## Facts

- Michael Martin McDonnell was charged in Douglas County, Oregon, with aggravated murder arising from the stabbing death of Joey Deah Bouwsema Keever.
- Before trial, the district attorney stated he would accept a plea in which McDonnell pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and the state would present no penalty-phase evidence supporting death, resulting in a life sentence, but only if the victim’s parents agreed.
- The victim’s parents did not agree, and the district attorney proceeded to trial seeking the death penalty.
- McDonnell moved to compel the district attorney to accept the proposed plea agreement; the parties stipulated to the prosecutor’s conditional offer and to McDonnell’s willingness to plead.
- No evidence beyond the stipulation was presented concerning any other factors the prosecutor considered in deciding to seek death.
- The trial court denied the motion; McDonnell was convicted of aggravated murder and sentenced to death.
- The case proceeded on automatic direct review in the Oregon Supreme Court due to the death sentence.

## Issues

1. Whether a prosecutor may condition a capital plea disposition on the victim’s parents’ consent, consistent with limits on prosecutorial discretion.
2. Whether the record adequately demonstrated that the prosecutor’s decision to seek the death penalty rested on permissible, independently prosecutorial criteria rather than a private party’s effective veto.
3. Whether the trial court erred in refusing to compel the prosecutor to accept the proposed plea agreement.

## Decision

- The Oregon Supreme Court vacated the judgment of conviction and sentence of death and remanded to the trial court with instructions.
- The court held that victim-family wishes may be considered, but prosecutorial judgment in a capital case cannot be surrendered so that those wishes become the controlling basis for seeking death.
- On the record presented, the state failed to establish that the decision to proceed to a death-penalty trial was based on independent prosecutorial criteria, because the only documented factor was the parents’ lack of agreement.
- The court did not recognize a general power of the trial court to force the state to enter a plea agreement, but concluded that the inadequate record concerning the exercise of capital discretion required vacatur and remand.

## Legal Principles

- Charging, death-penalty, and plea-bargaining decisions are prosecutorial functions that must be exercised using constitutionally and statutorily permissible criteria.
- A prosecutor may consider a victim’s or victim-family’s views, but may not delegate the decision to seek death or make those views the sole or deciding criterion.
- A trial court generally cannot compel the prosecution to accept a plea offer; however, a death judgment is subject to vacatur and remand when the record does not permit meaningful review of whether the death-seeking decision was made through permissible and independent prosecutorial judgment.

## Conclusion

The court set aside the conviction judgment and death sentence because the record showed only that the prosecutor’s willingness to accept a life-disposition plea depended on the victim’s parents’ consent and did not show any independent prosecutorial basis for seeking death; the case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with the requirement that capital discretion remain the prosecutor’s own.


State v. McDonnell, 794 P.2d 780 (Or. 1990)