Gary Haugen

The Murderer and the Governor

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

When a politician announces that he is taking a "moral stand," watch out.

Guess who has more integrity: Gary Haugen, the convicted double murderer whose scheduled execution in Oregon had been scheduled for next week, or Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber, who blocked his execution?

It’s Haugen. The resident of Oregon’s death row had waived his appeals and was voluntarily submitting to his court-decreed fate when Kitzhaber stepped in, declaring his moral objections to capital punishment. But like many politicians’ objections to that other divisive social policy issue, abortion, Kitzhaber’s supposedly moral stand has more fine print than a gym membership. He didn’t commute Haugen’s sentence, or end the death sentences of the other men who have been condemned. The Governor went half way, essentially staying the executions for the term of his governorship, and pledging to seek reforms of what he called a “broken system” in 2013. Why 2013? It’s after the election, of course. Continue reading →

The Ethics of Stopping the Condemned From Accepting Death

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

In Oregon, a judge has granted death row inmate Gary Haugen’s motion to dismiss his lawyers after they persisted in taking measures to block his execution. They had declared he was not mentally competent to waive his appeals and allow his own state-decreed death to proceed.

Leave it to lawyers to be convinced that they know what’s best, even when it involves someone else’s wishes about his own life and death.

Is the condemend prisoner who approves of his own excecution insane, or courageous?

In an attorney-client relationship, the lawyer is ethically bound to do what the client wants as long as it is legal and within the bounds of the ethical constraints on the lawyer. A lawyer can render advice and should; a lawyer can explain the legal consequences of a course of action. But substituting the attorney’s judgment for that of the client is taboo…except, all too often, in cases like this one, in which a death row inmate decides that letting justice take its course and accepting the state’s death decree is preferable to rotting in prison.  Continue reading →