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September 19, 2015 SALEM — Eight days after taking office, Gov. Kate Brown said she would convene a small group of advisers to help her puzzle through one of Oregon's most contentious issues: the death penalty.

Gov. John Kitzhaber stopped executions in Oregon four years ago, citing concerns about injustice as a death row inmate sought to speed his execution. Brown, thrust into office after Kitzhaber quit last February, decided to keep his moratorium while she sought answers.

Now, seven months later, her office acknowledges she's just getting started.

The Connecticut Supreme Court on Thursday ruled the state's death penalty is unconstitutional.

The ruling will affect the 11 inmates currently on the state's death row. Lawmakers repealed the state's death penalty in 2012, but stipulated it only applied to future crimes.

Plaintiffs in Thursday's case had argued the 2012 ban should also extend to prisoners already on death row.

This is a developing story. Check back for more details...

Saturday, 13 June 2015 M*A*S*H actor Mike Farrell brought his anti-death penalty message to Oregon Friday. Activist Farrell is head of Death Penalty Focus in San Francisco.Although best known for his role on the television series “M*A*S*H,” Mike Farrell also has a longer history as an activist for human rights and against the death penalty.

He came to Oregon to talk about those passions with opponents of the state’s death penalty.

Support for the death penalty is waning. Indiana joins the ranks of states without capital punishment Support for the death penalty is waning across America.

We see it most startlingly in the recent vote by Nebraska’s one-house Legislature. By a veto-proof margin, the Nebraska Senate voted to eliminate the death penalty. Nebraska is a red state. Its governor says he’ll veto the statute. But he would have to move two senators off their “no” votes.

Also recently, in blue Boston there was little popular support for giving the death penalty to the Boston Marathon bomber. The family of one victim said they favored a life sentence so they would not have to relive the crime at the successive appeals that come with death penalties.

Register Guard Editorial:
Death-penalty politics shift: It’s time for Oregon to have statewide discussion
Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts says he plans to veto a bill passed last week that would abolish his state’s death penalty, declaring “the Legislature is out of touch with Nebraskans.”