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| Gary Haugen in court |
A rare Oregon execution, tentatively set to occur on Dec. 6 at the state penitentiary in Salem, is reviving a long-dormant debate about the morality, popularity and costs of state-sanctioned killing here.
It also is focusing fresh attention on the condemned killers who occupy Oregon's death row.
Gary Haugen, 49, a twice-convicted murderer, will be put to death by lethal injection, delivered at 7 p.m., inside a seldom-used execution room at the penitentiary. Strapped down on a gurney, he will be killed by three drugs sent coursing through his veins.
It will be the 1st Oregon execution in 14 years.
The execution originally was scheduled for Aug. 16. However, it was canceled in June after the state Supreme Court found a Marion County judge did not do a sufficient job of evaluating Haugen's mental competency before authorizing the execution.
On Friday, the same judge again deemed Haugen mentally fit to drop his appeals, putting the execution back on track.
Haugen has repeatedly asked to be killed, saying that he is fed up with the justice system and life on death row. He reiterated his desire to die on Friday when Circuit Judge Joseph Guimond asked him to explain why he was waiving his legal appeals.
"I can't go on," he said. "Because I'm ready, your honor, because I'm ready."
Anti-death penalty activists still hope to persuade Gov. John Kitzhaber to stop the execution by commuting Haugen's death sentence to life in prison without parole.
Kitzhaber has been monitoring the case and will make his position known soon, said Tim Raphael, a spokesman for the governor.
For months, death penalty opponents have sent e-mails and letters to the governor, imploring him to commute Haugen's sentence to life in prison without parole.
Members of Oregonians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, an advocacy group leading the anti-execution campaign, say that state-sanctioned killing is immoral, arbitrary, unfair and too costly.
"The system is not fair, and I think that's un-American," said Ron Steiner of Salem, board chairman of the group. "My personal motivation is consistent with what we believe as abolitionists, that we don't want any state-sanctioned killing. If we can stop an execution from happening, that's a part of our agenda."
Steiner and other foes of capital punishment are mapping out long-term strategy for a planned ballot measure that will ask Oregonians to abolish the death penalty.
"Absolutely, that's our mission," Steiner said. "We have two ways to get on the ballot — initiative or (legislative) referral. We're looking at those options, and we would hope that in the next couple of years it will happen."
Oregon is 1 of 34 states with the death penalty.
Efforts aimed at persuading Oregonians to dump the death penalty are doomed to fail, according to proponents of capital punishment.
As they tell it, nothing has changed since 2002, when death penalty opponents shut down a proposed ballot measure to abolish capital punishment after polling showed it would not pass.
"Polls show that between 65 and 85 % of Oregonians support capital punishment," said Clatsop County District Attorney Josh Marquis, a death penalty proponent and author on the topic.
A quiet majority favoring the death penalty lacks the "fevered" intensity of those who want to abolish it, Marquis said.
"The zealousness on one side is not matched by the zealousness on the other," he said. "I know there are some crazy people that show up at the pen when there's an execution and wave signs saying 'roast in hell' and 'burn baby burn,' stuff like that. But most people who are pro death penalty are somewhat ambivalent about it because it's very serious business."
Volunteering to die
Amid dueling perspectives on the death penalty, Haugen's execution looms only because he waived his appeals.
In volunteering to die, Haugen stands alone among the 37 convicted killers who make up Oregon's death row roster.
Officials say the rest of the condemned have indicated they want to keep pursuing their appeals as they remain cooped up on death row.
In all, condemned inmates have 10 avenues of appeal, which can stave off execution indefinitely.
State officials say Haugen can stop the execution process at virtually any time if he changes his mind and decides to reactivate his appeals.
But Haugen has vowed to stay the course during interviews with the Statesman Journal.
Rather than languish on death row, he said he prefers to die with dignity, "sacrificing" himself to protest what he described as "the arbitrary and vindictive nature" of the death penalty.
"I've got 30 years in; I came to the penitentiary when I was 19," he said. "I'm sick and tired of the system. I've had enough. I just refuse to participate."
Haugen is following in the footsteps of the last 2 executed inmates — serial killer Douglas Wright in 1996 and Salem double killer Harry Moore in 1997. Both abandoned their appeals.
Wright's execution ended a 34-year gap between executions in this state.
Kitzhaber allowed the executions of Wright and Moore to occur in 1996 and 1997 during his previous administration.
Marquis thinks Kitzhaber should take the same non-intervention stance with Haugen.
"When Mr. Wright and Mr. Moore came up, his position was, 'Look, this is the law, and I'm not going to interfere in it, absent of a tremendous injustice'," he said. "Well, the only injustice that the opponents can point to (in Haugen's case) is, they don't like the death penalty."
