Oregon governor commutes sentences of everyone on death row in state

With less than a month remaining in office, Kate Brown, said she was using her clemency powers to change the term to life in prison

With a flourish of her pen, Governor Kate Brown of Oregon on Tuesday reduced to zero the number of prisoners awaiting execution in the state, commuting the death sentences of all 17 condemned inmates to life without parole.

Brown's action, made in the final days of her governorship, amounted to a powerful stand against capital punishment which will reverberate across the US. It brings to a head the state's gradual shift towards an abolitionist position.