With Bipartisan Sponsors, Washington Attorney General, Governor Propose Bill to Abolish State’s Death Penalty

With the sup­port of a bipar­ti­san group of state offi­cials and leg­is­la­tors, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson (pic­tured) and Governor Jay Inslee have pro­posed leg­is­la­tion to repeal the state’s death penal­ty and replace it with a sen­tence of life with­out parole. At a news con­fer­ence announc­ing the bill, Ferguson, a Democrat, was joined by for­mer Attorney General Rob McKenna, a Republican, in call­ing for abo­li­tion. The bill will be spon­sored by Republican Senator Mark Miloscia and Democratic Representative Tina Orwall. 

“Legislatures are act­ing on this impor­tant issue with up-and-down votes,” Ferguson said dur­ing the news con­fer­ence. ​“And it’s time for Washington, the state Legislature here, to take that vote.” The state’s death penal­ty, he said, ​“isn’t work­ing any­more. It is time to move on.” 

Governor Inslee said the evi­dence about the death penal­ty ​“is absolute­ly clear. … Death-penal­ty sen­tences are unequal­ly applied in the state of Washington, they are fre­quent­ly over­turned and they are always cost­ly.” Inslee, who imposed a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in 2014 and issued a reprieve to Clark Richard Elmore on December 29, 2016, said, ​“I could not in good con­science allow exe­cu­tions to con­tin­ue under my watch as gov­er­nor under these conditions.” 

Washington juries have imposed few death sen­tence in recent years, and two high-pro­file mur­der cas­es end­ed in life sen­tences. In response, the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys called for a vot­er ref­er­en­dum on the issue. A 2015 Seattle University study exam­in­ing the costs of the death penal­ty in the state found that each death penal­ty pros­e­cu­tion cost an aver­age of $1 mil­lion more than a sim­i­lar case in which the death penal­ty was not sought. 

Despite bipar­ti­san sup­port, the future of the abo­li­tion bill is uncer­tain. A 2015 repeal bill, also spon­sored by Miloscia, nev­er received a committee hearing.