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Coburn Brown Execution Date Set, Stay Lifted

Patricia Murphy
07/30/2010

The state Attorney General's office has set a September execution date for convicted murder Cal Coburn Brown. Brown was found guilty of killing Holly Washa in March 1994. The execution date comes on the heels of a State Supreme Court ruling; the challenge brought by death–row inmates. Attorneys argued among other things that the states three–drug method of execution constituted cruel and unusual punishment.

TRANSCRIPT

The court ruled that the challenge was moot since the state formally switched to a one–drug method for execution in May of this year.

In March the Supreme Court stayed Cal Coburn Brown's execution eight hours before he was scheduled to die. Today's ruling lifts that stay. Sixteen years ago Brown raped and tortured Holly Washa for 36 hours before killing her.

Brown's attorneys can ask for a US Supreme Court review of the state court's decision however Attorney General Rob McKenna says that in itself would not be grounds for a stay. Also while the constitutionality of the states single drug method has not been ruled on McKenna says that too is unlikely to hold up the execution.

McKenna: "The supreme court's opinion today points out there's been no trial on the constitutionality of the one–drug protocol. But also described in some detail the facts of the one–drug protocol that leads us to believe that the court or a majority of the court would not be very supportive of the idea of issuing a stay to permit a trial on the one–drug protocol."

Brown is now scheduled to be executed September 10. King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg, in a statement, said it was time for the sentence to be carried out.

Death–row inmates, Jonathan Gentry and Darold Stenson, were also part of the lawsuit. But the Supreme Court noted that other courts have stayed their executions and that the high court is not in a position to act on those orders.

Patricia Murphy, KUOW News.