The death penalty in Washington
What do we do about crime if there is no death penalty?
The death penalty as ultimate punishment
Particularly egregious killers
The victim's family
Religious arguments
Length of time between conviction and execution
Cost of the death penalty
Abortion: consistency with the death penalty
Fairness
Public support
Methods of execution
Racism and the death penalty in Washington State

The Death Penalty in Washington

Washington's current death penalty statute was enacted in 1981. Under this law, when a person is charged with aggravated first degree murder (first degree murder combined with one of the specific aggravating circumstances defined by the law), the prosecutor has thirty days to decide whether or not to seek a death sentence in that case (this thirty-day period is sometimes extended).

If the prosecutor decides to seek the death penalty, there will be a two-part trial. In the "guilt" phase, the jury decides whether or not the person is guilty of aggravated first degree murder. If the jury does convict the person of aggravated first degree murder, a second phase of the trial, the "penalty" phase, will occur. During that part of the trial, the defense has the opportunity to present "mitigating" evidence—any information that might argue for showing mercy in this case. Certain mitigating circumstances (e.g., age of defendant, mental retardation) are listed in the statute, but the defense is not limited to these in presenting mitigating evidence. At the close of the sentencing phase, the jury must decide whether or not to sentence the individual to life without parole or to death. The jury's decision must be final.

Life without Parole is a new penalty in Washington state, different than what is normally called a life sentence. Life without parole is exactly what it says; unless this sentence is commuted by the Governor, the person will not be released (e.g., cannot be released as a result of "good time" earned or get out on parole).

Lethal injection is the presumed method of execution in Washington state. Hanging is offered as an option, if chosen by the prisoner under sentence of death. If the prisoner does not make a choice, execution is by lethal injection.

What do we do about crime if there is no death penalty?

We are all concerned about crime, and would like the rate of crime to be reduced. The death penalty, however, is not an effective deterrent to crime.

• While the individual executed would certainly not commit another crime, research indicates the death penalty does not serve as a general deterrent to crime, that is, having the death penalty does not reduce the overall rate of crime.
• Murder rates are lower in states that have abolished the death penalty. In 1990, there was an average of 5.0 homicides per 100,000 population in states that had abolished the death penalty. In death penalty states without executions, the homicide rate was 6.0 per 100,000. The highest homicide rates were in death penalty states with executions: 9.7 homicides per 100,000.
• While murder rates have indeed increased everywhere in the past ten years, they have increased more in states with the death penalty.
• There have been many studies on the impact of the death penalty on the homicide rate; these studies have found no conclusive evidence that the death penalty acts as a deterrent. The reason is simple. The overwhelming majority of murders are irrational and passionate acts. Murder most often occurs during an uncontrolled rage or while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. The threat of a possible death sentence has little effect on a person incapable of rational thought. Those relatively few who plan their crimes rarely think they will be caught.

• One alternative to the death penalty is not having the death penalty at all. This alternative is practiced in a number of states and in every industrialized European country.
• In Washington, those found guilty of aggravated first degree murder may also be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, a new sentence established that is different then what is commonly thought of as a life sentence. Life without parole means life without parole.
• While life without Parole clearly may be considered by some as cruel, it still leaves people with their lives: the prisoner still has opportunities to make meaningful changes in his/her life, to make contributions to society, to relate to to family. Moreover, if a person sentenced to life without parole is later found to be innocent, that person can be released. There is no way to give life back to someone who's been executed.
• There is public support for alternatives to the death penalty. When pollsters give alternatives to the death penalty, such as 25 year minimum sentences with restitution to the family of the murder victim, support for the death penalty decreases dramatically.
• If we really want to decrease the level of violence, we should consider alternatives to the death penalty such as support services for children and family, good community mental health programs available to all who need them, training in conflict resolution, etc.

