Capital punishment

Serial killer Sowell’s execution date delayed

april 2 source : http://www.wtam.com

(Cleveland) — Convicted serial killer Anthony Sowell’s execution, originally set for October 29 of this year, has been pushed back. The Ohio Supreme Court ruled Monday on a request by Sowell’s new defense team to delay the execution.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason tells WTAM that the delay is unexpected, given that there will be appeals in the case through the entire state appellate court system and also through the federal court system. Mason says the entire process in a death penalty case could take ten to 30 years.

The execution date of October 29 was set by Common Pleas Judge Dick Ambrose when Sowell was sentenced last year. It’s the third anniversary of the date that Cleveland Police went to Sowell’s house on Imperial Avenue and found the remains of the first of the 11 women he was convicted of killing.

Georgia – Daniel Greene – Execution – april 19 – STAYED 90 DAYS

april 4, 2012 source : http://www.correctionsone.com

TAYLOR COUNTY, Ga. — An April 19 execution date has been set for a former high school football star from Taylor County.

Daniel Greene was sentenced to death for the 1991 killing of 19-year-old Bernard Walker, who was trying to come to the aid of a Suwanee Thrifty store clerk in Taylor County.

Greene had forced the clerk to give him $142 from the cash register before he took her to a back room and stabbed her. She survived, but Walker, whom Greene stabbed in the heart, died in the parking lot.

Greene, a 6-foot-5, 350-pound former high school football standout, was tried in Clayton County in 1992 because of pretrial publicity.

After killing Walker, Greene drove to the home of a Macon County couple who had previously employed him as a farm laborer. Greene burst into their home, took their car keys and then stabbed Willie and Donice Montgomery multiple times. The couple survived.

Greene then drove to another convenience store in Warner Robins and pulled a knife on the store attendant, who gave Greene money from the cash register. Greene stabbed her in the back of the shoulder before fleeing. He was later arrested at a relative’s home and confessed to the crimes in a videotaped interview, saying he needed money for crack cocaine, according to court records.

Late last week, a judge signed an order scheduling Greene’s execution for a seven-day period beginning April 19. On Monday, Department of Corrections Commissioner Brian Owens set the execution for April 19 at 7 p.m.

The execution is to be carried out at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson. Greene would be the 30th state inmate put to death by lethal injection.

Related articles

Rob Will – Another Potentially Innocent Man On Death Row Faces Execution In Texas

april 2 2012  source : http://thinkprogress.org

Yet another death row inmate in Texas may in fact not be guilty of the crime that put him there. Robert Gene Will was convicted in the 2000 slaying of Deputy Sheriff Barrett Hill in Harris County, Texas. Will and another man, Michael Rosario, were caught trying to break into a car in December 2000. Both men fled, but Will says he was apprehended and placed in handcuffs by police. That’s when someone shot Deputy Sheriff Hill.

 

Will says that the shooter couldn’t have been him, on account of his hands literally being tied behind his back. And his lawyers argue that Rosario, the accomplice in the attempted car burglary, has admitted to at least five people that he was the one who pulled the trigger that morning. And now, Will’s case is attracting even more attention after a U.S District Judge voiced his own reservations about the initial conviction and the appeal that was conducted. TheHouston Chronicle reports:

“The questions raised during post-judgment factual development about Will’s actual innocence create disturbing uncertainties …,” [Judge Keith] Ellison wrote in a Jan. 17 memorandum. “On top of the considerable evidence supporting Will’s innocence and the important errors in the trial court, there must also be addressed the total absence of eyewitness testimony or strongly probative forensic evidence. With facts such as these, and only circumstantial evidence supporting Will’s conviction and death sentence, the court laments the strict limitations placed upon it.”

Judge Ellison was limited in his ability to hear new evidence before making a decision on whether to grant an appeal to Will, and despite his expressed dismay over the lower court’s verdict, was forced to deny the appeal on a technicality. But Will and his defense attorneys still have avenues open to them, including a recent Supreme Court ruling that allows for convicted criminals to, in some cases, challenge the competency of their state-assigned appeals lawyers. For Will, whose appointed attorney filed a legal brief that copied extensively from one he filed previously for a completely different case, the Supreme Court decision offers a ray of hope.

