The Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys has the right idea to push for direction on the death penalty. The final decision should rest with Olympia lawmakers, who need to exhibit moral leadership, take a vote and say no to capital punishment.
WASHINGTON’S death penalty is an albatross — a massively expensive punishment, applied unevenly, that needs to be abolished.
The Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys has the right idea. Sensing a shift in public opinion, the group, whose membership is split, sent a letterto the Legislature asking that a referendum on the death penalty be sent to voters in 2016.
A better idea is for lawmakers to take up this issue, explore the waste of public resources and inequity in its application, and pass a law repealing the death penalty. Gov. Jay Inslee, who announced a moratorium on executions during his tenure, has said that he would sign it.
Bills with bipartisan support have been introduced in Olympia. But so far, none have even squeaked out of committee. A ballot measure that fails could set this abolition movement back.
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Forty years ago, Washingtonians voted for Initiative 316 to support capital punishment. As the prosecutors note in their statement, most residents today didn’t participate in that election. This is a tough issue for public servants who’ve seen the worst of the worst and work to comfort the families of murder victims. The prosecutors are not taking a formal position, pro or con. Instead, as they write, we “want to know that when we embark on the long and difficult process of capital punishment for the worst crimes inflicted upon our community that we are doing so with the support and approval of the people we represent.”
In two recent, horrific cases, King County juries have opted against the death penalty. Joseph McEnroe, who murdered six members of his girlfriend’s family in 2007, including a 3-year-old and a 6-year-old, was spared. So, too, was Christopher Monfort, who murdered Seattle police officer Timothy Brenton on Halloween night 2009.
King County, like Pierce and Snohomish counties, still has the resources to seek the death penalty. According to a Seattle University study, capital cases in Washington cost an extra $1 million on average. In practice that means defendants are much more likely to face the death penalty if the crime is committed in a wealthier county. It’s an arbitrary version of justice by geography.
Inslee’s 2014 moratorium did not settle the question. State Attorney General Bob Ferguson still defends the state against cases brought by death-row inmates challenging their sentences. And a prosecutor anywhere in the state could seek a death-penalty case tomorrow.
Washington thankfully isn’t burdened with some of the systemic death-penalty outrages that characterize other states, from racial disparity to prosecutorial misconduct. And most of those executed in the state over the last three decades have told their attorneys not to bother with appeals. Eighteen men in Washington have had their death-penalty sentences reversed by appellate courts.
State lawmakers should take a stand.