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Haunted by Regret, Oregon Governor Bans Death Penalty
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Haunted by regret for allowing two men to be executed more than a decade ago, Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber now says it'll never happen again on his watch.
Calling Oregon's death penalty scheme "compromised and inequitable," the Democratic governor said Tuesday he'll issue a reprieve to a twice-convicted murderer who was scheduled to die by lethal injection in two weeks. He said he'd do the same for any other condemned inmates facing execution during his tenure in office.
"I simply cannot participate once again in something that I believe to be morally wrong," the governor said in uncharacteristically emotional remarks during a news conference in his office.
"It is time for this state to consider a different approach," he said.
Death penalty proponents quickly criticized the decision, saying the governor is usurping the will of voters who have supported capital punishment.
Kitzhaber's decision halts the execution of 49-year-old Gary Haugen, who had disregarded advice from his lawyers and asked to waive his remaining appeals in protest of a justice system he views as unjust and vindictive. Haugen, who was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Dec. 6, is one of 37 inmates on Oregon's death row.
Haugen was serving a life sentence for fatally bludgeoning his former girlfriend's mother, Mary Archer, when he was sentenced to death for the 2003 killing of fellow inmate David Polin, who had 84 stab wounds and a crushed skull.
Oregon has executed two men since voters reinstated the death penalty in 1984, one each in 1996 and 1997. Both inmates, like Haugen, had voluntarily given up their appeals. Kitzhaber declined to intervene in their cases, however, citing his oath to uphold the constitution.
But the governor now says he's long regretted his decision to allow those executions, and he's come to believe that Oregon voters did not intend to create a death penalty scheme in which the only inmates who are put to death are those who volunteer.
"The reality is that, in Oregon, our death sentence is essentially an extremely expensive life prison term," Kitzhaber said. "Far more expensive than the terms of others who are sentenced to life in prison without parole, rather than to death row."
Kitzhaber fought tears as he said he spoke to relatives of Haugen's victims, saying they were difficult discussions and his "heart goes out to them." He declined to discuss them further, calling them "private conversations."
"We've been dealing with this since 1981," Ard Pratt, Archer's first husband, told The Associated Press. "It was almost over. And then he changes it because he's a coward and doesn't want to do it."
Kitzhaber is a former emergency room doctor who still retains an active physician license with the Oregon Medical Board, and his opposition to the death penalty has been well-known. In a news conference explaining his decision, he cited his oath as a physician to "do no harm." Kitzhaber was elected last year to an unprecedented third term as governor after eight years away from public office.
Oregon has a complex history with capital punishment. Voters have outlawed it twice and legalized it twice, and the state Supreme Court struck it down once. Voters most-recently legalized the death penalty on a 56-44 vote in 1984.
"It is arrogant and presumptuous for an elected official, up to and including the governor, to say, 'I don't care with the voters say, I don't care what the courts say,'" and impose his own opinion, said Josh Marquis, a death penalty proponent and the Clatsop County district attorney. Marquis has prosecuted several capital cases and written about capital punishment.
Kitzhaber said he has no sympathy or compassion for murderers, but Oregon's death penalty scheme is "an expensive and unworkable system that fails to meet basic standards of justice."
His moratorium means Oregon joins, at least temporarily, four other states that have halted executions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment. Illinois this year outlawed the death penalty after the discovery of wrongful convictions. New Mexico voters abolished it in 2009, two years after New Jersey's Legislature and governor did the same. A New York appeals court struck down a portion of the death penalty statute.
Politicians are often hesitant to discuss abolishing the death penalty for fear it will anger voters, said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center. Kitzhaber's decision might give confidence to leaders in other states, he said.
Death penalty opponents in California are trying for a ballot measure next year to outlaw capital punishment there. Legislators in Maryland and Connecticut could do the same, Dieter said.
One of Haugen's lawyers, Steve Gorham, said Haugen was still committed to being executed on Tuesday morning. Gorham said he hadn't spoken with the inmate since learning of the governor's decision.
