Edi­tor’s Note: The fol­low­ing is the text of NPI founder Andrew Vil­leneu­ve’s tes­ti­mo­ny in sup­port of Sen­ate Bill 5339, prime spon­sored by Sen­a­tor Reuven Car­lyle. This bill would end the death penal­ty once and for all in Wash­ing­ton State.

Chair Ped­er­sen and Mem­bers of the Committee:

Thank you for hear­ing Sen­ate Bill 5339 this morning.

On behalf of the team at the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, who work tire­less­ly to raise our region and coun­try’s qual­i­ty of life through insight­ful research and imag­i­na­tive advo­ca­cy, I urge you to advance this vital leg­is­la­tion with a “do pass” rec­om­men­da­tion so that it can be con­sid­ered by the full State Senate.

Last year’s his­toric vote to repeal the death penal­ty was a water­shed moment for the Sen­ate. Although the bill did not receive a vote on the floor of the State House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, it nev­er­the­less advanced the cause of equi­table jus­tice and human rights in Wash­ing­ton. Fol­low­ing the Sen­ate’s his­toric vote, our team decid­ed to gauge pub­lic sup­port for life in prison alter­na­tives to the death penal­ty after the 2018 Leg­isla­tive Ses­sion adjourned Sine Die. In May of 2018, we went into the field with our sur­vey, which asked the fol­low­ing question:

Of the fol­low­ing list of choic­es, which pun­ish­ment do you pre­fer for peo­ple con­vict­ed of mur­der: life in prison with NO pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole, life in prison with NO pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole and a require­ment to work in prison and pay resti­tu­tion to the vic­tims, life in prison with a pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole after at least forty years, or the death penalty?

The answers were as follows:

• Pre­fer Life In Prison… (69% total) 
  • … With No Pos­si­bil­i­ty Of Parole: 10%
  • … With No Pos­si­bil­i­ty Of Parole And A Require­ment To Work in Prison And Pay Resti­tu­tion To The Vic­tims: 46%
  • … With A Pos­si­bil­i­ty Of Parole After At Least Forty Years: 13%
• Pre­fer The Death Penal­ty: 24%
• Not Sure: 8%

Time for abo­li­tion in Wash­ing­ton State: End the death penalty

Our sur­vey of six hun­dred and sev­en­ty-five like­ly 2018 Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers was in the field May 22nd-23rd, 2018. The sur­vey used a blend­ed method­ol­o­gy with auto­mat­ed phone calls to land­lines and online inter­views of cell phone only respon­dents. The poll was con­duct­ed by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling for NPI, and has a mar­gin of error of +/- 3.8% at the 95% con­fi­dence level.

What we found most strik­ing about the respons­es were that not a sin­gle sub­sam­ple with­in the sur­vey favored the death penal­ty… not even Don­ald Trump vot­ers. Trump vot­ers favor life in prison by the slimmest of mar­gins: 48% of them picked one of the three alter­na­tives, while 46% want to keep the death penalty.

What this tells us is that there is broad agree­ment across the ide­o­log­i­cal spec­trum for get­ting rid of the prac­tice of putting peo­ple con­vict­ed of mur­der to death. Wash­ing­to­ni­ans increas­ing­ly agree: there is no humane way to kill some­one. Life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole should replace the death penalty.

There are many, many excel­lent rea­sons to abol­ish the death penal­ty, but per­haps the best one of all is that judges and juries are human. They make mis­takes. Con­se­quent­ly, our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem can­not guar­an­tee that an inno­cent per­son will nev­er be sen­tenced to death for a crime of murder.

On that basis alone, we should abol­ish the death penalty.

A per­son sen­tenced to life in prison can be exon­er­at­ed for a crime they did not com­mit, and freed from prison. The Inno­cence Project has helped free dozens of wrong­ly con­vict­ed peo­ple since its incep­tion in 1992.

A per­son killed by the state, on the oth­er hand, can­not be brought back. Once some­one has been killed, they’re gone. If we tru­ly val­ue life, lib­er­ty, and the pur­suit of hap­pi­ness, then we need to end the death penalty.

Our polling clear­ly shows that Wash­ing­to­ni­ans of all polit­i­cal per­sua­sions are ready.

Last autumn, our Supreme Court con­vert­ed all exist­ing death sen­tences to life impris­on­ment when it found our exist­ing death penal­ty statute uncon­sti­tu­tion­al.

Now the Leg­is­la­ture has an oppor­tu­ni­ty to fin­ish the work that needs to be done. Let’s get this dis­crim­i­na­to­ry and unjust statute off our books, and let the world com­mu­ni­ty know that here in Wash­ing­ton, we val­ue human rights.

Thank you.