First degree murder is the intentional killing of another person by someone who has acted willfully, deliberately, or with planning. Generally, there are two types of first-degree murder: premeditated intent to kill and felony murder. This definition will focus on first-degree murder involving premeditated intent to kill.
May a defendant, in the sentencing phase of a capital crime trial, present mitigating evidence regarding his culpability to the jury that is deciding whether to impose the death penalty, when that evidence also tends to cast doubt on the defendant’s guilt?
Randy Lee Guzek, along with his friends Mark Wilson and Ross Cathey, murdered an Oregon couple in the summer of 1987. After eighteen years of litigation, involving three different appeals, the Oregon Supreme Court held that the alibi testimony Guzek attempted to introduce during the sentencing phase of his trial—statements from his grandfather and his mother placing him at home during the time of the crime—could be introduced as “mitigating evidence” tending to show that Guzek should not receive the death penalty. The State of Oregon took issue with this ruling, and appealed to the Supreme Court. It argues that such evidence cannot be admitted because the so-called “residual doubt” evidence is no longer relevant at the sentencing phase of a defendant’s capital trial. Guzek, on the other hand, argues that the Constitution requires admittance of such evidence at his sentencing phase—he claims that the jury will not improperly use this evidence and that in order to meet the state’s case and refute the state’s evidence, he must be able to introduce the so-called “residual doubt” evidence. The Supreme Court will decide whether Guzek is correct, and whether the trial court is Constitutionally required to admit this “residual doubt” evidence, despite the fact that it might introduce doubt about Guzek’s previously determined and settled guilt.
Randy Lee Guzek has been before the Oregon Supreme Court on three occasions between 1990 and 2004, all regarding the sentencing phase of a capital trial in which he was convicted for the murders of Rod and Lois Houser. Because of the errors in the lower court and intervening new law instituted during the more than fifteen years of Guzek’s trial, the state’s highest court has repeatedly affirmed Guzek’s guilt in the murders, but vacated the jury’s sentence of death.
There are no degrees of murder at common law. It is a modern statutory rule which divides murder into degrees according to its mens rea, but the exact definition of second-degree murder varies by jurisdiction.