"I'm sure he's not very happy right now. He was committed to exercising what he thought were his rights," Gorham said, noting that he was personally pleased with the governor's decision and calling it "courageous."
Prosecutors have long complained that death penalty cases take decades to make their way through the courts, but efforts to change the law have been stymied in the Legislature. Eight condemned inmates have been on death row since the 1980s.
Oregon's constitution gives Kitzhaber authority to commute the sentences of all death row inmates, but he said he will not do so because the policy on capital punishment is a matter for voters to decide.
Kitzhaber's reprieve will last until he leaves office. His term ends in January 2015, and he has not said whether he'll run for re-election.
Kitzhaber said he hopes his decision will prompt a public re-evaluation of the death penalty in Oregon and said he will advocate for a ballot measure that would make it illegal. The governor said he prefers murderers be given a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
25 Comments so far
Show AllRegrets? You mean a politician with a SOUL? What next?
Re: the comment that the death penalty shouldn't be just for those who volunteer, I disagree. I believe anyone who prefers to have their life ended rather than live a life without freedom should be allowed to, regardless of their crime or sentence.But it shouldn't be used on anyone else.
The scariest thing about this article was that I had no idea that there were so many committed PRO death penalty people out there. Don't they get enough kicks reading the one-sided bombing reports from our air force?
Good for him. Of course that seals his fate as governor. I don't think many states in the West would elect anyone that refuses to implement the death penalty.
I admire his personal resolve.
All of us should consider our personal responsibility when it comes to demanding the death of another.
Good for Gov. Kitzhaber! I'm proud to be in Oregon where politicians occasionally do the right thing.
Good for Governor Kitzhaber. Until we abolish the death penalty forever, we'll continue to be savages - only savages are probably more humane than "civilized" people.
the etymology of the word "savage": "wild" "of the woods," from silva "forest, grove"
I am in awe of all the world's savages - past and present.
The governor is not a coward as the victim's family says. It took courage to do what he did.
I agree with you. It is tragic that people associate physical violence with courage, but have no regard for mercy and compassion.
The article states little about the governor's reasons for the reprieves. It does commendably mention his sympathy for victims of capital crimes.
One of the strongest arguments against the death penalty is that it makes the whole criminal justice system less committed to the rule of law and thus increases the likelihood of wrongful convictions or punishments that don't fit the crime. In capital cases themselves, jurors who oppose the death penalty can't serve. This means juries are more likely to contain people like the advocates of capital punishment, many of whom enjoy seeing criminals, or people thought to be criminals, executed, show little respect for laws that protect against wrongful convictions, and have no compassion whatsoever to the families and friends of the accused. But the problem goes deeper than that. Judges who oppose capital punishment have a very difficult time getting elected or appointed in jurisdictions that legalize capital punishment. Prosecutors also have to be pro-capital punishment to serve in those jurisdictions. These circumstances, in my opinion, make it much more likely that wrongful convictions and unjust punishments will occur where the law allows capital punishment. I believe it also makes it less likely that law enforcers who abuse their power will be held to account by the judicial system.
Bravo Governor Kitzhaber. That took courage. Those families think they'd feel better at the execution...doesn't happen. One only has to look in the eyes of family who lose another to know, death penalty makes it worse for all.
WAR AND THE DEATH PENALTY ARE NOT PRO-LIFE so if those who approve of war, and the death penalty, but oppose abortion, are just hypocrites.
As a nation, we need to own up to our abusive and violent past, release and forgive, move into a Lighter Brighter future.
"Kitzhaber said he hopes his decision will prompt a public re-evaluation of the death penalty in Oregon and said he will advocate for a ballot measure that would make it illegal."
Fear not, the large Limbaugh redneck Christian conservative population of the state would keep the death penalty in any Oregon ballot measure, as it has done before.
