State v. Guzek

797 P.2d 1031, 310 Or. 299, 1990 Ore. LEXIS 331
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 20, 1990
DocketTC 87-CR-0373-TM; SC S35051
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 797 P.2d 1031 (State v. Guzek) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Oregon Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Guzek, 797 P.2d 1031, 310 Or. 299, 1990 Ore. LEXIS 331 (Or. 1990).

Opinion

*301 GILLETTE, J.

This criminal case is before us on automatic review of defendant’s conviction of aggravated murder and sentence of death. ORS 163.150(l)(f). Defendant raises various challenges to both the guilt and penalty phases of his trial. The guilt phase challenge is not well taken. We therefore affirm defendant’s conviction for aggravated murder. The penalty phase, however, was erroneously conducted. We therefore vacate defendant’s sentence of death and remand the case for a new penalty phase proceeding.

FACTS

The facts surrounding this vicious crime can be stated briefly. Defendant, who was 18 years old at the time of the offense, had dated a high school acquaintance during the 1986-87 school year. The high school acquaintance at the time lived with her uncle and aunt, Rod and Lois Houser, at Terrebonne, a rural community in Deschutes County. Rod Houser disapproved of defendant; Houser’s niece broke off the relationship. The parting was not amicable; defendant resented both the niece and her uncle.

On Sunday, June 28, 1987, defendant met with two friends, Mark Wilson and Ross Cathey. The three men planned to burglarize a rural Deschutes County home where they believed a large amount of jewelry was kept. Defendant, who was the leader and planner in the group, instructed Cathey to cut the throat of their prospective victim with a knife that defendant supplied. Cathey agreed. That plan failed, however, when there turned out to be too many lights and too many cars at the targeted residence when the conspirators arrived.

Thwarted, the three men started to drive back toward Redmond, the nearest town. They were continuing to look for a house to burglarize. Cathey suggested the Houser residence, which he and Wilson had remarked upon earlier that day as a possible target for a burglary. All three agreed on this alternate target.

The three returned to the home in Redmond that defendant shared with his father. There, defendant secured two guns (a .22 rifle and a .32 pistol) to be used in robbing the Housers. The three then departed for the Housers’. On the *302 way, they stopped at a secluded spot and defendant test fired the rifle, showing Wilson how to clear the action of the weapon if it jammed. The journey resumed.

Somewhere during the drive it seems to have been settled that, if the Housers proved to be home when the three arrived, the couple would be killed. The Housers were at home. 1 Defendant rang the doorbell and pounded on the door until Rod Houser finally answered it. A short, hostile discussion between defendant and Rod Houser ensued. Defendant then yelled “Do it!” to Wilson, who began firing the .22 at Rod Houser. Rod Houser retreated into the house, where he was felled by a fatal fusillade from the .22. Defendant ran upstairs and shot Lois Houser three times with the .32 pistol, killing her.

The men then ransacked the Houser residence, taking a great deal of personal property, including a ring that defendant pulled from Lois Houser’s finger after he had murdered her. The men took the property to Redmond and stored it in various locations through the help of defendant’s father.

The Housers’ bodies were discovered two days after the murders. Suspicion came to center on defendant and Wilson, due to the enmity between defendant and the Housers. Eventually, police arrested defendant, Wilson, and Cathey. Wilson and Cathey confessed, implicating defendant. Both men testified against defendant at his trial. The state permitted each to plead guilty to a reduced charge in return for his testimony. A jury convicted defendant of both murders. The present appeal followed.

GUILT PHASE

Defendant raises only one challenge that could be said to apply to the guilt phase of the proceedings in his case: He should have been given plea agreement opportunities equal to those given to Mark Wilson. A principal difficulty with defendant’s argument, in addition to the fact that he made no issue of this question at the time, 2 is that defendant — unlike *303 Wilson — has steadfastly maintained that he had nothing to do with the crime. (Defendant even put on an alibi defense at trial, but it was rejected by the jury.) Defendant therefore has consistently taken the position that he is not in the same position as Wilson. See State v. McDonnell, 310 Or 98, 794 P2d 780 (1990) (discussing ORS 135.405 and ORS 135.415, 3 deal *304 ing with how a person qualifies for consideration for equal plea agreement opportunities).

Moreover, this record reflects ample justification for the District Attorney’s decision to treat Wilson and defendant differently. Defendant was the leader of this gang; Wilson was a follower. The deaths of the Housers appear to have been the particular desire of defendant, who had a prior grudge against Rod Houser. Defendant supplied the murder weapons. Defendant had a history of vandalism and threatening acts, including one incident in which he told a woman he wished he had a gun with him so he could kill her. On this record, there is no basis for positing error in the decision of the District Attorney to offer a plea agreement to Wilson while not offering a similar one to defendant. See State v. Farrar, 309 Or 132, 138-42, 786 P2d 161 (1990) (death penalty case using the same analytical methodology).

The foregoing assignment of error is the only one relating to the guilt phase and is not well taken. Defendant’s convictions on both counts of aggravated murder are affirmed. We turn to the penalty phase arguments.

PENALTY PHASE

Defendant makes three assignments of error with respect to the penalty phase. The first contains eight subparts. We shall address these assignments in the order in which defendant presents them.

Assignment of Error No. 1

In this assignment of error, defendant mounts a massive, head-on attack on the constitutionality of Oregon’s constitutional and statutory death penalty scheme. As all of defendant’s arguments in this regard have previously been dealt with by other decisions of this court, we need note them only briefly.

A. Vagueness

Defendant first argues that the capital sentencing *305 statute, ORS 163.150, is so vague and standardless that it will result in arbitrary application. This court rejected virtually identical arguments in State v. Montez, 309 Or 564, 606, 789 P2d 1352 (1990); and State v. Farrar, supra,

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Guzek v. Fhuere
342 Or. App. 682 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2025)
State v. Guzek
363 P.3d 480 (Oregon Supreme Court, 2015)
Cunningham v. Thompson
62 P.3d 823 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 2003)
State v. Metz
986 P.2d 714 (Court of Appeals of Oregon, 1999)
State v. Simonsen
986 P.2d 566 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1999)
State v. Thompson
971 P.2d 879 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1999)
State v. Tucker
845 P.2d 904 (Oregon Supreme Court, 1993)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
797 P.2d 1031, 310 Or. 299, 1990 Ore. LEXIS 331, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-guzek-or-1990.