SALEM — When Oregon Gov. Kate Brown commuted the sentences for 17 death row inmates on Dec. 13, the list included at least two convicted killers whose attorneys say they were no longer facing capital punishment.

Legal experts say this raises questions about the relevance and motivation of a move that advocates for criminal justice reform have deemed historic.

One of the two inmates on the list is Central Oregon murderer Randy Lee Guzek, who was convicted of aggravated murder and sentenced to die for the 1987 shooting and killing of Rod and Lois Houser in Terrebonne. Appeals led to three retrials of the penalty phase and his death sentence was upheld four times.

But attorneys and state court records suggest that, due to a recent Supreme Court ruling, Guzek and other death row inmates would likely never have faced the death penalty.

“Most of these people were not going to be eligible anyway,” said Bend defense attorney Thad Betz.

Eight days before Brown’s decision, Marion County Judge Daniel Murphy ordered that Guzek’s death sentence should be vacated, according to court records and lawyers who reviewed the records. Murphy’s Dec. 5 ruling came after attorneys for Guzek and the Oregon Attorney General’s Office agreed that his sentence should be vacated due to a 2021 Oregon Supreme Court ruling, Oregon v. Bartol.

That ruling made Senate Bill 1013, which passed in 2019, retroactive, meaning it would apply to cases that came before the law was passed. The bill restricted the types of crimes eligible for the death penalty, including aggravated murder, which was Guzek’s most serious charge.

Brown commuted the state’s death penalty cases to life in prison without parole on Dec. 13.

But in May, state court documents show that the state conceded that life without parole was also not an option for Guzek’s case.

In a statement responding to questions from The Bulletin, Liz Merah, a spokeswoman for Brown, said: “Death sentence cases in Oregon have been in litigation for years, but this universal commutation applied to every individual in Oregon (prison) custody who, as of December 13, still had a death sentence, regardless of where an individual case was in litigation.”

When asked how Guzek could still have a death sentence even after the judge’s order earlier this month, Merah referred further questions to the Oregon Department of Justice, which handles the Guzek case. Justice department officials said Thursday that the judgment vacating the sentence was not final when Brown announced her clemencies. At this point, however, there is no death sentence to vacate because of the governor’s decision, said Michael Kron, a spokesperson for the attorney general.

Guzek’s case is not the only one.

Brown also announced she’d commute the death penalty sentence of a father and son responsible for the deadly 2008 Woodburn bank bombing, which resulted in the deaths of two police officers.

Woodburn Mayor Frank Lonergan described Brown’s move in a statement as “an injustice to those who were affected by the bombing and a repudiation of Oregon voters who established the death penalty for those convicted of murdering innocent victims and police officers.”

However, in a Sept. 9 filing with the post conviction court, the Oregon Department of Justice conceded that the father and son were ineligible for the death penalty because of the Bartol ruling.

Brown’s move garnered praise from criminal justice advocates who described the death penalty as immoral and was derided by critics who said she was disregarding victims and their families. Advocates of the governor’s move say that it also saves taxpayer money because of how lengthy and expensive death penalty cases can be.

Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel acknowledged in an interview Wednesday that, regardless of Brown’s move, there was “a strong possibility” that other inmates on death row would not have been eligible for the death penalty due to the Bartol case. His assumption was that Brown made the order because she might not have been sure where the cases would end up.

Joshua Marquis, a former Deschutes County prosecutor who tried Guzek three times in court and served as the Clatsop County District Attorney for more than two decades, said of the governor’s move: “I certainly think that it was political posturing.”

Marquis said that, in reviewing death penalty cases, he believed four or five were already eligible to have the death sentence vacated. As for what Brown’s commutation could accomplish if the sentences were being vacated, Marquis put it simply: “Nothing.”

He added: “It makes no sense whatsoever.”