Lars Larson: Gov. Brown’s biggest crime of the year

By Lars Larson,
NW and national radio host

Let me tell you about the biggest hate crime of the year.

Governor Kate Brown has commuted the death sentences of 17 killers.

It’s hateful toward the families of the victims.

Kate Brown had a staffer call some of them just hours before she made her big public pronouncement.

Governor Brown arrogantly substitutes her own personal morals for the will of voters.

She cancels decisions made by juries forced to listen to weeks of testimony about the grisly details of murders before making the tough call to send the killer to death row.

And who benefits? People like Christian Longo, who murdered his wife and three tiny children and dumped their bodies in the ocean. He won’t face execution.

Like the Turnages…father and son…who put a bomb in a Woodburn bank 14 years ago…and murdered two cops who responded to save the lives of others. They get to keep their lives.

Not one of the 50 states has voted out the death penalty in the last half a century.

Oregon voted the penalty in, not once but twice.

A two-thirds majority of voters still support it…and Governor Kate Brown just gave them all the big middle finger on her way out the door.

How could any crime get more hateful than that?