Guzek Wins Bid To Drop ‘Life Without Parole’ Option

As individual jury selection got under way Monday, there was another big development in the case of convicted double-murderer Randy Lee Guzek: Life without parole will no longer be an option for jurors in his fourth death penalty trial.

Guzek has been sentenced to die three times for brutally slaying Rod and Lois Houser of Terrebonne in 1987. But each time, it’s been overturned on technicalities.

Cameras have not been allowed inside the courtroom for Guzek’s case since 1997, when his third death penalty trial took place.

Now, 13 years later, jurors would have had three options: another death sentence, life with the possibility of parole after 30 years, or “true life,” meaning life without the possibility of parole. Now, that last option is gone.

That’s because ofa six-page letter, obtained byNewsChannel 21 and neatly handwritten by Randy Guzek. Dated April 4, it’s addressed directly to Judge Jack Billings, and in it, Guzek writes he’s “vehemently opposed to the life without parole sentencing option being applied to my case.”

He writes that such an option is against the Oregon and U.S. Constitutions, because life without parole, or “LWOP,” wasn’t a sentencingoption in aggravated murder cases at the time of the Housers’ murder in 1987.It didn’t become an amendment until 1989.

In response, special prosecutor and Clatsop County District AttorneyJosh Marquis wrote a letter to the court, saying, “the Defendant is well aware that if he is sentenced by the jury to LWOP over his objection, it is a virtual certainty that not only would his sentence for LWOP be vacated but since the jury has found a sentence less than Death any subsequent penalty phase would have a maximum sentence of Life with the possibility of Parole.”

Marquis continued, “It is clear the Defendant, with or without the assistance of counsel, is attempting to create a Catch 22 where no matter what the jury decides, he will avoid any but the least severe punishment possible under the law in existence in 1987.”

Despite Guzek’s lawyers’ own objections, they weren’t ready to say Guzek retracted that letter, soBillings decided it would stand as Guzek’s position, and removed life without parole from the table.

AfterBillings’ decision, Guzek’s lawyers asked for a mistrial, but that motion was denied.

Allfive lawyers in the case (three defense and two prosecutors)are under “gag orders” not to speak to the media.

Guzek’s fourth death penalty trial could begin as early as next Tuesday.