Outgoing Oregon Gov. Kate Brown is commuting the sentences of all 17 people on death row to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, according to a news release Tuesday from her office.
“Since taking office in 2015, I have continued Oregon’s moratorium on executions because the death penalty is both dysfunctional and immoral. Today I am commuting Oregon’s death row so that we will no longer have anyone serving a sentence of death and facing execution in this state,” Brown, a Democrat, said.
Brown also talked about the long wait for victims and their families.
“I also recognize the pain and uncertainty victims experience as they wait for decades while individuals sit on death row – especially in states with moratoriums on executions – without resolution,” she said. “My hope is that this commutation will bring us a significant step closer to finality in these cases.”
The governor will use executive clemency powers to commute the sentences, and the order is set to take effect Wednesday.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Oregon has executed two people since the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 and the state reinstated the penalty in 1984. The most recent was in May 1997 when double murderer Harry Moore was put to death by lethal injection.
Brown succeeded Gov. John Kitzhaber, who in November 2011 granted a reprieve to a death row inmate and said no more executions would take place in Oregon. Kitzhaber resigned in February 2015. Brown, who was term-limited, will be replaced by Tina Kotek, a Democrat.
sebkraj on December 14th, 2022 at 04:21 UTC »
I think the harshest sentence is life in prison without parole or any hope of ever getting out. Too many mass murderers try putting one bullet in their head so they avoid this and to me this is the ultimate punishment.
Mijam7 on December 14th, 2022 at 04:06 UTC »
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence
theshoeshiner84 on December 14th, 2022 at 03:42 UTC »
I'm on the fence about whether it's immoral in theory, but it's definitely immoral in practice. Our legal system simply doesn't have a high enough standard of guilt to be entrusted with the power to carry out executions.
Edit: As for how it could ever be moral in theory I think it goes like this... (I'm not saying I believe this, I just can't exactly disprove all of it) As far as logic, I think it would have to stem from someone holding the belief that individual human life is not really all that sacred, that we are just essentially really smart animals. That our species holds a special place given it's ability to reason and make short term sacrifices for long term gain, but individuals themselves do not begin life as sacred - ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in the most literal sense. Then take the worst case scenario of the most heinous kind of violent criminal, one that in this ideal hypothetical we have determined is 100% guilty and 100% incapable of being rehabilitated - both of those things are not only possible, but almost certainly have occurred (regardless of whether we could prove it). This criminal is so violent that they cannot be held in general population, and cannot be interacted with on a regular basis without serious danger to those that would have to care for him. This person is essentially, undeniably useless, to human society, and to the universe as we know it. For the entirety of their life, they will cause pain, fear, and will drain societies resources. In this scenario - stemming from the initial principle that individual humans are not "special" , it makes perfect sense to execute this person not as punishment nor revenge - but similar to why we euthanize stray animals - because we determined that they will cause far more harm than good. Of course this entire chain of logic stops in it's tracks if you believe that individual human life is somehow sacred, which I think most people believe, even if they haven't exactly considered the question. But if you really do believe that we are only smart animals, put here to care for the earth here to preserve our species, then I do think you could argue that in certain extreme cases, execution might be moral.
Anyway, there are certainly holes in that logic as well, and I do realize it reeks of eugenics, but it's just a thought experiment. I think the very fact that we have to go to that extreme to even come close to making execution plausibly moral probably means that's not. I haven't bothered to dig too much because 1) it still doesn't work in practice and 2) I don't have to convince most people that human life is sacred. Although I'm still not certain how I would do #2 if asked.
Edit: It's been pointed out that some of my phrasing is creationist, and that's correct. Though I don't think the argument needs to be made from a creationist point of view, the phrases are just a result of my own bias. The point I was making was not that some higher power put us here for a purpose, but that, according to the theory weve decided that that's going to be our purpose. But yea, just more evidence that the theory is flawed.