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Thread: Gregory Allen Bowen - Oregon

  1. #1
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    Gregory Allen Bowen - Oregon




    Facts of the Crime:

    On December 29, 2001, defendant and Colby traveled to Gold Beach, where they began experiencing problems with their vehicle. While in Gold Beach, defendant decided to visit his ex-girlfriend, Bridget Dalton. Upon arriving at Dalton's house, defendant told her that he wanted to pick up some extra clothes and give her money that he owed her. After entering the house, however, defendant and Dalton began to argue. During that argument, defendant struck Dalton in the face with his fist, knocking her to the floor. He then grabbed Dalton by her hair, pulling her up from the floor, and proceeded to hold a knife to her throat. Defendant then took Dalton into the bedroom and exchanged his knife for a black-powder pistol, which he used to repeatedly to beat Dalton. During that altercation, Dalton grabbed the barrel of the pistol and cut her hand on the gunsights. Shortly thereafter, someone knocked on Dalton's front door. Defendant told Dalton that, if she made a sound, he would shoot the person at the front door. After defendant left the bedroom to check the front door, Dalton escaped the house by jumping through a bedroom window. As Dalton ran to her neighbor's house, she yelled for someone to call the police. In response, defendant and Colby fled to a friend's house to listen to a police scanner.

    Bowen was re-sentenced to death on March 31, 2010.

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    March 31, 2010

    Inmate on death row sentenced a second time

    GOLD BEACH – Gregory Allen Bowen, who has been on death row seven years for the 2001 murder of 76-year-old Don Palmer Christiansen, was again sentenced to death for that murder on Monday.

    Bowen, now 56, was convicted on April 2, 2003, by a Curry County Circuit Court jury of two counts of aggravated murder and one of intentional murder. The jury then on April 17, 2003, deliberated more than five hours before retuning an unanimous decision to invoke the death penalty.

    Bowen was convicted of the shooting death of Christiansen in his Gardner Ridge home Dec. 29, 2001, leaving him on the floor in a pool of blood and stealing three guns and a telephone. He was also convicted of 16 additional felonies during that crime spree.

    The conviction was appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court, which in 2006 upheld the death sentence but sent the case back to Curry County saying that the two convictions of aggravated murder with sentences of death and his conviction for intentional murder should be merged into one conviction.

    “We affirm defendant’s convictions and sentences of death and remand for entry of a corrected judgment of conviction consistent with this opinion,” the high court said.
    Bowen had been scheduled to return to Curry County for Monday’s sentencing but later decided to appear in court by television from the state prison. When time came for the sentencing, he again changed his mind and refused to appear.

    His court-appointed attorney, Steven Gorham of Salem, a defense attorney on a list of lawyers qualified to handle capital murder cases, then telephoned the prison and Bowen agreed to appear at the hearing by conference call.

    “You understand the court has the ability to cause you to be transported for personal appearance,” Judge Jesse Margolis told Bowen.

    Gorham made several motions for Bowen, including a motion for a new trial and a motion for Margolis to sentence Bowen to life with the possibility of parole. Margolis denied all the motions.

    “You are allowed to address the court if you wish. It isn’t a time you can argue you innocence,” Margolis told Bowen.

    “I’m not guilty of aggravated murder,” Bowen said. “I’m not guilty of murder at all.”

    At the original trial, Bowen had contended the shooting was an accident. He said Christiansen had grabbed the gun he was going to commit suicide with.

    The state claimed that Bowen and Christiansen were at least five feet from each other.

    Christiansen’s son, Donald, spoke to the court, also by telephone.

    “I feel no forgiveness for my father’s murder,” the son said.

    Christiansen said that the murder “gave him bragging rights of what a cold-blooded murderer he is.

    “I was at his appeal in Eugene. I was at his trial. And I’ll be at his appeal in 2011 in Eugene,” Christiansen said.

    He said that before Bowen had been placed on death row, “he had plotted to break out and was threatening the death of (Detective) Dave Gardiner. Gregory Bowen is a natural born predator.”

    “This court shall follow the instructions of the Supreme Court, which includes the sentence of death,” Margolis said. “These three counts will merge into one count. There was a penalty phase in which the jury unanimously agreed. Gregory Allen Bowen is hereby sentenced to death.”

    In the original trial, the jury deliberated for three hours before finding Bowen guilty of all charges, including two counts of aggravated murder, three counts of first-degree theft and one count of theft in the second degree.

