Current Events > Washington state court throws out death penalty, calling it racist.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Washington's Supreme Court unanimously struck down the state's death penalty Thursday, ruling that it had been used in an arbitrary and racially discriminatory manner.

Washington has had a moratorium on executions since 2014, but the ruling makes it the 20th state to do away with capital punishment by legislative act or court decree. The court converted the sentences of the eight people on Washington's death row to life in prison.

"The death penalty is unequally applied -- sometimes by where the crime took place, or the county of residence, or the available budgetary resources at any given point in time, or the race of the defendant," Chief Justice Mary Fairhurst wrote in the lead opinion. Our capital punishment law lacks 'fundamental fairness."'

Defense lawyers had long challenged the death penalty on those grounds, noting the state's worst mass murderers and serial killers, Green River killer Gary Ridgway among them, had received life terms, not death. In a 5-4 ruling in 2006, the justices rejected an argument from a death row inmate that he shouldn't be executed because Ridgway hadn't been executed.

This time, death penalty critics were armed with more data about how capital punishment works, including a statistical analysis by University of Washington sociologists. Their report showed that although prosecutors were not more likely to seek the execution of black defendants, juries were about four times more likely to sentence black defendants to death.

"Now the information is plainly before us. To the extent that race distinguishes the cases, it is clearly impermissible and unconstitutional."

Gov. Jay Inslee, a one-time supporter of capital punishment, imposed the 2014 moratorium. In a written statement, the Democrat called the ruling "a hugely important moment in our pursuit for equal and fair application of justice."

"The court makes it perfectly clear that capital punishment in our state has been imposed in an `arbitrary and racially biased manner,' is `unequally applied' and serves no criminal justice goal," Inslee wrote.

The ruling came in the case of Allen Eugene Gregory, a black man who was convicted of raping, robbing and killing Geneine Harshfield, a 43-year-old woman, in 1996.

His lawyers, Neil Fox and Lila Silverstein, said the death penalty is arbitrarily applied and that it is not applied proportionally, as the state Constitution requires.

"However one feels about the propriety of capital punishment in theory, in practice the death penalty is imposed in an unfair, arbitrary, and racially biased manner,"

Dozens of former state judges took the unusual step of urging the court to use Gregory's case to strike down capital punishment. Among them was former Justice Faith Ireland, who sided with the narrow majority in upholding capital punishment in 2006.

Attorney General Bob Ferguson said he would press the Legislature to make the sole punishment for aggravated murder life in prison without release. The court did not reconsider any of Gregory's arguments pertaining to guilt, noting that his conviction for aggravated first-degree murder "has already been appealed and affirmed by this court."

Earlier this year, the state Senate passed a measure abolishing the death penalty, but it failed to pass in the House.

"There is a profound shift in our state and country that the death penalty is below us as a civil, just and moral society," Democratic Sen. Reuven Carlyle, who had been a sponsor of those previous attempts, said in a text message.

Full Article: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/washington-state-court-throws-out-death-penalty-calling-it-racially-biased


I don't get it. If they know juries are racist, how come it's only the death penalty they are changing and nto the jury/legal system?
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That's great. I love how clear and logical their justification is. Your final question is just asking why they don't change the system instead of working within it. One is hard and the other is impossible.
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rikasa posted...

That's great. I love how clear and logical their justification is. Your final question is just asking why they don't change the system instead of working within it. One is hard and the other is impossible.

But they say that they conclusively believe it is undeniable that the jury is racist and therefore the death penalty is not fairly applied.

But if the jury is racist and the government accepts that, how can you say "But it only matters with the death penalty! No other punishments."?

Seems like a slap in the face to black men to say that you don't care about that
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Good. I am against it. It should be banned everywhere

I think they do care about that other stuff. Can't let an inability to change everything stop you from changing anything.
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the data they cited was specific to the death penalty
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rikasa posted...

I think they do care about that other stuff. Can't let an inability to change everything stop you from changing anything.

Sounds a little handwavey to me.

If you go into a grocery store and find out they charge you 20% more than everyone else because you're gay and then go "Well that's a problem, okay we'll stop selling TVs. That'll solve the problem." just kinda feels like dancing around the issue.

I'm against the Death Penalty so I support this but it doesn't feel like a solution to "The problem is the juries are racist."

In fact it seems to downplay that problem. "Well the black folk can't die now so who cares?" seems dismissive.
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The death penalty shouldn't be used anyway tbqh.
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UnfairRepresent posted...

rikasa posted...

I think they do care about that other stuff. Can't let an inability to change everything stop you from changing anything.

Sounds a little handwavey to me.

If you go into a grocery store and find out they charge you 20% more than everyone else because you're gay and then go "Well that's a problem, okay we'll stop selling TVs. That'll solve the problem." just kinda feels like dancing around the issue.

I'm against the Death Penalty so I support this but it doesn't feel like a solution to "The problem is the juries are racist."

In fact it seems to downplay that problem. "Well the black folk can't die now so who cares?" seems dismissive.

Thats not what happened though.

Itd be more like they found out that they charge gay people 20% more for TVs so they decided to not sell TVs.
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Zikten posted...

Good. I am against it. It should be banned everywhere

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Good
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It should just be banned because it's a bad thing, but getting it out under any pretense works.
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LinksLiege posted...

It should just be banned because it's a bad thing, but getting it out under any pretense works.

I guess....
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AlephZero posted...

The death penalty shouldn't be used anyway tbqh.

Sure but according to this logic, if the jury wasn't racist they would bring it back.
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The death penalty isn't always that bad of a thing. I'm against the state executing people, but in many cases people who are obviously guilty of murder can choose to please guilty in exchange for life in prison instead of the death penalty. This saves quite a bit of expenses and court time, and the option is not available if you do away with the death penalty.
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frozenshock posted...

The death penalty isn't always that bad of a thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6josPnHF94" data-time="
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Instead of killing people outright they will lock them in a room for 60 years with no hope of freedom until they die anyway.
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UnfairRepresent posted...

frozenshock posted...

The death penalty isn't always that bad of a thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6josPnHF94" data-time="

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwDGu2SEUPY" data-time="
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UnfairRepresent posted...

I don't get it. If they know juries are racist, how come it's only the death penalty they are changing and nto the jury/legal system?

Courts can't change that, unless a case is brought to them about it.