Seattle’s Mayor Ed Murray, all 9 mem­bers of the Seattle City Council, and City Attorney Pete Holmes signed a let­ter in sup­port of a bi-par­ti­san bill to abol­ish the death penal­ty in Washington. Tim Burgess (l.), the President of the City Council, is a for­mer police offi­cer and detec­tive. The joint let­ter said: ​“There is no cred­i­ble evi­dence show­ing that the death penal­ty deters homi­cide or makes our com­mu­ni­ties safer. Instead, pur­su­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment diverts pre­cious resources from crit­i­cal pub­lic safe­ty pro­grams, delays final res­o­lu­tion for vic­tims’ fam­i­lies and has seri­ous impli­ca­tions for racial and social equi­ty.” Among the rea­sons giv­en for abo­li­tion were the high cost of death penal­ty tri­als and the lengthy appeals required in death penal­ty cas­es. The nine inmates on Washington’s death row have spent an aver­age of 17 years await­ing exe­cu­tion. King County, where Seattle is locat­ed, has already spent $15 mil­lion on two cap­i­tal tri­als cur­rent­ly under­way and a third that has not yet begun, the letter said.

(S. Miletich, ​“Seattle city lead­ers urge state leg­is­la­tors to abol­ish death penal­ty,” Seattle Times, January 26, 2015). See New Voices and Recent Legislation.

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