Governor Inslee halts death penalty: “During my term, we will not be executing people”

Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee this morn­ing imposed a mora­to­ri­um on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment while he is Wash­ing­ton State’s chief exec­u­tive, declar­ing at a news con­fer­ence in Olympia that after much reflec­tion and dis­cus­sion with vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, police, and pros­e­cu­tors, he had come to the con­clu­sion that equal jus­tice was­n’t being served.

“If a death penal­ty case comes to my desk for action, I will issue a reprieve,” Inslee told reporters. “What this means is that those on death row will remain in prison for the rest of their lives. Nobody is get­ting out of prison, period.”

“I have pre­vi­ous­ly sup­port­ed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment,” he went on. “And I don’t ques­tion the hard work and judg­ment of the coun­ty pros­e­cu­tors who bring these cas­es or the judges who rule on them. But my review of the law in Wash­ing­ton State and my respon­si­bil­i­ties as Gov­er­nor have led me to reeval­u­ate that position.”

“With my action today, I expect Wash­ing­ton State will join a grow­ing national
con­ver­sa­tion about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. I wel­come that, and I’m con­fi­dent that our
cit­i­zens will engage in this very impor­tant debate.”

This is tru­ly a great day for the State of Wash­ing­ton. We extend our deep­est and most heart­felt thanks to Gov­er­nor Inslee for this just, moral, and wise deci­sion. Our state has long been in need of elect­ed lead­ers who are capa­ble of real lead­er­ship. It takes courage and good judg­ment to be a real leader.

Jay Inslee showed both courage and sound judg­ment today, and for that, we applaud him. This is one of his finest hours as our state’s chief executive.

While the death penal­ty in Wash­ing­ton still needs to be repealed, plac­ing a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions is a cru­cial­ly impor­tant first step towards out­law­ing this bar­bar­ic and inhu­mane prac­tice. The death penal­ty sim­ply has no place in a mod­ern soci­ety. It goes against our state’s finest tra­di­tion­al val­ues. It needs to end.

The evi­dence shows that the death penal­ty does not deter crime, nor does it pro­vide clo­sure to the fam­i­lies of vic­tims. The tak­ing of life sim­ply does not jus­ti­fy the tak­ing of fur­ther life. Fur­ther­more, the risk of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son can­not be elim­i­nat­ed. On that basis alone, the death penal­ty should be abolished.

Sen­a­tor Jea­nine Kohl-Welles, who serves with NPI Pres­i­dent Gael Tar­leton in the Leg­is­la­ture from the 36th Dis­trict, called Inslee’s move “sim­ple and profound”.

“Cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment can nev­er bring about jus­tice, as it is a far harsh­er pun­ish­ment to vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, com­mu­ni­ties and tax­pay­ers than it ever could be for the per­pe­tra­tor,” Kohl-Welles said in a state­ment prais­ing Inslee.

“There is noth­ing straight­for­ward about this issue. But I hope the governor’s mora­to­ri­um will give us the nec­es­sary pause to re-eval­u­ate the way we think about crime, pun­ish­ment and crime pre­ven­tion in Washington.”

Reuven Car­lyle, the 36th LD’s oth­er state law­mak­er, voiced the same sentiments.

“I deeply appre­ci­ate Gov­er­nor Inslee’s actions today and lead­er­ship around the impor­tance of an open, healthy, vibrant pub­lic dia­logue about con­vert­ing our death penal­ty into life impris­on­ment with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole,” Car­lyle said.”

“As the spon­sor of leg­is­la­tion for the past five years on this top­ic I feel a pro­found sense of moral respon­si­bil­i­ty to ele­vate the dia­logue in our state. It is a pow­er­ful indi­ca­tion of the chang­ing sen­ti­ment in Wash­ing­ton State and nation­al­ly when we see eigh­teen states that have out­lawed the death penal­ty and sev­en states have imposed a mora­to­ri­um. For all of us in pub­lic life, the pain of know­ing the suf­fer­ing of vic­tims must be bal­anced with an equi­table, enforce­able pub­lic policy.

“I believe the death penal­ty is below us as a civ­i­lized soci­ety and I look for­ward to a respect­ful, authen­tic pub­lic con­ver­sa­tion about leg­is­la­tion on this issue.”

Kohl-Welles and Car­lyle have for years spon­sored leg­is­la­tion to repeal the death penal­ty in Wash­ing­ton, which we at NPI appreciate.

“Gov­er­nor Inslee’s action today announc­ing his mora­to­ri­um on the death penal­ty was a coura­geous act of lead­er­ship based on prac­ti­cal con­sid­er­a­tions of its enor­mous costs and its unfair­ness,” said the Amer­i­can Civ­il Lib­er­ties Union of Wash­ing­ton, adding, “Who receives the death penal­ty depends more on geog­ra­phy and eco­nom­ic means than any­thing else. The ACLU con­grat­u­lates the Gov­er­nor and looks for­ward to work­ing with the Legislature.”

Over the last few years, six states have done away with the death penal­ty, and we look for­ward to the day when Wash­ing­ton joins them.

With Gov­er­nor Inslee’s coura­geous action today, we at least know no one will be put to death by the state over the next three years.