Victory! House Judiciary Committee advances bill to abolish the death penalty (SB 6052)

Leg­is­la­tion to abol­ish the death penal­ty moved a step clos­er to Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee’s desk today when the House Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee vot­ed along par­ty lines to advance Sen­ate Bill 6052, prime spon­sored by Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor Mau­reen Walsh.

[Watch the exec­u­tive ses­sion on TVW.]

Hav­ing been report­ed out of com­mit­tee with a “do pass” rec­om­men­da­tion, SB 6052 now heads to House Rules, where a deter­mi­na­tion will be made regard­ing whether to put it on the floor cal­en­dar for con­sid­er­a­tion by the full state House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. The Sen­ate vot­ed last week to pass the bill by a vote of twen­ty-six to twen­ty-two, with five Repub­li­cans vot­ing aye and four Democ­rats vot­ing nay.

The vote in favor of giv­ing the bill a “do pass” rec­om­men­da­tion was as follows:

DEMOCRATS VOTING FOR A “DO PASS” RECOMMENDATION

• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Lau­rie Jink­ins (Com­mit­tee Chair)
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Tina Orwall
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Roger Goodman
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Steve Kirby
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Chris Kilduff
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Javier Valdez
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Drew Hansen

REPUBLICANS VOTING AGAINST ADVANCING THE BILL

• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Brad Klippert
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jay Rodne
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Paul Graves
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Lar­ry Haler
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Dick Muri
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Matt Shea

The bill left com­mit­tee with­out being amend­ed, although Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Steve Kir­by expressed a desire to attach a ref­er­en­dum clause to the bill (which would sub­ject the leg­is­la­tion to a pub­lic vote this Novem­ber) on the floor.

NPI strong­ly oppos­es plac­ing a ref­er­en­dum clause on Sen­ate Bill 6052. We elect our leg­is­la­tors to make informed, dif­fi­cult deci­sions on our behalf, and this bill exem­pli­fies the kind of leg­is­la­tion that is well suit­ed for the leg­isla­tive process as opposed to the ini­tia­tive or ref­er­en­dum process.

Our Gov­er­nor, our Attor­ney Gen­er­al, imme­di­ate past Attor­ney Gen­er­al, and law­mak­ers and pros­e­cu­tors from both par­ties all agree the time has come to abol­ish the death penal­ty in Wash­ing­ton State.

The Sen­ate has vot­ed; now the House should take up this bill and hold a vote.

NPI urges mem­bers of the House Repub­li­can cau­cus to fol­low Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ter­ry Nealey’s lead and con­sid­er vot­ing in favor of pass­ing Sen­ate Bill 6052.

Nealey joined with Attor­neys Gen­er­al Fer­gu­son and McKen­na to kick off Fer­gu­son’s push for abo­li­tion last year, not­ing in a statement:

As a for­mer pros­e­cut­ing attor­ney for Colum­bia Coun­ty, my heart remains with the fam­i­lies of the vic­tims who suf­fered hor­rif­ic acts that would jus­ti­fy the death penal­ty. Their feel­ings should nev­er be min­i­mal­ized. That is why it has tak­en so long for my thoughts to evolve against the death penal­ty in Wash­ing­ton state. How­ev­er, the steps, the immense and extend­ed time, and the incred­i­ble expense and resources it takes to impose and uphold this most severe form of pun­ish­ment have made the death penal­ty near­ly impos­si­ble to car­ry out. In recent years, even in the most heinous crimes, jurors have failed to impose the death penal­ty. In the mean­time, fam­i­lies suf­fer for years with the angst of hav­ing to go through tri­als, court pro­ceed­ings, appeals and more, not know­ing if the death penal­ty will ever take place.

There are many good argu­ments against abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty. Per­haps the best argu­ment of all is that human beings are fal­li­ble, which means there is always a pos­si­bil­i­ty that an inno­cent per­son could be put to death for a crime they did not com­mit. This has unfor­tu­nate­ly hap­pened many times.

A few peo­ple wrong­ly giv­en death sen­tences have been exon­er­at­ed thanks to the incred­i­ble work of The Inno­cence Net­work, which has a local affil­i­ate at the UW. But oth­ers have been killed despite main­tain­ing their innocence.

By end­ing the death penal­ty, we can ensure that we as a soci­ety nev­er again take the life of a per­son con­vict­ed of a crime they did­n’t commit.

Life, lib­er­ty, and the pur­suit of hap­pi­ness are the Amer­i­can way. Life is one of our fore­most val­ues. Every per­son deserves to live. By get­ting rid of the death penal­ty, we reaf­firm our com­mit­ment to the val­ue of life and join the rest of the devel­oped world in declar­ing that human rights are sacred to us as Americans.