Texas has a well-earned reputation for unsympathetic governors who are undeterred at overseeing more executions than any other state in the country. Current Gov. Rick Perry presided over 235 executions during his time in office, by far the most of any governor in the modern era. This despite several questionable convictions that call into question the use of the death penalty at all.

 

my own opinion

Perry is more of a murderer than anyone who’s death warrant he has signed. Innocent isn’t  in Perry’s vocabulary, Perry loves the smell of burning flesh in the morning. What’s going wrong with him ? what’s going wrong with this state ? Maybe Perry may need psychotherapy, an event in his childhood of the trauma to become a man who happens to sleep at night knowing that he killed people and especially innocent people. I think sometimes the most dangerous people are not those caught, but those who elected to lead.

well we know  Texas-Bush-Perry .. murderers.. 

 

 

OREGON – Prosecutor agrees with OR death row inmate

april, 3 2012 source : http://www.dailytidings.com

PORTLAND, Ore. — As Oregon death row inmate Gary Haugen fights a reprieve, he has a supporter in Marion County District Attorney Walt Beglau whose office won the death penalty conviction.

Haugen wants to be executed and has asked a circuit court to rule that Gov. John Kitzhaber’s reprieve is legally ineffective because Haugen doesn’t accept it.

Beglau told The Oregonian that’s the central issue in the case. Beglau says he disagrees with Kitzhaber’s reprieve and won’t defend it. The Oregon Justice Department will.

Haugen was sentenced to die for killing another inmate in prison. The governor is opposed to capital punishment.

Ohio’s execution process, death row inmates face uncertain future

With Ohio’s execution process tied up in court, 153 inmates on death row face an uncertain future.
The 2011 Capital Crimes report, issued today by Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, summarizes the status of the death-penalty process, including the 12 inmates with scheduled execution dates and 46 inmates lethally injected since 1999. The report, required annually by state law, goes to the governor, state lawmakers and the courts.
What DeWine’s report does not say is when, or if, executions will resume. Reginald Brooks, a Cuyahoga County man who murdered his three sons in their beds, was the last person executed, on Nov. 15 last year.
Since then, the state has been tied up in federal court on a legal challenge to the lethal injection process. U.S. District Judge Gregory L. Frost has been highly critical of the state’s lethal-injection protocol and stopped an execution; Gov. John Kasich postponed others, anticipating federal court entanglements.
In general, the appeals process in capital punishment cases takes so long that 22 Death Row inmates died before their execution, DeWine said. That number increased by one this week with the death by natural causes of Billy Sowell, 75, of Hamilton County.
DeWine’s report covered the calendar year through Dec. 31, 2011.
DeWine reported there are 14 convicted killers with scheduled death dates, although the number is now 12 with two having been postponed. The death dates run through Jan. 16, 2014.
The 46 men who have been executed were responsible for killing 76 people, 17 of them children.
Source: Columbus Dispatch, March 31, 2012

FLORIDA – Carl Dausch – Judge sets date to decide on death sentence

march, 31 2012 source : http://www.dailycommercial.com

Dausch

A Sumter County judge has set a date to decide whether to approve the jury’s death recommendation given to a hitchhiker last year who stood trial on sexual battery and murder charges of a Lake Panasoffkee motorist.

Carl Dausch 53, of Indiana, will be sentenced April 26 at the Sumter County courthouse in the first-degree murder conviction in the 1987 death of Adrian Renard Mobley .

“I’m hoping everything will go as planned,” said prosecutor Pete Magrino, who started seeking the death penalty shortly after Dausch was brought back to Sumter County to face the charges.

A pre-sentencing hearing Tuesday included a letter submitted by Dausch’s daughter in support of her father’s character. Magrino said the court may give the letter some consideration but he doesn’t expect it to block the jury’s suggestion.

The hearing also comes after Judge William Hallman denied a list of motions by the defense in their arguments for a new trial.

The body of Mobley, 27, an electronics manager at the Walmart in Bushnell, was found stomped to death and hog-tied on July 15, 1987, off County Road 475 in Bushnell.

Mobley‘s legs were tied to his hands and arms behind him with a bed sheet. His jeans were partially pulled down.

And, Mobley‘s 1981 red Honda Accord and wallet were missing.

