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Thread: Gary Ridgway "The Green River Killer"

  1. #31
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    'This is a slap in the face to crime victims'; WA House considers bill to end life without parole

    By FOX 13 Seattle

    OLYMPIA, Wash. - Some Republican lawmakers claim serial killer Gary Ridgway —the Green River Killer—could be released from prison if a bill passes that would eliminate life without parole.

    Senate Bill 5036
    passed the Washington State Senate without holding public hearing, and is now before the House of Representatives.

    Washington eliminated the death penalty in 2018 with the argument that you can sentence someone like Gary Ridgway to life in prison without parole. For the second year in a row, Senate Democrats want to change that.

    Ridgway admitted killing 49 people, and one of them was 15-year-old Debra Estes, sister of state representative Jenny Graham.

    "I did have a four-hour conversation with him, and he did say if he got out he would do this again," Graham told FOX 13 News on Tuesday.

    Ridgway accepted a plea to serve life in prison without parole to avoid the death penalty. SB 5036 includes a provision that says prisoners who've served a term of 25 years can ask the Clemency and Pardons Board to commute their sentence, therefore eliminating 'life without parole.'

    "This is absolutely, again, a slap in the face to the crime victims, Washington’s daughters, they don't deserve this," said Graham.

    If adopted, Ridgway will have completed his 25th year in prison in 2028 and would be eligible.

    Jenny Graham is not only the sister of a Ridgway victim, she’s also a state Republican representing from Spokane, and blames Democrats for writing a bill that treats serial killers, like Ridgway, like any other prisoner.

    "The fact that there is no carve-out for somebody like a Gary Ridgway—that stalked and murdered 50 people, most of them children, and he did it because he enjoyed it—is wrong," said Graham.

    SB 5036 passed the Senate in 2021 with the same democratic sponsor, Senator Manka Dhingra of Redmond.

    "The criminal justice system sees people at their worst moment in life, and the criminal justice system has not been doing a very good job at understanding that people change, that rehabilitation works," Dhingra said during a Senate hearing last year.

    When asked to justify this year’s version, Democratic Caucus Floor Leader Senator Joe Nguyen of West Seattle said he did not know how the bill will affect Ridgway’s sentence.

    "There are other individuals, where we believe that would be safe to have them in our community again, given they've served time," Nguyen said. "But also, candidly, a lot of them are at an age point where they are less likely to be a risk to our community."

    Even if the clemency board approves commuted sentences for people like Gary Ridgway, and others convicted of lesser crimes, the governor will still have the final say-so if they are released from prison.

    Graham asks where would they go—"Who wants Gary Ridgway living next to them? Seriously, who does?"

    https://www.q13fox.com/news/this-is-...without-parole
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  2. #32
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    they should have given a death penalty for this serial killer. you can't rehabilite this kind of person and you can't allow to roam in society because this guy still poses serious danger for women.

  3. #33
    Senior Member Frequent Poster Fact's Avatar
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    I mean, Ridgway will never be paroled, but it goes to show you that abolishing the death penalty is not enough for the other side. They need to get rid of the only other permanent sentence.

    I have little doubt that a sizable proportion the capital defense bar will turn into passionate opponents of life without parole if the death penalty is abolished nationwide.

  4. #34
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    They did this same line back in the 70s that these dudes wouldn't get out after getting life but they still paroled many of them. Kenneth McDuff comes to mind here. I'm throwing money down now he's getting paroled within 10 years.
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  5. #35
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    No way. Way too many victims, no remorse. McDuff's lawyer made a case to the parole board that he wasn't the real killer and they bought it. Ridgway can't do that.

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