Posted on 12/14/2022 2:44:59 PM PST by Morgana
Oregon Governor Kate Brown has commuted the sentences of the 17 people on the state's death row to life in prison in her final month in office - leading to fury from the victims' families.
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.
The decision to change the death sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole has been met with fury from the families of the murderers' victims and government officials.
Oregon has not executed a prisoner since 1997 and in 2020 the administration announced it was phasing out its death row and reassigning the prisoners.
The Brown administration is known for its clemency and opposition to the death penalty. Governor Brown has also asked for the death chamber to be dismantled.
Now the relatives of those who were killed by the criminals are furious.
They fear that justice will not be served and are angry that they have not had a say.
One death row inmate, Randy Lee Guzek, killed Rod and Lois Houser when he was 18. He shot Lois three times with a handgun and chased her up a staircase before firing a final shot.
Their daughter, Sue Shirley, said: 'I'm horrified and outraged and I don't know what this means. Will true life be true life?'
'All I know is that we never get to have a say,' she said, as reported in Oregon Live.
But in her announcement, Brown said victims experience 'pain and uncertainty' as they wait for decades while individuals sit on death row.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Thank God! One of them could have been innocent!!!!
Now, on to abortions.
She as no problem murdering innocent unborn babies.
That’s not it, the Democrats still need them to vote!!
Yup. Protecting the guilty and killing the innocent. How can anybody support this party.
If she thinks they are worthy, why not let them go?
Hateful hag. Her replacement is even worse.
“Thank God! One of them could have been innocent!!!!”
There are some here who make that argument.
Sounds like surviving relatives should contemplate a dish best served cold.
Good point.
Yeah. Did she think that Tina was gonna off these people? Is she taking away the option of Tina imposing the same moratorium against executions that she and Kitzhaber had imposed? Stealing Tina’s thunder, lest Tina get credit for commuting their sentences? Just giving a final middle finger yo Oregon voters? Seems odd.
This treatment of convicted murders and babies is what Oregon citizens voted for, including probably some members of the victims’ families.
That was probably tongue-in-cheek, but Oregon doesn’t allow incarcerated felons to vote.
“Hateful hag. Her replacement is even worse.”
Sounds like it.
Oregon has twice voted for the death penalty, and had the last two governors declare a moratotium against executions.
IMO, opponents of the death penalty often fail to value human life enough.
Did they have any say?
Brilliant!
Because murder is forbidden. Imprisonment is not.
Just more EVIDENCE that the THEFT of elections is NATIONAL and FAR WORSE than even I know.
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