Sumter County Office sheriff’s detectives initially ran cold on the case. In 2004, a cigarette butt retrieved from the Honda was tested for DNA, which pointed to Dausch, an Indiana prison inmate at the time who was serving 60 years on an unrelated rape and battery convictions.

Magrino said DNA on anal swabs taken of the Mobley also linked Dausch to the crime.

The statue of limitations had run out for any robbery charges. But Dausch was indicted on murder and sexual battery charges. In December, a jury found Dausch guilty of murder, but downgraded the sexual battery charge to aggravated battery.

case  progress docket : read here 

CASE NUMBER FILE DATE CASE TYPE STATUS
602006CF000301XXAXFX
[06000301CFFA]		 05/10/2006 Circuit Felony CASE OPEN
CHARGE SEQ# STATUTE STATUTE TEXT DATE PHASE
1 782041a1 MURDER FIRST DEGREE 12/13/2011 Court: Adjudicated Guilty
2 7840451a1 AGGRAVATED BATTERY GREAT BODILY HARM 12/13/2011 Court: Adjudicated Guilty
[DEFENDANT=DAUSCH, CARL ]
[JUDGE=HALLMAN, WILLIAM H III]
LAST DOCKET DATE=03/28/2012
[Court Events | Finance Info | Docket Info]
CHARGE SEQ#: 1     Offense Date:
07/15/1987		 Trial Type:
Jury Trial
   INITIAL: Status Date:
08/18/2008		 Action:
Charged		 Statute / Text:
782041a1 / MURDER FIRST DEGREE
   PROSECUTOR: Decision Date:
05/10/2006		 Action:
Filed		 Statute / Text:
782041a1 / MURDER FIRST DEGREE
  COURT: Decision Date:
12/13/2011		 Action:
Adjudicated Guilty		 Statute / Text:
782041a1 / MURDER FIRST DEGREE
CHARGE SEQ#: 2     Offense Date:
07/15/1987		 Trial Type:
Jury Trial
   INITIAL: Status Date:
08/18/2008		 Action:
Charged		 Statute / Text:
7940113 / SEXUAL BATTERY WITH DEADLY WEAPON
   PROSECUTOR: Decision Date:
05/10/2006		 Action:
Filed		 Statute / Text:
7940113 / SEXUAL BATTERY WITH DEADLY WEAPON
  COURT: Decision Date:
12/13/2011		 Action:
Adjudicated Guilty		 Statute / Text:
7840451a1 / AGGRAVATED BATTERY GREAT BODILY HARM

Mental Illness and the Death Penalty

I choice to talk about mental illness and the death penalty,  because I think we do not talk enough of the people with mental illness who are executed,or in jail. Can a person with schizophrenia, she really belong in a jail, in the death row? that person would it not be better surrounded in a psychiatric hospital? I do not excuse the crimes they committed, but if these people had no psychological problems would they have committed these crimes? what percentage of those without mental illness have committed these same crimes ?
I read  different media, I have collected those who seemed the most interesting

Mental illness is defined as “Any of various conditions characterized by impairment of an individual’s normal cognitive, emotional, or behavioral functioning, and caused by social, psychological, biochemical, genetic, or other factors, such as infection or head trauma.”

  • Since 1983, over 60 people with mental illness or retardation have been executed in the United States.
  • It is conservatively estimated that 5-10% of death row inmates suffer from serious mental illness.
  • Research has shown that nearly all Death Row inmates suffer from brain damage due to illness or trauma, while a vast number have also experienced histories of severe physical and/or sexual abuse.
  • Mental illness is not only a problem on Death Row. In 1998, the Bureau of Justice Statistics estimated that 283,000 mentally ill individuals were incarcerated in U.S. jails and prisons.
  • Legislation has been passed barring the execution of juvenile or mentally retarded individuals. While it is unconstitutional to execute the insane, those suffering from other or lesser mental illnesses are insufficiently protected under the law.

Mental Illness and the Death Penalty
May 5, 2009  read the files

From Amnesty International

The execution of those with mental illness or “the insane” is clearly prohibited by international law. Virtually every country in the world prohibits the execution of people with mental illness.


