Washington State Senate votes to abolish the death penalty for the third year in a row

Moments ago, the Wash­ing­ton State Sen­ate vot­ed for the third con­sec­u­tive year to adopt leg­is­la­tion that per­ma­nent­ly abol­ish­es the death penal­ty in Wash­ing­ton State, acknowl­edg­ing and cement­ing an Octo­ber 2018 State Supreme Court deci­sion that con­vert­ed all death sen­tences to life sen­tences.

Sen­ate Bill 5339, spon­sored by Sen­a­tor Reuven Car­lyle, passed on a vote of twen­ty-eight to eigh­teen, with three excused, after a fair­ly low-key floor debate, with Sen­a­tor Karen Keis­er, Pres­i­dent Pro Tem­pore, presiding.

The roll call was as follows:

SB 5339
Death penal­ty elimination
Sen­ate vote on 3rd Read­ing & Final Passage
1/31/2020

Yeas: 28; Nays: 18; Excused: 3

Vot­ing Yea: Sen­a­tors Bil­lig, Car­lyle, Cleve­land, Con­way, Darneille, Das, Dhin­gra, Frockt, Hasegawa, Hawkins, Hunt, Keis­er, Kud­er­er, Liias, Lovelett, Mul­let, Muz­za­ll, Nguyen, Ped­er­sen, Ran­dall, Rolfes, Sal­daña, Salomon, Stan­ford, Walsh, War­nick, Well­man, Wil­son (Claire)

Vot­ing Nay: Sen­a­tors Beck­er, Braun, Brown, For­tu­na­to, Hobbs, Hon­ey­ford, King, O’Ban, Pad­den, Rivers, Schoesler, Shel­don, Short, Takko, Van De Wege, Wag­oner, Wil­son (Lyn­da), Zeiger

Excused: Sen­a­tors Erick­sen, Holy, McCoy

Like last year, Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tors Dean Takko, Kevin Van De Wege, and Steve Hobbs vot­ed against abo­li­tion. Their votes were off­set by Repub­li­cans Mau­reen Walsh, Brad Hawkins, and Judy War­nick, who vot­ed aye. The cham­ber’s newest Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor, Ron Muz­za­ll, (R‑10th Dis­trict: Island Coun­ty) also vot­ed aye, break­ing with his pre­de­ces­sor Bar­bara Bai­ley, who cast a nay vote last year.

So, in total, four Repub­li­cans crossed the aisle this year to sup­port abo­li­tion, while three Democ­rats crossed the aisle to defeat it.

Repub­li­can Sen­a­tors Doug Erick­sen and Jeff Holy missed the vote, as did Demo­c­ra­t­ic Sen­a­tor John McCoy. Erick­sen and Holy vot­ed nay last year, while McCoy vot­ed aye. Had they all been present and vot­ing, the vote this year on death penal­ty abo­li­tion would have been twen­ty-nine to twenty.

Research com­mis­sioned by the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute in 2018 found an over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of Wash­ing­to­ni­ans of all polit­i­cal per­sua­sions in sup­port of life in prison alter­na­tives to the death penal­ty. 69% endorsed a form of life in prison as a pun­ish­ment for heinous mur­ders, while just 24% expressed a pref­er­ence for retain­ing the death penal­ty, which was sub­se­quent­ly struck down by the Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court, as men­tioned earlier.

“For more than ten years, I have worked with col­leagues to help build con­sen­sus that mov­ing beyond the death penal­ty is in the best inter­est of the peo­ple of this state,” Car­lyle said in a state­ment sent to NPI. “I’m deeply appre­cia­tive of the thought­ful and gra­cious con­ver­sa­tion with the fam­i­lies of vic­tims, and the recog­ni­tion that this is a moral, pol­i­cy, finan­cial and com­mu­ni­ty issue that requires deep reflec­tion and a com­mit­ment to ele­vate the civic discourse.”

“I’m hon­ored to have spon­sored this mea­sure for many years because we as a civic soci­ety have moved beyond the death penalty.”

“This leg­is­la­tion rep­re­sents us tak­ing a stand and tak­ing the death penal­ty off the books. I’m hon­ored the Sen­ate has passed this for the third time in three years, bring­ing us in line with the posi­tion of the gov­er­nor and the courts.”

“The Wash­ing­ton State Supreme Court has struck down the death penal­ty four times, and until now, we repeat­ed­ly tried to ‘fix’ the legal prob­lems,” Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son said. “Enough is enough. This bill gives clar­i­ty to pros­e­cu­tors and the pub­lic, end­ing the cycle of try­ing to fix this bro­ken and irrepara­ble law. The House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives can send a pow­er­ful mes­sage that the peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton state are part of the nation­wide move­ment to use finite crim­i­nal jus­tice resources in ways that are fair, equi­table, and effective.”

Pri­or to Sen­ate Bill 5339’s pas­sage, sev­er­al Repub­li­can sen­a­tors rose to decry the idea of Wash­ing­ton State join­ing the rest of the civ­i­lized world in doing away with a bar­bar­ic and anti­quat­ed pun­ish­ment. Sev­er­al talked about doing right by the vic­tims of heinous mur­ders, argu­ing that tak­ing away the “ulti­mate pun­ish­ment” did­n’t make sense. But what does not make any sense is spend­ing enor­mous sums of mon­ey to kill peo­ple who are con­vict­ed of killing oth­er people.

An eye for an eye is not jus­tice. The death penal­ty does not make our com­mu­ni­ties safer. It does not bring clo­sure to vic­tims. It does not deter crime. And it can­not be reversed or undone in the event that our judi­cial sys­tem makes a mis­take and sen­tences an inno­cent per­son for a mur­der they did not commit.

Advances in foren­sic sci­ence and DNA evi­dence notwith­stand­ing, courts of law are run by human beings, and human beings make mis­takes. There is no way to guar­an­tee that a per­son con­vict­ed of mur­der is actu­al­ly guilty. Con­se­quent­ly, it is imper­a­tive that we do away with the death penal­ty, as oth­er democ­ra­cies around the world have done, and sen­tence peo­ple con­vict­ed of mur­der to life in prison.

It’s heart­en­ing to see this bill pass once again with bipar­ti­san sup­port. Thanks to the four Repub­li­cans who put their prin­ci­ples first and vot­ed aye.

The Sen­ate has done its duty to push an impor­tant, long over­due human rights advance for­ward once more. Now the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives must act and send this noble leg­is­la­tion to Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee for his signature.