I thought we rotten libs did pretty good a few years back when we replaced a very popular Republican Senator (heck, I liked him to) with a newby Democrat, and Kitzhaber was re-elected as governor a decade after being Governor, and the right fought mightily and threw some pretty nasty stuff his way...
I sent him a thank-you:
http://www.oregon.gov/Gov/contact.shtml
Thank you. I will do the same.
Well done, Governor Kitzhaber.
This is a welcome and commendable development.
It's been too long since Illinois Republican Governor George Ryan imposed a state moratorium on executions in 2000. But that was before September, 2001, when "Nine-Eleven Changed Everything" and kicked Amerika further down the slippery slope and abyss of a sociopathic, authoritarian, ruthlessly death-dealing Hollow State.
Ryan's enlightened moratorium was undermined and tarnished by the fact that he was afterwards tried and convicted on corruption charges, which called his ostensibly high-minded motives into question.
I'm not sanguine about the prospect, but let's hope Kitzhaber's action becomes part of a trend.
I just sent my Governor this message:
BRAVO My Governor!
Mr. Kitzhaber, we couldn't be more proud of you for refusing to execute ANYONE! Thank you so much for modelling "humanity" for the rest of our country. Refusing to execute people is so civil. It's so decent. It's so honorable. It's so necessary THIS week when the rest of the authorities are using their power to overpower people, you've modeled compassion & kindness. Hallelujah & I'm NOT even Christian!
T H2O's"
"I simply cannot participate once again in something that I believe to be morally wrong,"
Morality is not a matter of opinion. It's a matter of fact. If you want to destroy something good, and perpetrate something bad, you call it a matter of opinion, and say things like "I believe". If you want to preserve something good, and suppress something bad, you call it a matter of fact, and say things like "I know".
Merkan liberalism implores you to call everything a matter of opinion or belief, so that elites may perpetrate their parasitic/predatory evil, at your expense, amid a swamp of logical/moral confusion.
Merkan Liberalism. Different from Merkan Conservatism. Almost as evil.
The death penalty functions to fuel human flaws and weaknesses, the frantic, desperate craving to assert control in the unknown fog of self-imposed ignorance. The ignorance is imposed of course to help the desperate preserve power/control, over not only the unknown, but over the hated unknown, in a culture of conflict, a slippery slope to the swamp of fear, hate and doom.
Don't let Merkan liberals confuse you any longer. The death penalty serves their need to "go along to get along" to share in the spoils of empire with their wretched conservative bed-mates. That one of them belatedly changes his mind after "going along to get along" just enough to get himself into some authoritarian position does not change the fundamentally corrupt basis of the establishment he supports, on balance, to great destruction/damage to the public interests.
Meanwhile we on the far left call a spade a spade and hold to the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm. Our philosophy is mature, and allows all the dots to connect as they may. So there is resonance, not dissonance, when one compares/contrasts policy points. Small surprise that we live without confusion.
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Finally, a Governor that has some integrity! I would like to point out though that although the moral and financial aspects are strong reasons to oppose the death penalty, the biggest reason for me is that it simply does not work better to "deter" crime than does life in prison without parole (not to mention the inherent racism embedded in the law). As a result, implementing the death penalty is merely a blind (but not color-blind) pursuit of vengeance. And far from freeing one from the pain of loss, vengeance actually serves to deaden the soul.
no noose is good noose.
Stop it, you're killing me... er, not-killing me!
Kitzhaber is the exception that tests the rule.
Meanwhile, today's news back at the ranch:
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett has signed death warrants for two more inmates on death row, although the state last executed someone in 1999. ...
Thank you Governor John Kitzhaber!
Oregon voted out the death penalty twice, then voted for it twice. But death is for keeps. It doesn't get reversed. Once the state does it, that's all.
I'm not dogmatic on this, but the governor is acting on his conscience, and that has nothing to do with cowardice at all. He may well have lost the next election if he seeks another term, but maybe he prefers living with his conscience not sleeping in the govenor's mansion ahead of all else.