Joshua K. Marquis (born 1952) is an attorney and politician from Astoria,

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

in the United States. He served as

District Attorney In the United States, a district attorney (DA), county attorney, state's attorney, prosecuting attorney, commonwealth's attorney, or state attorney is the chief prosecutor and/or chief law enforcement officer representing a U.S. state in a l ...

for

Clatsop County Clatsop County is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 census, the population was 41,072. The county seat is Astoria. The county is named for the Clatsop tribe of Native Americans, who lived along the coast of ...

from March 1994 until December 31, 2018. He frequently writes and speaks about

capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

, and is a national advocate for the death penalty.

Early career

Marquis earned a

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

degree from the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...

. He later served as Deputy District Attorney for Lincoln and Lane counties, and then as Chief Deputy District Attorney for Deschutes and Lincoln counties.

Clatsop County District Attorney

Marquis was appointed District Attorney in Clatsop County by then-Governor Barbara Roberts after his predecessor was convicted and

disbarred Disbarment, also known as striking off, is the removal of a lawyer from a bar association or the practice of law, thus revoking their law license or admission to practice law. Disbarment is usually a punishment for unethical or criminal conduct ...

for gross prosecutorial misconduct. Marquis was elected in 1994 and reelected in 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, and 2014 On January 3, 2018 Marquis announced he would not seek a full 7th terms as DA (technically an 8th if one includes the approximately one year to which Marquis was appointed by then-Gov. Barbara Roberts in late February 1994 which ended in early January 199

Marquis served as a

superdelegate In American politics, a superdelegate is an unpledged delegate to the Democratic National Convention who is seated automatically and chooses for themselves for whom they vote. These Democratic Party superdelegates (who make up slightly under 15 ...

to the

1996 Democratic National Convention The 1996 Democratic National Convention was held at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, from August 26 to August 29, 1996. President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore were nominated for reelection. This was the first national convention ...

. In 2019 Marquis was appointed Director of Legal Affairs and Enforcement of Animal Wellness Action, a Washington, D.C.-based anti-cruelty organization headed by

Wayne Pacelle Wayne Pacelle (born August 4, 1965) is one of the leading contemporary animal advocates, having founded or led a set of major animal rights organizations, negotiated agreements on animal rights with major American companies, and helped conceive o ...

, former CEO of the Humane Society of the United States.

Death penalty advocacy

Marquis coauthored ''Debating the Death Penalty'', and numerous other articles that were cited by U.S. Supreme Court Justice

Antonin Scalia Antonin Gregory Scalia (; March 11, 1936 – February 13, 2016) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2016. He was described as the intellectu ...

in his concurrence in the Supreme Court's decision in

Kansas v. Marsh ''Kansas v. Marsh'', 548 U.S. 163 (2006), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a Kansas death penalty statute was consistent with the United States Constitution. The statute in question provided for a death sentence ...

. Marquis worked as a reporter for the ''Los Angeles Daily Journal'' in the early 1980s and the speechwriter to California Attorney General John Van de Kamp in the mid-1980s. Marquis is often solicited to write articles on the death penalty, such as the lead article in a special section published by the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' prior to the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams. Marquis led the prosecution of double murderer Randy Lee Guzek,

Oregon v. Guzek ''Oregon v. Guzek'', 546 U.S. 517 (2006), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, which ruled that the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution does not grant criminal defendants facing the death penalty the right to ...

, who murdered Rod and Lois Houser in 1987 in their home north of Redmond, Oregon. Marquis was the sole or lead prosecutor in three separate re-sentencing trials held in Deschutes County, Oregon (Bend) in 1991, 1997 and 2010. Guzek's death sentence was affirmed by the Oregon Supreme Court in 2015 and the United States Supreme Court declined to grant cert in 201

While a criminal defense attorney in Eugene, Oregon in 1989-1990 Marquis was lead defense counsel in the cases of two men charged with capital murder - Javier Blanco and Allen Flower - neither man was sentenced to death. In October 2011 Marquis was one of four panelists invited to discuss capital punishment at the New Yorker Festival on a panel that also included

Innocence Project Innocence Project, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal organization that is committed to exonerating individuals who have been wrongly convicted, through the use of DNA testing and working to reform the criminal justice system to prevent futur ...

founder Barry Scheck, death penalty opponent Danalynn Recer, and crime victim's advocate

Marc Klaas Polly Hannah Klaas (January 3, 1981 – October 1, 1993) was an American murder victim whose case garnered national media attention. On October 1, 1993, at age twelve, she was kidnapped at knifepoint during a slumber party at her mother's home i ...

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

Jeffrey Toobin Jeffrey Ross Toobin (; born May 21, 1960) is an American lawyer, author, blogger, and longtime legal analyst for CNN. He left CNN on September 4, 2022. During the Iran–Contra affair, Toobin served as an associate counsel on this investigation ...

moderated the event at the Directors Guild Theater in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Other activities

Marquis also served on Oregon's Criminal Justice Commission from 2005 to 2009, served as vice chair of the Animal Legal Defense Fund. and was elected in August 2009 to the

American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of acad ...

's Criminal Justice Leadership Council for a three year ter

Marquis was a member of the Board of Directors of the National District Attorneys Association from 1997 until his appointment as a Circuit Judge Pro Tem in 2019. In 1995 Marquis received the Animal Legal Defense Fund's "Jolene Malone Aggressive Enforcement Award" in recognition of his work on a particularly difficult animal abuse case and in 2006 was the recipient of the Association of Government Attorneys in Capital Litigation's William J. Schaefer Award. In 2014 Marquis was named by the ALDF as one of the "Top Ten Animal Defenders". Marquis is an outspoken prosecutor who is frequently asked to "special prosecute" conflict of interest cases for other District Attorneys. He has successfully prosecuted a Benton County, Oregon, Benton County lawyer, a former courtroom rival, and the 1985 case in which Marquis defeated famed defense attorney

Gerry Spence Gerald Leonard Spence (born January 8, 1929) is a semi-retired American trial lawyer. He is a member of the Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame. Spence has never lost a criminal case before a jury either as a prosecutor or a defense attorney, and has not ...

when Michael Jones was convicted (later overturned), which became the subject of Spence's 2003 book, ''The Smoking Gun''.Dana K. Cole, ''Gerry Spence's The Smoking Gun As A Teaching Tool'' (2004)
/ref> On January 28, 1986, when Judge Haas took over the case of Sandra Jones (Michael Jones' mother) from several other judges, the entire Lincoln County D.A.'s Office - including Marquis - was disqualified by the judge, Harl H. Haas, Jr., with Marquis then filing a judicial fitness complaint.

References

;Notes

External links