![[Death penalty - image of a stretcher with shackles]](https://i0.wp.com/outsidethebeltway.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Death-Penalty-1024x576-e1554217653419.jpg?ssl=1)
The Oregonian (“Gov. Kate Brown commutes sentences of all 17 people on Oregon’s death row“):
Gov. Kate Brown announced Tuesday that she would commute the sentences of all 17 individuals on Oregon’s death row to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the latest in her end-of-term string of clemency decisions.
“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 sent out in a press release. “This is a value that many Oregonians share.”
The governor also directed the Department of Corrections to dismantle the state’s death chamber.
While I have come to oppose capital punishment in most cases, I have also come to believe the pardon power is antiquated and more likely to be abused than to serve any legitimate public good. Capitol punishment is explicitly permitted under Oregon law and I believe it to be an abuse of power to commute sentences imposed by juries simply based on personal morality rather than any specifics of the case.
Then again, there’s something cruel and bizarre about having people on death row without any intention of executing them. Which is the case in Oregon:
Oregon has not executed anyone on death row for a quarter century and Brown continued the moratorium that former Gov. John Kitzhaber put in place in 2011. Governor-elect Tina Kotek, who like Brown and Kitzhaber is a Democrat, is personally opposed to the death penalty based on her religious beliefs and said during the campaign that she would continue the moratorium.
Voters have gone back and forth on the death penalty over the years, abolishing and reinstating it repeatedly. Voters’ most recent decision on the death penalty was in 1984, when they inserted it into the state Constitution.
Oregon is one of 27 states that authorizes the death penalty, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
That’s just weird: the voters specifically put the death penalty into the state constitution in recent times but they have also elected back-to-back-to-back governors who refuse to carry out their duty. The result is a justice system that provides justice for no one concerned: the victims, the accused, or the community (as represented both in the jury pool and the electorate).
One of those death row inmates is Randy Lee Guzek, who was convicted in 1988 and sentenced to death for Rod and Lois Houser, of Terrebonne. Sue Shirley, the Housers’ daughter, said Tuesday she was aware of the governor’s decision to commute Guzek’s sentence, but had not heard from the state directly.
“I’m horrified and outraged and I don’t know what this means,” Shirley said Tuesday. “Will true life be true life?”
Shirley noted that Guzek has been resentenced four times over the past 24 years as the Legislature has changed rules, though his death penalty sentence has been repeatedly upheld.
“All I know is that we never get to have a say,” she said Tuesday. “Forty-eight jurors have said the just sentence was the death penalty, but that’s been a moving target. The Legislature has changed the rules time and time again and it’s just been a nightmare.”
That is, to coin a phrase, both cruel and unusual. Their daughter was murdered 34 years ago and they have been kept in limbo all that time, constantly jerked around by the system. And, while I have little sympathy, indeed, for the murderer, there’s something wrong about jerking him around, too.
In 2019, the Legislature passed a bill that limited the crimes that qualified for the death penalty by narrowing the definition of aggravated murder to killing two or more people as an act of organized terrorism; intentionally and with premeditation kilIing a child younger than 14; killing another person while locked up in jail or prison for a previous murder; or killing a police, correctional or probation officer.
To me, that’s just bizarre. There’s really no logic to these distinctions. What makes murdering a 13-year-old worse than murdering a 15-year-old? Or murdering a convicted criminal worse than murdering a law-abiding citizen? Or murdering a prison guard worse than murdering a brain surgeon?
But, of course, we’ve known for decades that the death penalty is unevenly applied based on race, class, and other distinctions.
More than two years have passed since the Brown administration dismantled Oregon’s death row, a move that acknowledged the effective end of capital punishment in the state.
While my initial reaction was that, again, this is something a governor shouldn’t have unilateral authority to do, the linked story makes clear that, in actuality, it was the Oregon Department of Corrections that made the decision (for a variety of reasons), not Brown.
Brown said in her statement Tuesday that commuting the sentences of people currently serving on Oregon’s death row was consistent with what she described as lawmakers’ “near abolition” of capital punishment.
“Unlike previous commutations I’ve granted to individuals who have demonstrated extraordinary growth and rehabilitation, this commutation is not based on any rehabilitative efforts by the individuals on death row,” Brown said. “Instead, it reflects the recognition that the death penalty is immoral. It is an irreversible punishment that does not allow for correction; is wasteful of taxpayer dollars; does not make communities safer; and cannot be and never has been administered fairly and equitably.”
Again, I don’t think governors or presidents should have this authority. It’s a bizarre holdover from the days of monarchy and has no place in a modern democracy. Why should the sympathies of the chief executive override the administration of justice? And, frankly, it’s made even worse by the fact that the power tends to get the most exercise during the lame duck period when the voters have no means of holding the leader accountable.
And, while it hadn’t occurred to me, I agree the timing is less than ideal:
Rosemary Brewer, executive director of the Oregon Crime Victims Law Center, said it was her understanding that Oregon Department of Justice Crime Victim and Survivor Services Division staff worked Tuesday to notify family members and had reached all of the families affected by the commutations. A spokesperson for the governor confirmed that DOJ handled notification. However, Brewer said the governor should have given families more advance notice of her decision.
“The victims should have been told about this so they had some time to prepare for it,” Brewer said. “These are horrific cases that left completely devastated families. They’re preparing for the holidays and all of a sudden, they see in the (newspaper) that the person who traumatized — devastated — their families had their death sentence commuted.”
My brain doesn’t work that way—I don’t get more emotional on anniversaries or holidays—but many people’s do.
The rest of the report comprises emotion-laden description of the crimes committed by those whose sentences Brown has commuted and the reactions of family members.