Steiner remains hopeful that Kitzhaber will halt the execution.
"Sure, until the last day, we would always have hope," he said.
Steiner expressed mixed feelings about advocating for action that runs counter to Haugen's adamant desire to die.
"Does it bother me that I'm going against his wishes to die? In some sense," he said. "But overwhelmingly my sentiment is to stop the killing."
Clashing views on execution
Darrin Jones, a 42-year-old information technology worker, served on the Marion County jury that decided Haugen's fate.
As he sees it, halting the execution would undermine the legal process by "taking the power away from the jury that said the man should die for what he did."
In 2007, the jury sentenced Haugen and a co-defendant, Jason Brumwell, to die for the 2003 murder of David Polin, a fellow penitentiary inmate who suffered 84 stab wounds and a crushed skull.
Polin was killed because the two attackers mistakenly believed he snitched to corrections officers about their use of drugs, prosecutors argued.
At the time of the slaying, Haugen was in prison for the 1981 beating and bludgeoning death of Mary Archer, his former girlfriend's mother. Looking back to the 13-week trial of Haugen and Brumwell, Jones described it as a draining, pressure-packed ordeal.
"It was not a fun experience. There was a lot of gruesome evidence," he said. "It was very difficult for me. I almost had a nervous breakdown in the middle of the trial."
Jones said he found it "incredibly difficult" to vote for the death sentence, but he has no regrets about doing so. Nor does he have any doubts about Haugen's guilt.
"None whatsoever," he said.
Jones has closely followed Haugen's decision to drop his appeals and proceed with the execution. He has attended some of the hearings on the case in Marion County Circuit Court.
The former juror said he was put off by Haugen's courtroom demeanor and his outspoken criticism of the death penalty and the justice system.
"He was a very egotistical individual, very much a grandstander, so seeing him doing this to draw attention to himself did not surprise me," Jones said.
Whatever Haugen's motivations for volunteering to die, Jones believes execution is the fitting punishment for his crime.
"Certainly there are others that probably deserve to die ahead of him, but he has chosen to take himself to the front of the line," he said. "Let him go."
Polin's widow, Clarinda Polin Perez, shares that sentiment.
"More than anything, I want to have some sort of finality," she said.
For closure, Polin said she wants to witness Haugen's execution.
"He was there to see my husband's last breath, so I will be there to see his last breath," she said.
In contrast, Emily Plec, a professor of communications studies at Western Oregon University, has urged Kitzhaber to spare Haugen's life and order a moratorium on capital punishment in Oregon.
"I believe Gary is volunteering for execution because he cannot imagine spending the rest of his life, much less his impending 50th birthday, on death row," Plec wrote in a July letter to Kitzhaber.
Noting that she has visited Haugen several times, Plec added: "I have come to care about Gary a great deal. He is a damaged, complicated person who understands poetry, loves music, longs for loving and loyal relationships and has a desire to help others. I am committed to helping him find just and ethical ways to do this, if his life can be spared."
Plec closed her plea to the governor this way: "Finally, I love living in Oregon and being an Oregonian but I am ashamed to be a citizen of a state that murders convicts for political reasons. A moratorium is the only means that will enable groups such as OADP to assess the people's will before the execution of Gary Haugen. As a physician and our Governor, I hope you will take this opportunity to practice your professional faith and allow Oregonians to reconsider our values and priorities."
Death penalty divide
Oregon is 1 of 34 states that allows capital punishment.
Other states with the death penalty: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Deleware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming.
States without the death penalty: Alaska, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
Execution tally nationwide
Since Oregon voters reinstated the death penalty in 1984, 2 men have been executed.
In contrast to Oregon's record, Texas has executed 475 people since 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court declared capital punishment constitutional. Texas easily ranks No. 1 in the country for executions since the benchmark ruling, followed by Virginia, with 109; Oklahoma, 96; Florida, 69; Missouri, 68; and Alabama, 54.
Death Row
Death row demographics:
- Number of Oregon inmates sentenced to death: 37
- By gender: 36 men, 1 woman
- By race: 29 white, 4 black, 3 Hispanic, 1 Native American
- By county of conviction: Marion, 8; Lane, 6; Multnomah, 5; Douglas, 4; Washington, 4; Clackamas, 3; Coos, 2; Columbia, 1; Deschutes, 1; Lincoln, 1; Yamhill, 1.
- Average age: 46
- Oldest: Mark Pinnell, 63
- Youngest: Jesse Fanus, 32
Source: The Statesman, October 8, 2011
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