• There is a sense that those convicted of the death penalty have acted outside the boundaries of acceptable human behavior. In this way, the death penalty appears justified. But for us to then kill those people puts us in the same moral position as they are in—we become killers. The death penalty is wrong because it makes us killers.
• By killing those who kill, we teach that killing is sometimes right.
• The people on death row did not get there on their own. All of us—their families and communities—share the responsibility of making them people who could consider committing the brutal acts they committed. It's not fair for these individuals alone to take the punishment.
• The death penalty is the punishment in only a few murders. About 20,000 murders occur in the U.S. every year. Of those, only about 200 are selected as death penalty cases.
• It's difficult for us to imagine a murderer ever going on to lead a good life. In fact, however, research has proven that those who commit murder are generally less likely to re-offend than most other prisoners. Studies of those who were on death row who were later released because of court decisions prove this fact.
• There are, of course, individuals who have killed more than once and whose crimes especially horrify us. They are not, however, typical of the individuals on death row.
  
  Particularly Egregious Killers
  

• Charles Campbell: Whether or not we feel Charles Campbell deserves to live or not is not the issue. The issue is, should we, through our government, have killed him.
  • Campbell's murders were particularly horrifying because the victims testified against him in an earlier case. The murders were an act of revenge. When we executed Campbell, we acted on revenge as well.
  • The public was especially scared of Campbell because he re-offended while on work release. Yet under life without the possibility of parole. there is very, very little chance that he would have re-offended again.
  • Campbell didn't get where he is on his own. Early intervention and close supervision may have prevented his crimes. If we really want to prevent such murders, we need to take responsibility for creating and funding true crime prevention programs.
    
    
• Westley Dodd: Just because Wes wanted to die doesn't mean it was OK to execute him.
  • What we were being asked to do was to participate in a state-aided suicide/prisoner-assisted homicide. Just because someone wants to die, doesn't mean the state owes it to them to kill him/her. If anyone else wanted to commit suicide, the state wouldn't help.
  • Dodd manipulated the legal system all along. He asked to die because he thought it would be easier than living in prison for life. There are no other times we allow convicted persons to pick the sentence they'd like the most.
  • By acceding to Dodd's wish to die, we may have been promoting additional murders. Research indicates that some mentally ill/suicidal individuals commit murders in order to get a death sentence.
    
    
• Ted Bundy: Sociopathic killers like Ted Bundy are frightening. However, because of his mental illness, he had no fear of punishment. The death penalty, in fact, attracted rather than repelled Ted Bundy. He may have gone to Florida to commit murders because he knew it was the place he was most likely to be sentenced to death. Bundy refused a plea bargain that would have prevented him from being sentenced to death and appeared to thrive on the attention and publicity of the capital case. The death penalty may have encouraged his conduct.
  
  The Victim's Family
  
  Not all family members of murder victims want the death penalty.
  • In Washington's first post-Furman death penalty case, the mother of the victim opposed the death penalty. The state sought the death penalty despite her wishes.
  • Those charged with killing Silme Domingo, a Filipino Union Cannery Worker's employee murdered in Seattle, were charged with aggravated murder. His family opposed the death penalty.
  • Kerry Kennedy, daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy (who was assassinated), has been an outspoken opponent of the death penalty, as have other family members.
  • Coretta Scott King, widow of Martin Luther King Jr., has also spoken out against the death penalty. "An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by legalized murder."
    
    The death penalty does not serve the needs of victims' families.
    • The death penalty focuses the attention on the killer rather than the victim.
    • Seeking the death penalty increases the stakes, and ensures that the legal process will go on longer than if a lesser sentence were sought. Every time a case is appealed, or a death date set, the victim's family will again have to publicly deal with media about the murder and the killer. This long process can in fact prevent the victim's family from grieving and reaching closure.
    • In some cases, the victim's family is best able to reach closure if the person who committed the murder continues to live; in some cases, family members of murder victims have met with the killer. This would be impossible once a killer is executed.
      
      
    Revenue and retribution are natural and legitimate feelings. Families of victims should not be put down for feeling revenge or desiring retribution. At the same time, these are not the purposes of our criminal justice system. This is why prosecution is the responsibility of the state and not of the victims.
    
    Our concern for innocent victims and their families should extend to the families of those sentenced to death. Many on death row have mothers, fathers, children and other family members who will grieve their deaths.
    
    Religious Arguments
    
    While the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) provides for the death penalty, it also calls for incredible safeguards, making the death penalty rare and almost impossible to carry out.
    
