SALEM, Ore. -- For a third time, the Oregon Supreme Court will consider whether serial killer Dayton Leroy Rogers should be executed.
Rogers was convicted in 1989 of killing six women two years earlier. Since then, the court has twice struck down death sentences imposed on him.
Prosecutors said he tortured, stabbed and mutilated his victims, dumping them in a forest near Molalla in Clackamas County. Authorities believe he killed eight women in 1987.
The former lawn mower repairman from Canby is now 58. Gov. John Kitzhaber has said he won't oversee further executions in Oregon after granting a reprieve to a killer, Gary Haugen, who waived his appeals and tried to go through with his execution.
Asked for comment on the Rogers case, Kitzhaber's spokesman Tim Raphael reiterated the governor's statement that there would be no more executions while he's in office. Kitzhaber was elected to a third four-year term in 2010 and hasn't said whether he will run for re-election.
The state Supreme Court struck down Rogers' death sentences in 1992 and 2000, the second time because the jury considered only the options of death and life in prison with the possibility of parole.
The court upheld the murder convictions but ruled that the jury should have been allowed to consider a third option, life without the possibility of parole.
In 2006, with Rogers admitting to the killings at a hearing, a Clackamas County jury decided again on a death sentence.
Death sentences in Oregon get an automatic appeal to the Supreme Court, which will review the case on Jan. 12, the Salem Statesman Journal reported Monday.
It will be heard by three members of the current court, a recently retired justice and an appeals court judge, the paper said.
Four of the seven current members of the Supreme Court have worked for the state Justice Department and have stepped away from the case. Justices Jack Landau and Tom Balmer are both former No. 2 officials in the agency. Justices Rives Kistler and Virginia Linder have represented the state in civil and criminal appeals.
Two substitutes have been added to make a five-member panel: Rick Haselton, a judge on the Oregon Court of Appeals, and W. Michael Gillette, a Supreme Court justice from 1986 until he retired a year ago. The case will be heard by three members of the current court, a recently retired justice and an appeals court.
Four of the seven current members of the Court have worked for the state Justice Department, so they have stepped away from the case.
Rogers, pictured in 1993, once repaired lawn mowers in Canby. He is now 58.
