State v. Stevens

806 P.2d 92, 311 Or. 119, 1991 Ore. LEXIS 16, 1991 WL 13597
CourtOregon Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 7, 1991
DocketCC CM88020368, SC S35888
StatusPublished
Cited by330 cases

This text of 806 P.2d 92 (State v. Stevens) 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. Stevens, 806 P.2d 92, 311 Or. 119, 1991 Ore. LEXIS 16, 1991 WL 13597 (Or. 1991).

Opinion

*121 GRABER, J.

Defendant was convicted of three counts of aggravated murder and sentenced to death. 1 His convictions and sentence are before us on automatic and direct review. ORS 163.150(1)(f) (1987). Defendant also was convicted of, and sentenced for, several noncapital felonies, which he appealed to the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals certified that appeal to this court. We accepted the certification, ORS 19.210, and consolidated all issues for review. 2

Defendant asks us to reverse his convictions on all charges or, in the alternative on the aggravated murder counts, to vacate his sentence of death. We affirm his convictions of aggravated murder, vacate the sentence of death, and remand to the circuit court for a new penalty phase proceeding. We also affirm his convictions of kidnapping, rape, sexual abuse, and assault and remand to the circuit court to modify the sentences on three of the counts.

Because the jury found defendant guilty, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the state. State v. Brown, 310 Or 347, 350, 800 P2d 259 (1990). On February 26, 1988, at about 3:30 p.m., defendant arrived at a friend’s house in Creswell. Ms. Edwards was there with her four daughters, ages eight, five, four, and two. Edwards and defendant had known each other for 10 years; defendant was married to Edwards’ estranged husband’s sister.

Defendant gave Edwards a ride to the store to get a part for her car, which was running poorly. According to defendant, he agreed to give Edwards a ride in return for her help in locating drugs for him. Defendant testified that they stopped at a friend’s house, where he injected methamphetamine and smoked a small amount of marijuana. Edwards denied that she was involved in looking for drugs and denied that they stopped en route. Edwards then retrieved her car from Creswell and asked defendant to follow *122 her home in case she had car trouble. The eight-year-old and the five-year-old asked to ride with defendant, whom they knew, and the four-year-old joined her sisters. The youngest girl rode with her mother.

On the way home, Edwards stopped at a store for cigarettes. She testified that defendant, who was following her, appeared to stop or, at least, to slow down. When Edwards emerged from the store, however, defendant and the three girls were gone. She drove home and waited for defendant. When he did not arrive, she drove back along roads that she thought he might have taken, looking for his car. At 3 a.m., she called the police.

Lane County Deputy Sheriff House met Edwards at about 3:30 a.m. on February 27 at a gas station in Creswell. According to House, Edwards was extremely upset. Edwards said that she had not given defendant permission to take the girls and did not know where defendant lived.

A search for the missing girls followed. The eight-year-old and the four-year-old were found in defendant’s house, at a dairy farm, shortly after 7 a.m. They reported physical and sexual abuse, which their condition confirmed; both girls were naked, and the younger of the two had bruises around her eyes. The older girl told the police that defendant had taken their clothes away.

The police located defendant elsewhere on the farm at 8:18 a.m. and, after they convinced him to drop a knife that he was holding, arrested him at 8:25 a.m. An officer advised defendant of his Miranda rights; he said that he understood them. When questioned about the missing five-year-old, defendant told inconsistent stories.

The search for the five-year-old resumed, throughout the farm. At 9:26 a.m., two officers went back into defendant’s house. They found the girl’s body in the attic at 9:30 a.m. After verifying that the girl was dead, the officers left the house. No one entered it again until after defendant gave his consent to a search, shortly after noon.

Defendant at first denied that he had done anything to the girls. After being confronted with the surviving girls’ accusations and the discovery of the five-year-old’s body, he admitted that he had killed the five-year-old by strangling her *123 with a sock and stabbing her twice. He also said that he had used methamphetamine the night before and that he “was fuzzed up like crazy.”

At trial, Dr. Buchanan, the doctor who treated the eight-year-old and the four-year-old at the hospital emergency room on the morning of February 27,1988, was called as a witness. She testified that her examination revealed evidence of assault and sexual abuse that matched the older child’s descriptions. She also found physical evidence that supported what the younger child said about abuse by defendant.

At the conclusion of the guilt phase of defendant’s trial, he was convicted of all the crimes charged in the indictment: three counts of aggravated murder; four counts of first-degree kidnapping; two counts of first-degree sexual abuse; one count of first-degree rape; and two counts of second-degree assault. With respect to the aggravated murder convictions, the jury answered “yes” to the three statutory questions, ORS 163.150(l)(b) (1987), and defendant received a sentence of death. He also was sentenced to three 30-year prison terms, two 10-year terms, and one 5-year term on the noncapital felonies.

ASSIGNMENT OF ERROR NO. 1

In his first assignment of error, defendant argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion to allow him to ask questions of prospective jurors. Before voir dire, defense counsel filed a motion to permit defendant personally “to participate to a limited degree in the voir dire examination [by] ask[ing] a limited number of questions of each juror.” Counsel asserted in argument that defendant wanted the opportunity to ask prospective jurors questions in order to “evaluate their responses” to him, such as willingness to have eye contact. Defense counsel also stated that “the jurors ought to have an opportunity to at least have some words with the man whose fate and possible life or death that they are going to be determining.” The court denied the motion, concluding that defendant did not have a concurrent right, along with his counsel, to question jurors, and that it had discretion to allow or deny the motion.

Defendant first contends that Article I, section 11, of the Oregon Constitution guarantees him the right to perform *124 the same functions as counsel. The key portion of that provision declares that, “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall have the right * * * to be heard by himself and counsel. ” Defendant argues that the use of the conjunctive “and” means that he, as well as his counsel, has the right to question prospective jurors.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
806 P.2d 92, 311 Or. 119, 1991 Ore. LEXIS 16, 1991 WL 13597, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-stevens-or-1991.