Capital punishment in Oregon the gallows, "Did not your missionaries teach us that Christ died to save his people? So we die to save our people." Capital punishment was made explicitly legal by statute in 1864, and executions have been carried out exclusively at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem since 1904. The death penalty was outlawed between 1914 and 1920, again between 1964 and 1978, and then again between a 1981 Oregon Supreme Court ruling and a 1984 ballot measure. Oregon voters amended the Constitution in 1914, to repeal the death penalty, by a margin of 50.04%. The repeal was an initiative of
Oregon State Defense Force OMD has temporarily suspended the Oregon State Defense Force. However, a spokesman for the Oregon Military Department stated on record that the suspension was temporary and the ORSDF would return to active service. As of December 2018, the Oregon Military Department has yet to keep its promise. Since Oregon law requires the state to maintain the ORSDF at a cadre level during peacetime, a reinstatement of the force is required in order to reattain compliance with the law. As of late 2017 the Oregon State Defense Force has been renamed under Oregon state law as the Oregon Civil Defense Force.