Kitzhaber is asked to empty death row

Seven inmates sentenced in Lane County are now on death row. A Page One story incorrectly said the number was eight. Also, a series of photos on Page A6 Sunday incorrectly included Travis Lee Gibson’s photo among those identified as death row inmates with Lane County connections. A judge overturned Gibson’s death sentence after finding that Gibson’s original attorney failed to adequately defend him at trial, and Gibson is no longer on death row.

Various groups opposed to Oregon’s death penalty law are making a concerted effort to persuade outgoing Gov. John Kitzhaber to commute the death sentences of Oregon’s 36 death row inmates before he leaves office Wednesday.

Eight inmates sentenced in Lane County are on death row, and two others have local connections.

“He has been personally asked to clear the row, and additional efforts are being made to convince him to do so,” Portland defense attorney Jeff Ellis, a board member of Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, wrote in an email that went out Saturday to death penalty defense lawyers across the state.

“If you represent an individual on death row and are considering taking some action on behalf of your client, please contact me so we can discuss,” Ellis wrote in the email, a copy of which was obtained by The Register-Guard.

“Efforts are being made to contact incoming Governor Brown to discuss the state of the moratorium, in the event that Kitzhaber does not issue commutations,” Ellis wrote, referring to the moratorium Kitzhaber put on the state’s death penalty in 2011.

Ellis also referred to an online poll in The (Portland) Oregonian newspaper, asking if Kitzhaber should commute the sentences to life imprisonment. He said it was “running about 70 percent in favor of commutation.”

Kitzhaber, the only governor in state history to be elected four times, said Friday that he will resign in the face of an influence-peddling scandal involving his fiancee , Cylvia Hayes. Secretary of State Kate Brown will be sworn in Wednesday as Oregon’s 37th governor.

Ellis, described on the OADP website as “one of the top death penalty defense lawyers in the country,” on Saturday referred questions to others involved in the effort.

But none of them wanted to speak on the record, including Dave Fidanque, executive director of the Oregon chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union; OADP Chairman Ron Steiner; or S. Bobbin Singh, executive director of the Oregon Justice Resource Center, which promotes civil rights and aims to enhance the quality of legal representation for underserved communities.

But OADP board member Aba Gayle, of Silverton — also a board member of Murder Victim Families for Human Rights, an international death penalty abolition group — did talk about the effort when reached by phone.

“Every one of us is making phone calls, whatever we can do,” said Gayle, whose daughter was murdered in 1980 in Auburn, Calif. “It’s been done before. This is not something that would be unique.”

Gayle was referring to a couple of historic sentence commutations by ex-governors, one six weeks ago and one 12 years ago.

On Dec. 31, outgoing Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland commuted the death sentences of the last four inmates on that state’s death row, effectively ending capital punishment there.

In 2003, Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted the sentences of all 167 death row inmates there, two days before leaving office. Three years earlier, Ryan, as Kitzhaber has done in Oregon, placed a moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois.

In his resignation statement Friday, Kitzhaber said: “I am proud that Oregon has not invoked the death penalty during my last four years on the watch.”

Attempts Saturday to reach a spokesperson in Kitzhaber’s office were unsuccessful. The Oregonian reported on Friday that Kitzhaber’s moratorium expires 20 days after he leaves office.

As for whether Brown plans to continue the moratorium if Kitzhaber does not commute all 36 death sentences to life in prison, her spokesman said Saturday that she will have plenty of other things on her mind initially.

“Kate has not come out with a position on the governor’s moratorium,” said Tony Green, Brown’s spokesman. “There is certainly a lot to be done, not just between now and Wednesday, but beyond that.”

The state has executed just two inmates since Oregon voters reinstated capital punishment in 1984.

Douglas Wright was executed in 1996 and Harry Charles Moore in 1997. Both came during Kitzhaber’s first term as governor, and both because each inmate had foregone the appeal process and said he wanted to die.

It was the case of a current death row inmate — twice-convicted murdered Gary Haugen, who has fought for the right to be executed — that led to Kitzhaber’s moratorium. The stays were upheld by the Oregon Supreme Court in 2013.

“I am still convinced that we can find a better solution that holds offenders accountable and keeps society safe, supports the victims of crime and their families, and reflects Oregon values,” Kitzhaber said in a statement at the time.

Old wounds and heartache

When contacted Saturday, those who have strong feelings in Lane County about upholding the death penalty were not shy about voicing their views.

“There’s a world of difference between supporting a temporary moratorium on executions and erasing decades worth of capital punishment litigation in Oregon,” Lane County District Attorney Alex Gardner wrote in an email to The Register-Guard, “particularly since Oregonians have been unequivocal in their support for retaining death as one of the three sentence options a jury can consider in the most heinous murder cases that qualify as aggravated murder.

“The governor hasn’t said anything to me about this, and I don’t see any value in spreading rumors and unsubstantiated fears.”

One of Gardner’s deputies, Erik Hasselman, had no qualms about his giving his opinion on the death penalty.

“I certainly hope that’s not his parting desire,” said Hasselman, who in 2011 successfully prosecuted the case of the only woman, Angela McAnulty, on death row in Oregon.

“It would rip open old wounds,” Hasselman said. “It would cause a lot of heartache. It would effectively waste hundreds of hours of hard work.”

McAnulty, of Eugene, was convicted of causing the death of her 15-year-old daughter, Jeanette Maples, by neglect and maltreatment in a case that horrified the local community.

Those on Oregon’s death row are not just murderers, Hasselman said. “They are the worst of the worst. It’s just inconceivable to me that someone in the executive branch of government would just overrule that.”

Eugene’s Ted Larsen speaks from personal experience when it comes to losing a child to murder. His daughter, Susi Larsen, a 1980 South Eugene High School graduate, was 34 when she was raped and murdered by Billie Lee Oatney in 1996 in Tigard.

Oatney was sentenced to death in Washington County in 1998.

“It makes me furious to think he would do that,” Larsen, 79, said of Kitzhaber commuting death sentences.

“The guy thinks it’s alright to kill unborn babies,” Larsen said of the governor’s stance on abortion. “But you take a guy like this Oatney, who is just the scum of the earth, and then pardon someone like that?

“That’s disgusting to me. And it flies in the face of the people of Oregon, who have voted to maintain the death penalty.”

Gayle understands how Larsen feels. She said she felt the same way for years after her daughter, 19-year-old Catherine Blount, was stabbed to death by Douglas Mickey on a September night almost 35 years ago.

“The DA told me that’s how I was going to be healed,” Gayle said, of watching Mickey die one day. “That’s a big lie.”

In 1992, Gayle wrote to Mickey at San Quentin State Prison. He wrote back and invited her to come meet him; she did.

Gayle said she found him to be “intelligent and well-read. And he was so remorseful. He wept, openly.”

Since then, Gayle has stayed in touch with Mickey. She has toured the nation speaking out against the death penalty and met with other death row inmates.

“I am so opposed to the death penalty,” Gayle said. “It does nothing to honor my daughter.”

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