    The major, mainstream Christian denominations have rejected the death penalty (Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian, UCC). Their understanding of the Christian tradition is that God commands them not to kill, but to forgive and trust that redemption and healing are possible.
    
    Length of Time Between Conviction and Execution
    
    Despite the length of appeals we continue to sentence innocent Persons to death. If the courts hadn't taken the time to review these convictions, some of these individuals would have been executed.
    
    We cannot sacrifice the right of those accused of capital crimes without sacrificing the rights of others accused. Like it or not, persons like Oliver North, Richard Nixon, and the bankers involved in the S & L scandal receive the same due process rights as those accused of death penalty crimes.
    
    Cost of the Death Penalty
    
    Because executions are irreversible, death sentences will almost always be appealed. It may take a long time to execute a person. but we can never brine an innocent person back to life. If we replace the death penalty with an alternative, the new system will likely be quicker and less expensive.
    
    Research on the death penalty indicates that death sentences cost the state more than life imprisonment. This is because death penalty trials are more expensive than other trials-more attorney time is required, more experts are generally used, the trial is more complex and takes more time, and there is an automatic appeal period (whether anyone wants it or not).
    
    Florida has spent an average of $3.2 million for each person it has executed since 1972. The comparable figure for Texas is $2 million per case that has gone through all levels of appeal. The cost of executing Ted Bundy was at least $6 million dollars.
    
    Death penalty draws away resources from other areas of criminal justice and prevents us from finding more effective ways of reducing crime. While the death penalty is a popular symbol of a "get tough on crime" stance, it has proven worthless as a solution to the problem of violent crime. States whose resources and energies are not drained by the use of capital punishment are able to develop more effective methods of reducing violence.
    
    We should not, of course, make decisions about the value of a person's life simply based on cost. But the figures make it clear that "saving money" is not a valid excuse for supporting the death penalty.
    
    The death penalty has a number of costs. The money we spend is only one of them. The other "costs" of the death penalty are: our inability to use the resources spent on the death penalty for more effective criminal justice initiatives; the execution of innocent people; and making us a society of killers.
    
    Abortion: consistency with the death penalty
    
    Each person has only limited time and energy to dedicate to public issues. Some death penalty opponents have decided to dedicate their energy soley to the death penalty issue.
    
    Those who oppose the death penalty are divided on the issue of abortion. As a movement we do not take a position on abortion.
    
    Death penalty opponents who support the right to abortion do not see these positions as inconsistent.
    • Both are predicated on the principle that the government has no moral, legal, or other authority to take a person's life or interfere in one's decisions about one's body.
    • There is a serious and legitimate argument about when life begins, and many people believe that abortion is not taking a human life.
      
      
    Death penalty opponents who oppose abortion take these positions because they believe they are consistent with valuing all life as sacred.
    
    Fairness
    
    The death penalty never has and never will be applied fairly across race, class. and sex lines. The new death penalty laws enacted in the late 70's and early 80's were supposed to eliminate disparity, but they have not done so.
    • Under these new laws, the biggest predictor of the death sentence is the race of the victim. Those who kill whites are four times as likely to receive a death sentence.
    • Nearly half of those on death row are people of color.
    • Even though whites and people of color are victims of crimes in about equal proportions, it is those who kill whites who end up on death row. While African Americans and Caucasians are victims of murder in about equal numbers, over 83% of those executed since 1977 were convicted of killing whites.
      
      
    The death penalty may, in fact, be less fair than any other sentence. Because we reserve the death penalty for the crimes that seem most heinous, we use it for the crimes that stir us up more than normal. When we select crimes for the death sentence, we're not dealing with rational issues, but with irrational feelings.
    
    The death penalty works like a rigged lottery. Approximately 20,000 murders are committed in the U.S. each year. Of those, about 200 result in death sentences. Those sentenced to die are not necessarily those whose crimes are the most atrocious. Instead, they tend to be people of color, poor people, and those whose victims are white. Other circumstances influencing the imposition of the death penalty include the attitude of the police and prosecutors, prejudice of the judges and juries, and skills of defense lawyers.
    