Human Rights Watch. “Ill-Equipped: U.S. Prisons and Offenders with Mental Illness.” Sept. 2003.
Detailed report with unique sections dedicated to legal standards and policies, self-injurious behavior, inadequate mental health care in prisons, the effects of solitary segregation on mentally ill prisoners, mental illness in female prisoners, and coping difficulties of mentally ill inmates. Also includes case studies and recommendations to Congress, public officials, community leaders, prison staff, and the general public.

Other Articles

American Civil Liberties Union. “Mental Illness and the Death Penalty in the United States.” May 2009 Article explains shortcomings of current legislation, provides statistics, and includes numerous case summaries.
Amnesty International. “The Death Penalty Disregards Mental Illness.”Brief statement and fact sheet against executions of the mentally ill. Provides various excerpts of international resolutions, showing the United Nations’ increasingly grave and specific standpoint on the issue.
Amnesty International. “USA: New report on execution of mentally ill prisoners.” 31 Jan. 2006.An Amnesty U.K. article criticizing the United States’ exceptionally high rates of mentally ill executions and Death Row inmates as well as the inconsistency of new legislation banning executions of juveniles and the mentally retarded but not of the mentally ill. Includes a partial list of executed prisoners and descriptions of their particular conditions.
Drew, Kevin. “Executed mentally ill inmate heard voices until end.” CNN. 6 Jan. 2004.Article in response to the 2004 execution of paranoid schizophrenic Charles Singleton, whose competency was controversially restored by medication, thus rendering him eligible for execution.
Liptak, Adam. “State Can Make Inmate Sane Enough to Execute.” 11 Feb. 2003.Article discussing the federal appeals court ruling which allowed Arkansas to medicate Charles Singleton in order to make him eligible for execution. Questions the logic and ethics of whether the state can treat someone for the ultimate purpose of executing him.
Malone, Dan. “Cruel and Inhumane: Executing the Mentally Ill.” Amnesty Magazine. Fall 2005.Presents the argument that, in light of recent legislation barring executions of juvenile or mentally retarded inmates, similar policies must be applied to the mentally ill, at least in cases where the actions and thought-processes of a mentally ill defendant resemble those of a juvenile or one who is mentally retarded. Includes responses to arguments which claim that current laws are sufficient for protection of the mentally ill. Concludes that “A society that denies mental health care to those who need it the most and then subsequently executes them is cruel and inhumane at its very core.”
Mansnerus, Laura. “Damaged Brains and the Death Penalty.” New York Times. 21 July 2001.Notes an inverse relationship between the “grisliness” of a crime and the mental health of its perpetrator. Also cites research showing the frequency of head and brain trauma among Death Row inmates. Explains that many inmates minimize or deny their psychiatric conditions during trial, “figuring that it [is] better to be bad than crazy.”

Five Excellent Studies and Reports Regarding Mental Illness and the Death Penalty (2011)

1.  Double Tragedies: Victims Speak Out Against the Death Penalty For People with Severe Mental Illness (available for download; 37 pages) by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights;

2.  Position Statement of the Mental Health America;

3.  Mental Illness and the Death Penalty in North Carolina: a Diagnostic Approach (available for download; 78 pages) by the Charlotte Law School;

4. Mental Illness and the Death Penalty (available for download, 8 pages) by the American Civil Liberties Union; and

5. Task Force Report on Mental Disability and the Death Penalty (available for download, 13 pages), by multi-disciplined task force and published by the APA.

Case Summaries

Scott Panetti
Amnesty International. “‘Where is the compassion?’: The imminent execution of Scott Panetti, mentally ill offender.” 2004.
Larry Robison
Amnesty International. “Time for humanitarian intervention: The imminent execution of Larry Robison.” 1999.
Charles Singleton
Stone, Alan A., M.D. “Condemned Prisoner Treated and Executed.” Psychiatric Times. Mar. 2004.

Other Resources

Ford v. Wainwright, No. 477 U.S. 399 (1986)
Supreme Court case which banned executions of the insane. Though the legislation is progressive, it is criticized for being too superficial–for defining insanity too loosely, leaving determination up to each individual state, and in general being insufficiently applicable.
International Justice Project — Mental Illness
Page dedicated to the problem of mental illness on Death Row. Includes past and current case summaries as well as legislative briefs.
National Alliance on Mental Illness — By Illness
List of mental illnesses with links to further resources and information regarding each.


