Washington state passes bill repealing death penalty law

Washington has become the 23rd state to end the death penalty after Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, signed Senate Bill 5087 into law on Thursday.

The bill also bans forced chemical castration as a punishment for a crime. The measure was passed in the state Legislature earlier this month.

“I initiated a moratorium against the death penalty in Washington State in 2014, and our rationale for that decision was affirmed by our (state) Supreme Court decision in 2018, when they invalidated the death penalty statute,” Inslee said during the bill signing Thursday.

“They made clear, and we know this to be true, that the penalty has been applied unequally and in a racially insensitive manner.”

The Washington state Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty in 2018, saying it was inconsistently applied. It found factors like the location of the crime and race often played into whether someone received the death penalty or a life sentence.

Since 1976, 1,568 people have been executed in the U.S. Fifty-five percent were white, and 75 percent of their victims were white, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

A 2011 Louisiana Law Review study found that the accused were 97 percent more likely to be given the death penalty if their victim was white than if they were black.

Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia have banned the death penalty, either through legislation or their supreme courts. Three more have governor-mandated moratoriums on executions.

The Washington bill came under fire from some Republicans, including state Rep. Jim Walsh, who called it “rushed.”

“On Good Friday, with few media outlets or people paying attention, the House debated and passed this extremely divisive measure on a nearly party-line vote,” Walsh said in a floor debate.

“The bill claims to be a collection of narrow, technical corrections. It is not. In fact, it’s a fundamental change to state law with regard to the state’s use of the death penalty in certain cases of violent crimes.”

10 prisoners have been executed so far this year in the U.S., half of which were in Texas. Last year, 18 people were executed, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

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