Key Points
- Oregon’s Democratic Governor Kate Brown announced on Tuesday during her final days in office that she will use her executive clemency powers to commute the sentences of the 17 people on Oregon’s death row to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
- The progressive governor also ordered the execution chamber dismantled. The orders take effect on Wednesday.
- “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,” she wrote.
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