Oregon governor commutes all 17 of state’s death sentences
SALEM, Ore. — Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced Tuesday that she is commuting the sentences of all of the state’s 17 inmates awaiting execution, saying their death sentences will be changed to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Brown, a Democrat with less than a month remaining in office, said she was using her executive clemency powers to commute the sentences and that her order will take effect on Wednesday.
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“I have long believed that justice is not advanced by taking a life, and the state should not be in the business of executing people — even if a terrible crime placed them in prison,” Brown said in a statement.
Rep. Vikki Breese-Iverson, leader of the minority Republicans in the Oregon House of Representatives, accused Brown of “a lack of responsible judgment.”
“Gov. Brown has once again taken executive action with zero input from Oregonians and the Legislature,” Breese-Iverson said in a statement. “Her decisions do not consider the impact the victims and families will suffer in the months and years to come. Democrats have consistently chosen criminals over victims.”
In her announcement, Brown said victims experience “pain and uncertainty” as they wait for decades while individuals sit on death row.
“My hope is that this commutation will bring us a significant step closer to finality in these cases,” she said.
Oregon has not executed a prisoner since 1997. In Brown’s first news conference after becoming governor in 2015, she announced she would continue the death penalty moratorium imposed by her predecessor, former Gov. John Kitzhaber.
So far, 17 people have been executed in the U.S. in 2022, all by lethal injection and all in Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Missouri and Alabama, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Some other states are moving away from the death penalty.
In California, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom imposed a moratorium on executions in 2019 and shut down the state’s execution chamber at San Quentin. A year ago, he moved to dismantle America’s largest death row by moving all condemned inmates to other prisons within two years. In Oregon, Brown is known for exercising her authority to grant clemency.
During the coronavirus pandemic, Brown granted clemency to nearly 1,000 people convicted of crimes. Two district attorneys, along with family members of crime victims, sued the governor and other state officials to stop the clemency actions. But the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled in August that she acted within her authority.
The prosecutors, in particular, objected to Brown’s decision to allow 73 people convicted of murder, assault, rape and manslaughter while they were younger than 18 to apply for early release.
Brown noted that previously she granted commutations “to individuals who have demonstrated extraordinary growth and rehabilitation” but said that assessment didn’t apply in her latest decision.