Florida – Craigslist killer sentenced to death

David Sparre sentenced

JACKSONVILLE, march 30, source :http://www.news4jax.com

A 20-year-old man convicted of first-degree murder in the stabbing death of a 21-year-old Navy wife he met on Craigslist is sentenced to Florida’s death row.

Judge Elizabeth Senterfitt formally sentenced David Sparre to death for killing Tiara Pool by stabbing her 89 times.

Before the jury unanimously recommend the death penalty last month, Sparre went against the advice of his attorneys and waived his right for witnesses to testify on his behalf during the sentencing.

Because of Sparre’s request, the only testimony in the penalty phase were prosecutors only brought up three of Pool’s relatives for victim impact statements.

The judge said that by the defense not being able to bring up witnesses, Sparre eliminated more than 25 mitigating factors in his defense, ranging from his family’s troubles, such as abuse, to medical factors, such as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and attention deficit disorder.

“What’s going through my mind is, a flower has been plucked from our garden. That flower will never be there anymore, but I thank God that justice has taken place,” Hattie Roche, Pool’s grandmother, said after the jury recommended the death penalty. “It aches because we don’t know why this happened. But the only thing we can do is rally around those two little boys and be all that we can be to them, and know that Tiara is looking down on us.”

During the trial, prosecutors described what they called the ruthless and violent killing of Pool, a mother of two sons, in her Hodges Boulevard apartment in July 2010.

“Eighty-nine. Over 89 stab wounds or cuts made by that man when he brutally killed the young lady,” prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda said. “What killed this innocent young lady was major stab wounds to her back. She was cut across her neck, she was stabbed across her back numerous times, and she was left on her bedroom floor naked, left to die.”

Prosecutors said Pool posted an ad on Craigslist seeking friendship. They said Pool’s husband was out at sea, and they were having problems in their marriage. Prosecutors said Pool’s sons were out of town with her in-laws when she was killed.

Attorneys said Sparre, who was living in Georgia, responded to the online ad, and he and Pool text messaged each other for about a week until they finally met in Jacksonville.

Sparre told Pool he was visiting his grandmother, who had to go to St. Vincent’s Medical Center, prosecutors said. Surveillance video shows him walking around the hospital.

Prosecutors said the two met at the hospital, but eventually went back to Pool’s apartment. That’s where attorneys disagree on what led to her killing.

“He realized what had happened, and it was too late,” defense attorney Michael Bateh said. “He saw the body of Tiara Pool laying there in her own blood.”

Defense attorneys said Sparre and Pool were intimate, and when Sparre found out she was married, he blacked out and then found her dead, not realizing what he did.

Prosecutors said Sparre never blacked out. He not only killed her with her own kitchen knife, but stole some of her things before leaving and heading back to the hospital, prosecutors said. They said he even sold her PlayStation to a pawn shop in Georgia.

Police said it was four days until a concerned friend went to check on Pool and found her dead in her bedroom.

Quick Clicks

NAACP President Visits Connecticut To Campaign Against Death Penalty

march, 29 2012  source : http://www.courant.com

video “news” : click here 

HARTFORD — The leader of the NAACP came to the state Capitol Thursday to press for repeal of Connecticut’s death penalty.

NAACP President Benjamin Jealous said Connecticut is a key state in the association’s strategy to eliminate capital punishment nationwide.

Sixteen states have repealed capital punishment, most recently New Jersey, New Mexico and Illinois.

“We have 10 more states before we can go to the Supreme Court,” Jealous told reporters at an afternoon press conference just outside Gov.Dannel P. Malloy’s office.

To end the practice, the court would have to determine that the death penalty is not just cruel but also unusual, Jealous said. And one measure of “unusual” is that the majority of states have outlawed it, he said.

Jealous acknowledged that the campaign to end capital punishment likely would not meet a great deal of success in the legislatures of Georgia, Texas and South Carolina. Instead, the group is focusing its efforts on states that it believes would be more amenable to scrapping the death penalty, such as Maryland, California and Connecticut, where lawmakers passed a repeal bill in 2009 only to have it vetoed by Gov.M. Jodi Rell.

On Thursday, Jealous stood alongside Rell’s replacement, Malloy, who has said he would sign a bill that replaces the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of release. Such a bill cleared the legislature’s judiciary committee earlier this month, but its fate remains uncertain because at least three key state senators have indicated they are conflicted about it.

