v. Langley

> Oregon Supreme Court · September 17, 1992 · 314 Or. 247

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9553464

## Case

- **Full name:** STATE OF OREGON, Respondent, v. ROBERT PAUL LANGLEY, JR., Appellant
- **Court:** Oregon Supreme Court
- **Decided:** September 17, 1992
- **Citations:** 314 Or. 247; 839 P.2d 692; 1992 Ore. LEXIS 169
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Fadeley
- **Judges:** Carson, Fadeley
- **Cited by:** 126 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/9553464

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- 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”

## Opinion text

*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.

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9553464. Public record. Not legal advice.