WA Legislature strikes capital punishment from the books

On Sept. 10, 2010, Cal Brown was executed by lethal injection at Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. He is likely to be the last person to be executed in Washington state.

There’s a number of reasons for that. In 2014, Gov. Jay Inslee issued a moratorium on the death penalty. And in 2018, the Washington Supreme Court struck down the penalty all together.

But even so, the death penalty remained on the books, until now.

Last Friday, Washington lawmakers voted to permanently repeal capital punishment.

"There's been a lot of push in the past few years for there to be a statement from the Legislature that capital punishment is wrong," explained Axios reporter Melissa Santos. "Both chambers of the Legislature felt that it was time for the Legislature to weigh on this issue."

Santos has been covering the story for Axios.

The repeal won't necessarily change anything in the short term when it comes to Washington's criminal justice system. But, Santos said it does close the door on the death penalty being re-enacted somehow in the state.

"It's more just about sending sort of the message that this is not the direction that our lawmakers want the state to go," Santos said.

Opponents of the bill say that repealing capital punishment takes away a potential tool for prosecutors to use.

Santos noted that a lot of the arguments go back to Washington's Green River Killer case in the 2000s.

"The death penalty was sort of used as a tool for prosecutors to get him to disclose some of his victims locations, their remains," Santos said. "And that was brought up on the floor as a sort of evidence why we need the death penalty to exist."

But Santos noted that some prosecutors will be glad to see the repeal go through. Sometimes, when a family has experienced the murder of a loved one, they'll see that capitol punishment is still on the books.

Santos said, when those families come to prosecutors asking if the death penalty is an option, "prosecutors have said they've had those conversations in their office with families and been like, 'not really, we actually can't do that.' And it's kind of been almost like a false promise to families."

The legislation heads to Gov. Inslee's desk next, where he's expected to sign it.

Washington isn’t the only state re-evaluating the death penalty.

"Ohio is considering abolishing the death penalty. In the Texas House, the bill to eliminate the severely mentally ill at the time of the crime from the death penalty has passed one house," explains Richard Dieter, executive director of the Washington, D.C.–based Death Penalty Information Center.

Of course, re-evaluating can also mean lawmakers easing restrictions on the death penalty.

"So, you have states like Idaho that just passed and signed by the governor a bill to have the firing squad used if lethal drugs can't be found for executions," Dieter explained. "Tennessee has a similar bill that's being considered. And then there's Florida, which is kind of series of bills, that would make the death penalty easier to obtain."

Dieter said this amount of pending legislation isn’t unusual.

But overall, legislation nationwide is leaning the way of Washington — toward abolishing the death penalty. Twenty-three states currently don't have a death penalty, and three are under a governor-imposed moratorium.

Even in states where the death penalty is legal, there’s been a decrease in usage over the past 20 years.

Dieter said there's a lot of reasons for that change.

"There were always objections to the death penalty on grounds of bias and arbitrariness, poor representation, etc.," he said. "But once it became clear that there were some innocent people on death row, and then some turned out to be a lot for what we're talking about."

DNA testing and other scientific discoveries have allowed prosecutors to re-evaluate older cases, and determine when mistakes were made.

"That," said Dieter, "has shaken the resolve about the death penalty. No one wants to execute an innocent person."