Joshua Marquis

Joshua Marquis is the District Attorney in Astoria, Oregon and an oft-quoted spokesperson on behalf of the National District Attorneys Association. He is considered an expert on capital punishment, having written extensively. He co-authored "Debating the Death Penalty," Oxford University Press, 2004, and numerous other articles that were cited by Justice Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court in his concurrence in the Supremne Court's decision in KANSAS vs. MARSH.

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-80s.

He was appointed District Attorney in Clatsop County by then-Governor Barbara Roberts after his predecessor was indicted, convicted, jailed, and disbarred for gross prosecutorial misconduct. Marquis was elected in 1994 and re-elected in 1998, 2002, and 2006.

He writes a blog - Coastda.com, which features a list of published articles and commentaries, including book reviews commissioned by the Wall Street Journal of Sebastian Junger's "A Death in Belmont" and John Grisham's "The Innocent Man."Marquis is often solicted to write articles on the death penalty such as the lead article in a special section published by the Los Angeles TIMES just prior to the execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams.

Marquis also serves on Oregon's Criminal Justice Commission and as Vice-Chair of the Animal Legal Defense Fund.

In 1995 Marquis received ALDF's "Jolene Malone Aggresive Enforcement Award" in recognition of his work on a particularly difficult animal abuse case and in 2006 was the recepient of the Association of Government Attorneys in Capital Litigation's William J. Schaefer Award.