Oregon State Bar Bulletin — APRIL 2002
| First-Ever Book on the History of Oregon Death Penalty Published |
Oregonians have decided the issue of capital punishment
seven times - more than any other state in the nation. In his new
book, A Tortured History: The Story of Capital Punishment in
Oregon, author William Long documents Oregon's struggle to punish
the crime of murder from the days of the earliest territorial government
through each movement to restore or abolish the death penalty.
Long, a former pastor, Reed College professor, Oregonian
editorial writer and now an attorney with Stoel Rives in Portland,
has amassed a vast amount of material from disparate sources. The
first chapter ('Oregon's Death Penalty Today') reviews
the way the death penalty has been implemented in Oregon since it
was restored by a vote of the people in 1984. Long then turns to
an historical sketch of the death penalty in Oregon from earliest
days. Other sections look at the appeals process, procedural complexities,
mitigating circumstances and a critique of Oregon Supreme Court
decisions on the death penalty since 1984. He also discusses how
Oregon became the only other state in the country to adopt as a
model the death penalty statute of Texas.
The author expects the reader to come to his or her own conclusions
regarding the death penalty. But he does promote the thesis that
since its reinstatement in 1984, the death penalty's toll has exceeded
its benefit. He argues that the burden of proof is now on supporters
to articulate why maintaining the death penalty is good public policy.
[A Tortured History: The Story of Capital Punishment
in Oregon, by William R. Long, published by the Oregon Criminal
Defense Lawyers Association, ISBN:
0-9714035-0-3; 242 pp., $19.95, paper. Available in bookstores or
www.ocdla.org.]
© 2002 William R. Long