‘Horrified and outraged’: Families of murder victims tear into Oregon governor for commuting death sentences

Family members of Oregon murder victims are angry with Gov. Kate Brown (D.) for commuting the sentences of the state’s 17 death row inmates.

“I’m horrified and outraged and I don’t know what this means. … Will real life be real life?” said Sue Shirley, whose parents were killed in 1988. “All I know is that we can never have a say.”

Brown was a popular scapegoat during Oregon’s 2022 gubernatorial race for a slew of failed left-wing policies on homelessness and crime. Even her former Democratic ally Tina Kotek, who in November was chosen to be the Beaver State’s next governor, has distanced herself from Brown’s record and attacked the outgoing governor in debates and interviews.

Brown’s office did not respond to a request for comment. Oregon has not executed an inmate since the 1990s.

“I have long believed that justice is not advanced by taking life, and the state should not be in the business of executing people — even if a terrible crime put them in prison,” Brown said in a statement, while acknowledging that the victims’ families have survived ” pain and uncertainty” from deferred sentences. She also said the decision was not made because of any “rehabilitation efforts” by the inmates.

Brown, who was elected America’s most hated governor for the past two years, gave no advance warning to families that the sentences of their loved ones’ killers would be commuted to life in prison without parole. Oregonian reported. Some relatives of the victims have expressed concern that justice will never be served as they have already endured many hearings and redefinitions of the penal code, leading them to wonder if the killers could eventually be freed.

Brown was responsible for extending a moratorium on the death penalty started by former Gov. John Kitzhaber (D.) in 2011. Oregon voters reinstated the death penalty in 1984 after the state Supreme Court banned it three years earlier.

Her order will take effect on Wednesday. She had already dismantled the building that housed the state’s death chamber in 2020.

Oregon Senate Republican Leader Tim Knopp criticized Brown for unilaterally deciding to commute the sentences, saying she did not put it to a vote.

“Even in the final days of his tenure, Brown continues to disrespect the victims of the most heinous crimes,” he said in a statement.

James Baker, whose daughter and grandchildren were brutally murdered around Christmas in 2001, told Oregonian that Brown’s decision was “wrong and wrong.”

“Every year we can’t forget and every time Christmas comes, what we think about it,” he said. “We have our scrapbooks and our photos and we look through them somewhere around that time and realize those people are gone and they’re gone forever.”

Terry Hakim, whose husband, a police officer, was killed by a father and son who bombed a bank in December 2008, called Brown’s moves “a very personal slap in the face.” The pardon, she said, “will make it harder for victims to live out their days knowing that our governor cares about [the convicted murderers] not us.”