With the impending end to her term, Governor Kate Brown commuted the 17 people in Oregon with death penalty charges. Instead, they will serve life in prison with no chance of parole. 

Brown enacted her executive clemency powers to commute, pardon, grant amnesty or reprieve people convicted of crime, despite no rehabilitation signs from the individuals.

“Instead, it reflects the recognition that the death penalty is immoral,” Brown said in a press statement. “It is an irreversible punishment that does not allow for correction; is wasteful of taxpayer dollars; does not make communities safer; and cannot be and never has been administered fairly and equitably.”

When Brown came into office in 2015, one of her first initiatives was to extend the moratorium on Death Row that began in 2011, rather than commuting those with the charge. In the last 50 years, Oregon has executed two people, the most recent being Harry Charles Moore in 1997.

The State of Oregon’s documented history with the death penalty began 1864 but it was abolished by popular vote in 1914. The next reinstatement was 1920; it was again eliminated in 1964 and later re-adopted in 1978. In the early 1980s, the Oregon Supreme Court declared the death penalty to be unconstitutional, though it has still been charged without realization countless times over the past 40 years. 

In 2020, Oregon’s Department of Corrections closed its death penalty operations facilities, rehousing those that lived in the Oregon State Penitentiary. 

Angela McAnulty is the only woman in Oregon’s history with this sentence. In 2020, she was re-sentenced to life in prison and is housed at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility (CCCF) in Tualatin.

Christine Popoff, an assistant superintendent at CCCF, answered a few questions about how the change will look for McAnulty. 

How (potential or actual) are the lives of Adults in Custody (AIC) with death sentences different from others at CCCF?

“Death row was considered a housing/custody-level status in [the] Department of Corrections (DOC). As such, it limited the areas of the facility in which an AIC could be housed. At the Oregon State Penitentiary, there was a Death Row Housing Unit; at Coffee Creek, with only one woman on death row status, she was housed in our Special Housing Unit (SHU). Her life was different in a number of ways, although efforts were made to make sure she had access to things AICs in General Population (GP) have, again, because it is not meant to be a punitive status. The AIC was housed in a single cell, had limited access to programming, no access to off-unit activities and programming, and was required to visit behind glass. She was allowed access to the same canteen (or commissary) list, she could participate in fundraising events, she was allowed to purchase a TV for her cell, she had access to a dayroom with exercise equipment in it, and she was allowed to participate in the in-cell craft program. The biggest difference for Ms. McAnulty was not having anyone else with the same custody-level as her, so she had very limited access to spending time with other AICs, her existence mostly quite solitary. Please do not read that as ‘solitary confinement,’ as SHU houses up to 30 AICs total, and while they would talk to one another, it was through their cell doors. While they could program together, class sizes were a maximum of six AICs and they were restrained throughout the class.”

Did Ms. McAnulty’s treatment change when her sentence was changed from the death penalty to a life sentence?

“CCCF moved Ms. McAnulty to GP housing when the direction came from the department stating AICs sentenced to Death Row were no longer required to live separately, provided they could safely be housed in GP. We brought her out on several ‘field trips’ to prepare her to go from single-cell living to living on a unit housing up to 108 AICs. She came out (unrestrained) to get a meal at the hotline and ate lunch or breakfast with a GP housing unit a couple of times…. We asked her if she had a potential cellmate in mind before we moved her. I would not say how she was treated and what she had access to changed exponentially. She could go to the library, rather than having library books brought to her. She could join two units at yard, rather than yarding by herself. She could sit in the dayroom with other AICs in her unit, rather than going to her own dayroom, by herself. She could attend church services in person. She was able to have contact visits, etc.”

What was her response to the change in sentence?

“At first, Ms. McAnulty was nervous because she had been living in a single cell for so long. To move from SHU to GP was a lot of people and a lot of noise, for lack of a better way to put it. It took some getting used to and she was gradually able to spend more time out of cell and with larger groups of AICs as her comfort and confidence grew. She got a job as a Chapel Clerk. I remember seeing her walking in the main corridor several weeks after her move, and she was happy. She had moved beyond being overwhelmed and was settling into a new life.”

What are the possibilities once the sentence has changed, in terms of how their life changes inside of the facility (responsibilities, opportunities, etc.)?

“Opportunities grow exponentially when someone lives in GP versus special housing. As noted earlier, she can attend programs and activities in person, she can have contact visits, she can go to dayroom with other AICs on her unit, she can go to yard with up to 215 other AICs, she can apply for job assignments, she come outside of her cell unrestrained, she can go to Hair Design for services, and so on. Being the only AIC sentenced to Death Row meant she was only allowed access to small group activities and classes, all while restrained, and her own dayroom, where she could spend time unrestrained. She has to be escorted out of her cell, while out of her cell, and back to her cell. Her freedom of movement and choice increased the most.”

Overall, Popoff stated, “Ms. McAnulty’s transition from Death Row to GP went very smoothly overall. She has assimilated into GP and we seldom hear anything about her. When I see her in the facility, she appears settled and engaged in her environment.”