    Bowen was arrested Jan. 3, 2002, in Cave Junction and brought back to Curry County.

    During the nine-day trial, defense attorneys Robert Able and Corrine Lai worked hard to convince the jury to find their client guilty of one of two other possible lesser crimes, intentional murder or first-degree manslaughter, neither of which would carry the threat of a death penalty.

    In the penalty phase of the trial, jury members deliberated more than five hours before returning an unanimous decision to invoke the death penalty.

    An important witness in the trial was Bridget Dalton of Harbor. Bowen pleaded guilty in a separate hearing to attempted murder and assault against Dalton, committed before going to Christiansen’s home.

    Testimony during the trial recounted days, before and after the murder, when Bowen and his associate, Mike Colby, drove from Crescent City, Calif., to Portland and back, stopping along the way at towns along the coast to look for drugs and work, and finally ending up in Cave Junction where the arrest took place.

    http://www.currypilot.com/index.php?...048&Itemid=199

  3. #3
    Senior Member CnCP Legend JLR's Avatar
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    Oral arguments are scheduled for the 9th of March 2012.

    http://www.ojd.state.or.us/scdocket

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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Oregon v. Bowen

    Opinion Date: June 28, 2012

    Court: Oregon Supreme Court

    In 2006, the Supreme Court affirmed Defendant Gregory Bowen's convictions for aggravated murder and the imposition of the death penalty. However, the Court concluded that the trial court erred in failing to merge two aggravated murder verdicts and one intentional murder verdict against Defendant into a single conviction set out in a single judgment that imposed one death sentence. On remand, the trial court denied several defense motions which were at the center of this case before the Supreme Court. Upon review of the trial court's corrected sentence, the Supreme Court affirmed the denial of Defendant's motions and also affirmed Defendant's merged conviction and death sentence. However, the Court reversed the corrected judgment and remanded the case for entry of a new corrected judgment.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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    Moderator MRBAM's Avatar
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    I've lost my secret decoder ring........what does that mean? Is that good for him or good for justice?

  6. #6
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    Bambam, as you know I am not a lawyer, hell, I did not even stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night......but I think that this means that Bowen has to be formally re-sentenced to death.

  7. #7
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    The ruling doesn't affect Bowen's conviction or death sentence. The Oregon Supreme Court remanded the case to the trial court because the trial court erred in failing to merge two aggravated murder verdicts and one intentional murder verdict against Bowen into a single conviction set out in a single judgment that imposed one sentence of death.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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    Oregon Court Keeps Gregory Bowen On Death Row

    The Oregon Supreme Court has affirmed the sentence of an inmate on death row for more than a decade.

    Gregory Allen Bowen fatally shot 76-year-old Don Christiansen in December 2001 and then stole guns from the man’s home.

    A Curry County jury decided in 2003 that Bowen should be executed. After a series of challenges and after once sending the sentence back to the trial court, the Supreme Court ruled Friday that the trial judge had gotten the sentencing handled correctly.

    Only two inmates have been executed since Oregon voters reinstated capital punishment in 1984. A majority of death row inmates have been there more than a decade.

    http://www.opb.org/news/article/oreg...-on-death-row/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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  9. #9
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Inmate moved off death row off after appeal

    An inmate sentenced to death in 2003 for a Curry County murder was moved off Oregon's death row this week after reaching a settlement with the state that makes him eligible for parole in 12 1/2 years.

    Gregory Allen Bowen, 64, was convicted of aggravated murder in the death of his friend, Donald Christiansen, 76, of Brookings. Bowen, a violent ex-con with earlier convictions for manslaughter and accessory to murder after the fact, was sentenced to death, a punishment later upheld by the Oregon Supreme Court

    During a second round of appeals, Bowen's lawyers raised questions about the circumstances of the shooting.

    The state, during Bowen's trial, argued that the victim had been shot from a distance of five feet or more, suggesting an execution, said Steven Gorham, one of the lawyers handling Bowen's appeal.

    Gorham said the original defense team didn't do enough to challenge that conclusion.

    By the time negotiations wrapped up, Bowen had been on death row for 15 years. Under the rules in place at the time he was originally convicted, he would have been sentenced to life with a minimum of 25 years for felony murder.

    Bowen must also serve another 2 1/2 years for convictions stemming from an assault on a woman before Christiansen's killing. He will be eligible for parole after that.

    http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-no...h_row_off.html
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

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