Oregon's governor announced today that he won't let any executions take place while he is in office. Of course, we don't really execute anyone in Oregon, unless they ask for it; since the death penalty was reinstated after 1976, the only two Oregon death row inmates to be executed both waived their remaining appeals. A third, Gary Haugen, has been trying to get himself executed this past year. In other words, there isn't that much practical impact of this announcement, apart from blocking Haugen's own bid for death.
On balance, I think getting rid of the death penalty in Oregon would be a good idea, considering how expensive it is to have capital trials, and how infrequently we actually carry out the sanction. And apart from the fiscal impact, I do admit to some lingering discomfort with the idea of state-sanctioned killing of a helpless inmate (as compared, say, to a battlefield combatant), not to mention the non-zero incidence of wrongful convictions.
That said, I think that absolute opponents of the death penalty need to have a good answer to the following question, which is of some relevance to Haugen himself: what sort of penalty is there to impose upon someone who is already serving a life sentence? Maybe there's no measurable deterrent effect to the death penalty, but a "lifer" would seem to get any number of "free" in-prison murders in a non-death penalty state.
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