A series of murder cases in Oregon underscores the ineffectiveness of the state’s capital punishment system according to both death penalty supporters and opponents. Jesse Lee Johnson was sentenced to death while two other men who committed equally or more brutal crimes plea bargained to lesser sentences. Johnson received a death sentence in large part because he maintained his innocence, while convicted murderers Ward Weaver and Edward Morris pleaded guilty in exchange for not receiving the death penalty. Weaver was found guilty of sexually assaulting and killing two Oregon City girls and Morris was convicted of murdering his wife and three children in the Tillamook State Forest. Opponents of capital punishment note that the sentences prove the state’s death penalty is arbitrary and unfair, while supporters of capital punishment are unhappy that the system continues to lack consistency and is ineffective. “Oregon has shown for all to see, through the plea bargains of Edward Morris and Ward Weaver, that the administration of the death penalty in Oregon is now capricious. As such, the only responsible civil action at this point is for the citizens of Oregon to abandon the death penalty,” recently wrote William Long, a Willamette Law School professor. Since voters reinstated the death penalty in Oregon, more than half of the men sentenced to death have had their sentences reversed on appeal. The state has carried out 2 executions and both were of men who chose to abandon their appeals. No executions are currently pending in the state, but 28 individuals remain on death row. (The Oregonian, September 24, 2004). See Sentencing.