All 17 inmates on Oregon’s execution row will have their sentences reduced by Democratic governor Kate Brown to life in prison without the possibility of release.
She claimed she was utilizing her executive authority because she thought the death penalty was unjust. After all, she had less than a month remaining in government.
Although Oregon is one of 27 states that permit the death sentence, no one has been put to death there since 1997.
Republicans in the state of the western US denounced Ms. Brown’s directive.
On Wednesday, it will become effective.
She said in a statement that she was taking this action because the death sentence is “immoral,” not because these criminals had been rehabilitated.
According to Oregon Public Broadcasting, Ms. Brown has exercised her clemency powers more than any other previous governor of Oregon.
She is the seventh US governor in the previous 50 years, according to her administration, to commute all death sentences in a state.
Republican Tim Knopp, the leader of the Oregon State Senate, criticized her strategy on Tuesday.
Since the death penalty is guaranteed by Oregon’s constitution, a subsequent governor may decide to reinstate it.
Tina Kotek, a Democrat who will take Ms. Brown’s place, has stated that she is against the death penalty because of her religious convictions.
The Death Penalty Information Center reports that seventeen persons have been put to death in the United States in 2022.
According to a survey conducted earlier this year, Ms. Brown has the lowest approval rating of any governor in the US.