    Public support
    
    While polls seem to indicate there is public support for the death penalty a closer examination of polls demonstrates that this is not true.
    • When asked for their general feelings on the death penalty as a punishment for the crime of murder, the majority of Americans express strong support. However, when offered a range of sentencing options, respondents in several polls have shown a preference for imprisonment rather than execution.
    • A 1987 U.S. Department of Justice poll for instance found imprisonment favored over the death penalty by a 2 to 1 margin as the sentence for first degree murder.
    • Virtually every recent state poll has found the public ready to abolish capital punishment in favor of a sentence of 25 years or more, combined with some kind of restitution to the victim's family.
    
    Methods of Execution
    
    How we kill people isn't the point; the point is that we are killing people. There is no humane way to kill a person.
    • When we look at efforts to make executions more humane, we need to ask who we're making them humane for-the person being executed, or the executioners and witnesses.
    • Concern about the execution method may well mask a deeper concern about carrying out executions. While many people like the idea of the death penalty, actually carrying out death sentences is disturbing.
      
      
    Hanging is a barbaric and outmoded method of execution:
    • Only three other major Enqlish-speaking jurisdictions have hanging as an execution method: Montana (option of hanging or lethal injection), Delaware (lethal injection with hanging as option for those sentenced prior to 6/l3/86), and New Hampshire (no death sentences). [Note: this paragraph is in need of revision; several Carribean countries have re-introduced hanging since 1997.]
    • If done improperly the person being hanged could die a slow death by strangulation or be decapitated.
    • Hanging can be traumatic, not only for the person being executed, but for prison staff, witnesses, and the executioner. Prison staff in states where hanging has been used have reported suicidal thoughts, depression and other psychological problems. Larry Kincheloe (Director of Prisons in 1990) stated in a 1990 hearing that hanging can turn into a gruesome affair resulting in trauma for prison staff members, starting from the preparation to cleaning up afterward. "Either way, the prisoner ends up dead. But the trauma of this kind of thing (for the staff) can be immediate and lasting. The potential for dismemberment and quantities of blood spilled is very real."
    • Hangings have been botched in Washington State. Examples include a decapitation in the 1950s, and a strangulation that took 22 minutes in 1910. These mistakes occurred when executions were carried out by experienced hangmen.
      
      
    Lethal injection is not a guaranteed "quick and painless" execution method. Doctors note that extreme pain can result if the technician injects the chemicals intended to render the prisoner unconscious into muscle tissue rather than veins. If this happens, in addition to extreme pain, it can take much longer (up to five minutes rather than 30-60 seconds) to make the prisoner unconscious. A painful, protracted death can also result if the chemicals are given in the wrong order or in the wrong dosage. These human errors are bound to occur; the problem is aggravated when executing individuals with a history of drug addiction, many of whom have damaged veins.

  Racism and the Death Penalty in Washington State*

  Many studies have consistently demonstrated that race – the victims, the defendants, or both – plays a significant factor in whether death notices are filed and death sentences are imposed. A disturbing factor that was unveiled in the Illinois report was the fact that Illinois’ death row consisted of 66% African-Americans, of which 20% were convicted or condemned to die by all-white juries. Other studies have further demonstrated that death is disproportionately imposed on African-American defendants, and this trend is heightened when an African-American is charged/convicted of killing a white victim. These same issues are prevalent in Washington State.

  • Race of Defendants
    o Death has been sought in 40% of white defendant cases and in 31% of black defendant cases.
    o Death has been imposed in 14% of the white defendant cases and 17% of the black defendant cases.
  • Race of Victims
    o Death has been sought in 38% of white victim cases and in 11% of black victim cases.
    o Death has been imposed in 14% of the white victim cases and 6% of the black victim cases.
  • Cross-racial
    o Death notices have NEVER been filed in a case with a white defendant and black victim.
    o Death notices have been filed in 42% of the cases with a black defendant and a white victim.
    o Death sentences have NEVER been imposed in a case with a white defendant and black victim.
    o Death sentences have been imposed in 21% of the cases where there is black defendant and white victim.
  • Current death row
    o There are ten (10) individuals currently facing a sentence of death.
    o Five (50%) are black; five (50%) are white.
    o Nine cases involved a white victim; none involved a black victim.
    o Every juror that convicted and sentenced the black defendants was white.

  *Data compiled by Washington Death Penalty Assistance Center, May 2003