Washington Senate Passes Bill to Formalize Repeal of Capital Punishment

For the third con­sec­u­tive year, the Washington State Senate has vot­ed to remove the death penal­ty from the state’s statute books. In a 28 – 18 vote praised by abo­li­tion advo­cates for its bipar­ti­san­ship, four sen­ate Republicans joined 24 of their Democratic col­leagues on January 30, 2020 to for­mal­ly repeal Washington’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment law. With a new Speaker replac­ing Democratic lead­er­ship who had pre­vent­ed the bill from com­ing up for a vote in the House in 2018 and 2019, the prospects of the bill pass­ing in the 2020 leg­isla­tive ses­sion are considered favorable.

In October 2018, the Washington Supreme Court struck down the state’s death penal­ty law, declar­ing that it had been ​“imposed in an arbi­trary and racial­ly biased man­ner.” That rul­ing also over­turned the death sen­tences of all eight peo­ple on the state’s death row and con­vert­ed them to life with­out parole. The court’s deci­sion left open the pos­si­bil­i­ty that leg­isla­tive reforms to the death penal­ty could bring the prac­tice in line with the state con­sti­tu­tion. However, the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion would for­mal­ly elim­i­nate cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment as a sen­tenc­ing option in Washington. 

In 2018 and 2019, the abo­li­tion bill — SB 5339 — passed the Senate before stalling in the House. Representative Laurie Jinkins, who became House Speaker on January 15, 2020, said she is per­son­al­ly in favor of the bill, but has not yet brought it to her col­leagues in the Democratic cau­cus. The bill also has the sup­port of Governor Jay Inslee and Attorney General Bob Ferguson. Bill spon­sor Senator Reuven Carlyle (D – Seattle) said, ​“Now that we have firm res­o­lu­tion from both the exec­u­tive branch and the judi­cia­ry branch, it is time for the leg­isla­tive branch that sets the laws of our state to make a final deter­mi­na­tion on this particular legislation.”

Washington is one of 21 states that have abol­ished the death penal­ty leg­isla­tive­ly or judi­cial­ly. The last exe­cu­tion in the state took place in 2010. Two oth­er states, Colorado and Virginia, advanced major death-penal­ty leg­is­la­tion on January 30, 2020. Colorado’s Senate passed a bill to abol­ish the death penal­ty. A mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions is cur­rent­ly in place in the state. The Virginia State Senate passed a bill to pro­hib­it the death penal­ty for defen­dants with severe men­tal ill­ness. This was the sec­ond year in a row in which the Senate passed such a measure.