Finding that the death penal­ty is imposed in an arbi­trary and racial­ly biased man­ner,” a unan­i­mous Washington Supreme Court has struck down the state’s cap­i­tal-pun­ish­ment statute as vio­lat­ing Washington’s state con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­hi­bi­tion against cru­el pun­ish­ment.” The court’s rul­ing, authored by Chief Justice Mary E. Fairhurst and issued on October 11, 2018, declared: The death penal­ty, as admin­is­tered in our state, fails to serve any legit­i­mate peno­log­i­cal goal; thus, it vio­lates arti­cle I, sec­tion 14 of our state con­sti­tu­tion.” The deci­sion also con­vert­ed the sen­tences of all eight peo­ple on the state’s death row (pic­tured) to life impris­on­ment with­out pos­si­bil­i­ty of release. The court’s action makes Washington the twen­ti­eth U.S. state to have judi­cial­ly or leg­isla­tive­ly abol­ished the death penal­ty, and the eighth to have done so this cen­tu­ry. Governor Jay Inslee, who imposed a mora­to­ri­um on all exe­cu­tions in 2014, hailed the rul­ing, say­ing, Today’s deci­sion by the state Supreme Court thank­ful­ly ends the death penal­ty in Washington. … This is a huge­ly impor­tant moment in our pur­suit for equal and fair appli­ca­tion of justice.” 

The court issued the rul­ing in the case of Allen Gregory (pic­tured, bot­tom row, sec­ond from the right), an African-American man sen­tenced to death for the rape and mur­der of a white woman. In declar­ing the death penal­ty uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, the court cit­ed recent research that found Washington juries were more than three times more like­ly to impose a death sen­tence on a black defen­dant than on a white defen­dant in a sim­i­lar case. Given the evi­dence before this court and our judi­cial notice of implic­it and overt racial bias against black defen­dants in this state, we are con­fi­dent that the asso­ci­a­tion between race and the death penal­ty is not attrib­uted to ran­dom chance,” the opin­ion stat­ed. The opin­ion also cit­ed arbi­trary deci­sion-mak­ing, ran­dom impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty, unre­li­a­bil­i­ty, geo­graph­ic rar­i­ty, and exces­sive delays” as sys­temic con­sti­tu­tion­al flaws sup­port­ing the court’s decision.

Washington has not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion since 2010. King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg said that the court’s rul­ing had final­ly brought to an end Washington’s four-decade exper­i­ment with the death penal­ty.” Satterberg, a Republican, who with Democratic Attorney General Bob Ferguson sup­port­ed bipar­ti­san leg­is­la­tion to abol­ish Washington’s death penal­ty, said I think the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem will be stronger with­out cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” The abo­li­tion bill, which was the sub­ject of leg­isla­tive hear­ings dur­ing the 2018 state leg­isla­tive ses­sion, passed the Washington Senate and the House judi­cia­ry com­mit­tee, but did not receive a vote in the full House.

(Rachel La Corte and Gene Johnson, Washington jus­tices toss death penal­ty as arbi­trary, unfair, Associated Press, October 11, 2018; Lynsi Burton, Wash. Supreme Court declares death penal­ty uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, Seattle PI, October 11, 2018; Christine Clarridge and Lewis Kamb, Death penal­ty struck down by Washington Supreme Court, tak­ing 8 men off death row, Seattle Times, October 11, 2018; Press Release, Inslee state­ment regard­ing Supreme Court deci­sion inval­i­dat­ing Washington’s death penal­ty, Office of Governor Jay Inslee, October 11, 2018.) Read the Washington Supreme Court’s deci­sion in State v. Gregory. See Race and Arbitrariness.

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