Oregon hasn’t executed anyone since 1997, but there were 17 people on death row until late last year. That’s when former governor Kate Brown commuted all the sentences to life without parole. Most people in Oregon still favor the death penalty, according to polling. So I asked Lewis & Clark law professor Aliza Kaplan, who is director of the Criminal Justice Reform Clinic, about why she supports the decision.
Why is this something you support?
“Oregon's death penalty is a dysfunctional and expensive policy; it is arbitrarily and disproportionately applied to poor people, people with mental and intellectual disabilities, and people of color. The possibility of executing an innocent person always exists and it does not deter crime effectively.”
How do you respond to the argument from district attorneys criticizing the decision that the governor and Democrats are ignoring victims' rights?
“That is quite a generalized argument/question so it makes it hard to respond to – victims are not all Republicans or Democrats; they are not a monolith – like all people, victims feel differently on this issue and in individual cases. The governor cares deeply about victims of crime and has repeatedly included victims and survivors in all of her clemency processes.”
Does this impede public safety?
“There is no public safety issue here at all; in fact, everyone with a death sentence in Oregon has already been living in the general population at the prison for a while now and the governor's order does not release anyone.”