If approved, the ban would apply to future cases; capital punishment would be preserved for the 11 men currently on death row in Connecticut. The state executed only one man in the past 50 years.

During his visit to Hartford, his fifth in recent years, Jealous met with Senate President Pro Tem Donald Williams, a supporter of the repeal bill.

“We are on a mission at the NAACP to finish the work of Thurgood Marshall and W.E.B. Du Bois,” Jealous said.

Malloy, a former prosecutor, said that he used to be somewhat ambivalent on the death penalty but that working in the criminal justice system convinced him that capital punishment is wrong.

“I think everybody in the state of Connecticut knows what my position is,” Malloy said. “Ben didn’t have to travel all this way to convince me … but I was certainly happy to have a discussion about this item.”

Malloy said he is available to talk to those legislators still struggling with the issue. But he also suggested that the death penalty is a matter of conscience, not public opinion polls, for individual lawmakers.

“If [we] had taken a poll on civil rights in the United States in 1962, we’d still have Jim Crowe laws,” Malloy said.

Sen. John Kissel, an Enfield Republican and one of the strongest defenders of preserving the state’s death penalty, said he, too, votes his conscience. But, he added, “I still believe it’s important [tool] in our criminal justice system.”

Oregon – High court again overturns death sentence – Robert Paul Langley Jr.

The Oregon Supreme Court, for the third time in two decades, has overturned a death sentence against Robert Paul Langley Jr. for a murder committed in 1987.

The decision announced Thursday sent the case back to Marion County Circuit Court for further proceedings. District Attorney Walt Beglau has not announced whether he will seek the death penalty for Langley.

Because four of the sitting justices have worked for the Oregon Department of Justice, which represents the state in death-penalty cases, they did not take part in Thursday’s decision. The three remaining justices were joined by a retired justice and a Court of Appeals judge to decide the case.

In essence, the justices decided that Langley was erroneously compelled to represent himself in court when he was sentenced to death again on Nov. 9, 2005.

Death sentences are automatically reviewed by the high court.

Langley, who now is 52, originally was tried in connection with two separate murders.

The body of Anne Gray, 39, was found buried in the backyard of Langley’s aunt in April 1988. Gray’s death dated back to Dec. 10, 1987.

On April 14, 1988, Larry Rockenbrant, 24, was killed and his body found buried in a cactus garden at Oregon State Hospital, where Langley lived while he took part in a program for mentally and emotionally disturbed prison inmates. Langley’s therapist consented to the cactus garden as a way to allow Langley to relax.

Langley was convicted of aggravated murder in separate trials in 1989 and sentenced to death.

The Supreme Court reversed the death sentences in 1992. It ruled that in Gray’s case, the jury was not allowed to hear mitigating evidence, and in Rockenbrant’s case, evidence from Gray’s murder was improperly admitted in the trial.

Langley was sentenced to death for a second time in a retrial for Gray’s murder. But in the Rockenbrant case, he was sentenced to life in prison with a 30-year minimum.

Upon appeal in 2000, the Supreme Court again reversed his death sentence, ruling that the jury failed to consider an option of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

After the case went through three circuit judges — Joseph Guimond, Terry Leggert and Joseph Ochoa, all now retired — Langley was sentenced to death for a third time in Marion County in 2005.

Langley had reshuffled his lawyers several times.

But the sentence came down only after Langley was required to represent himself in the proceeding without the court obtaining a valid waiver of his right to counsel. That self-representation occurred after Ochoa ruled that Langley’s other option was to accept representation by someone who Langley had complaints about — but Ochoa assumed those complaints were frivolous.

“That, too, was not a permissible choice,” said the court’s opinion, written by Justice Robert Durham.

“The record indicates that the court decided that defendant’s (Langley’s) refusal to make the offered choice entitled the court to make the choice itself in favor of compelled self-representation, rather than representation by counsel,” Durham wrote.

“That was (an) error. In our view, because submission of the choice to defendant was itself impermissible, defendant’s refusal to make the proposed choice was entirely proper. It follows that the trial court erred in requiring defendant to proceed to trial on the sentencing phase of a capital murder case without the assistance of legal counsel.”

Oregon Supreme Court   read the opinion ( media release) : click here