The habeas corpus petition of Clinton Wendell Cunningham was filed in Portland at the US District Courthouse in October. This will be the first time the federal court will fully review Oregon’s death penalty law.

Cunningham is on Oregon’s death row for the murder of Shannon Faith in 1991. His petition relates to specific parts of his trial but also questions more broadly Oregon’s death penalty law as passed by voters in 1984. The law includes a sentencing procedure in which a jury must unanimously agree on four questions in order to impose a sentence of death. The second question asks jurors whether or not a person will be a continuing threat to society. Cunningham’s lead attorney, assistant federal public defender C. Renee Manes, stated that psychological and psychiatric groups have rejected the idea that anyone can be accurately diagnosed as a future danger.

If the federal courts determine that all or part of Oregon’s death penalty laws are flawed, the 29 people on Oregon’s death row may be retried. If the case is appealed, it will go to the 9th US Court of Appeals and perhaps to the US Supreme Court.

Source: Information for this news brief may be found in The Oregonian:
http://www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/front_page/
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