An op-ed in Oregon’s Albany Democrat Herald called on the state to re-think its reliance on the death penal­ty:

20 years after vot­ers in Oregon rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty, it is time to take a dis­pas­sion­ate look and con­clude that it has­n’t done much good.

In the gen­er­al elec­tion of 1984, Oregon vot­ers over­whelm­ing­ly called for the death penal­ty to be resumed. 2 ini­tia­tives were on the bal­lot that year. One, call­ing for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment or manda­to­ry life sen­tences for aggra­vat­ed mur­der, passed by 893,818 to 296,988. A com­pan­ion mea­sure, exempt­ing the death penal­ty from the pro­vi­sion in the state con­sti­tu­tion against cru­el and vin­dic­tive pun­ish­ment, passed by 653,009 to 521,687.

One of the main argu­ments was that once killers were exe­cut­ed, we could be sure that they would nev­er do any more harm.

The jus­ti­fi­ca­tion — pre­ven­tion of addi­tion­al killings — has not worked out in prac­tice. For one thing, the death penal­ty does not apply to ordi­nary 1st-time mur­der con­vic­tions. For anoth­er, the judi­cial sys­tem has failed to live up to the inten­tion expressed by the vot­ers. For count­less legal and pro­ce­dur­al rea­sons, the sys­tem has so far failed to car­ry out the man­date of 1984. And the pace of mur­ders in Oregon has been rough­ly the same since the 1970s — 100 or more a year.

The rate per 100,000 has declined as the pop­u­la­tion increased, per­haps because of Measure 11, which put peo­ple in prison for vio­lent crimes well short of mur­der, rather than let­ting them off on pro­ba­tion.

There have been 2 exe­cu­tions since the death penal­ty went back on the books. In both cas­es, the con­demned men refused to par­tic­i­pate in appeals; they want­ed to be exe­cut­ed. The sys­tem works when mur­der­ers want the state to help them end their incar­cer­a­tion. It does not work when the crim­i­nals refuse to con­sent to be put to death, which is most of the time.

29 men were on Oregon’s death row as of last spring, some for as long as 16 years. One of those who had been there the longest, since 1988, had just had his con­vic­tion over­turned for the third time, and his case was sent back to the tri­al court for anoth­er penal­ty phase.

Death penal­ty cas­es are more expen­sive and take longer than oth­er mur­der cas­es. Typically the defen­dant gets 2 expert attor­neys appoint­ed for him rather than 1. And there are 2 tri­als in each case, one to deter­mine guilt, the oth­er to set the penal­ty.

Summing up: Executions have been all but non-exis­tent. Even so, death penal­ty cas­es cost more. The exis­tence of the penal­ty has not deterred mur­ders. Lifelong prison terms have the same result as exe­cu­tions in keep­ing the pub­lic safe.

It’s not that repeat mur­der­ers don’t deserve the death penal­ty. They do. But the exis­tence of the penal­ty in Oregon is not doing any­thing except to cause expense and delays. It’s time to let it go.

We don’t even need a con­sti­tu­tion­al change, which is unlike­ly any­way. All we need is pros­e­cu­tors mak­ing up their mind to seek true-life sen­tences instead.

(Hasso Hering, Albany Democrat-Herald, August 29, 2004) (empha­sis added). See Costs, Deterrence, and Life Without Parole. See also, Editorials.

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