History
The Oregon Constitution originally had no provision for a death penalty. A statute was enacted in 1864 allowing for the death penalty in cases of first degree murder. Authority to conduct executions was initially granted to local sheriffs, but in 1903, the Oregon Legislative Assembly passed a law requiring all executions to be conducted at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem.
Oregon voters amended the Constitution in 1914, to repeal the death penalty, by a margin of 50.04%. The repeal was an initiative of Governor Oswald West. The death penalty was restored, again by constitutional amendment, in 1920.
Initially, all executions were performed by hanging; lethal gas was adopted as the method after 1931.
Voters outlawed the death penalty in the general election of 1964, with 60% of the vote. Governor Mark Hatfield commuted the sentences of three death row inmates two days later.
Voters reenacted the death penalty in the general election of 1978, by statute; Measure 8 required the death penalty in certain murder cases. Measure 8 was overturned by the Oregon Supreme Court in 1981, on the grounds that it denied defendants the right to be tried by a jury of their peers.
In 1984, Measure 6 amended the Constitution to once more make the death penalty legal. Measure 7, a statutory measure passed in the same year, required a separate sentencing hearing before a jury in cases of aggravated murder.
In 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Penry v. Lynaugh affected the Oregon death penalty, because Oregon's law is based on the Texas law involved in the case. 17 Oregon cases were remanded for resentencing following Penry; eight convicts were re-sentenced to death.
In 2000, the Benetton Group featured several inmates on Oregon's death row in a controversial, anti-death penalty ad campaign. Cesar Barone, Conan Wayne Hale, Jesse Caleb Compton, and Alberto Reyes Camarena were featured in the ad.
Between 1904 and 1994, 115 people were sentenced to death in Oregon, and 58 of those were executed.
Read more about this topic: Capital Punishment In Oregon
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—D.H. (David Herbert)
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—Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897–1973)