Page 6 of 8 FirstFirst ... 45678 LastLast
Results 51 to 60 of 72

Thread: Washington Capital Punishment News

  1. #51
    Senior Member CnCP Addict johncocacola's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Posts
    643
    The WA House has until 5pm PST tomorrow to vote on it. I hope I'm wrong but it looks like it'll pass. If only the special election wouldn't of gone blue back in November, then it would've never left the Senate Committee.

  2. #52
    Administrator Aaron's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2015
    Location
    New Jersey, unfortunately
    Posts
    4,382
    It passed the House committee by the thinnest margin possible, 7-6. This vote is not a slam dunk. I guess we will see.
    Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products.

    "They will hurt you. They will hurt your grandma, these people. The root cause of this is there's no discipline in the homes, they don't go to school, you know, they live off the government, no personal accountability, and they just beat people up for no reason, and it's disgusting." - Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters

  3. #53
    Senior Member CnCP Addict johncocacola's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Posts
    643
    Not 100% sure but the measure appears to be defeated for this session. According to the legislature website, after 5pm on March 2 the only bills that can be considered have to be related to spending. I'm not sure if there's a loophole they can find that will allow them to bring it to a vote during the remainder of this session. Regardless, hopefully the law will stand until Inslee leaves office and that his successor will follow the law.

  4. #54
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    13,014
    Bill to abolish death penalty dies

    SB 6052, which removes the death penalty as an option for aggravated first-degree murder cases and replaces it with life in prison without the possibility of parole, died in House committee on Monday.

    The Senate approved the bill on Feb. 15 in a 26-22 vote.

    Attorney General Bob Ferguson is hopeful to get this legislation done next session.

    “I am deeply disappointed, but my disappointment is tempered somewhat by the historic progress the bill made this year,” Ferguson said.

    According to the governor’s office, Gov. Inslee “is encouraged that the bill made good progress this year and hopes that eventually Washington will join the list of states that are choosing to end the death penalty.”

    The effort got an extra push this year when Republican King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg testified in favor of ending the death penalty during a Senate Law and Justice Committee hearing. All three argue the death penalty is too costly, doesn’t offer closure for victim’s families, and is applied unequally.

    Groups concerned about those wrongfully convicted ending up on death row have also been supporting the effort.

    http://mynorthwest.com/917564/bill-a...-penalty-dies/

  5. #55
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2014
    Location
    FRANCE
    Posts
    3,073
    Washington Supreme Court Could Decide Constitutionality Of Death Penalty

    By AUSTIN JENKINS
    Spokane Public Radio

    A bipartisan effort to repeal the death penalty fell short in the Washington Legislature this year. But a separate effort to overturn the state's capital punishment statute through the courts is ongoing.

    The constitutional challenge to the death penalty in Washington involves the case of Allen Eugene Gregory, 45, who was sentenced to die for the 1996 rape and murder of Geneine Harshfield in Tacoma.

    Gregory is one of three African-American men currently on Washington's death row. Citing a 2014 report by researchers at the University of Washington, Gregory's attorneys argue that black defendants in Washington are "more than four times as likely to be sentenced to death as other defendants."

    The researchers analyzed trial reports from more than 300 aggravated murder cases in Washington since 1981. They concluded that while race did not appear to influence whether prosecutors sought the death penalty, it was a factor in whether juries imposed a death sentence—even after taking into account factors like the number of victims and the defendant's prior criminal history.

    Based on this, Gregory's lawyers are asking the Washington Supreme Court to overturn his sentence and find the state's death penalty scheme unconstitutional.

    "We don't know what Allen Gregory's jury was thinking," said Lila Silverstein of the Washington Appellate Project, one of Gregory's attorneys, in an interview. "But what we do know based on this study is that had Allen Gregory not been black, his chances of being sentenced to death would have been notably lower.”

    The Pierce County Prosecutor's office, which hired its own researcher, counters that the racial disparity study is fatally flawed and should not be considered by the Supreme Court when it makes its decision on Gregory's appeal. Specifically, prosecutors challenge the UW researchers' reliance on trial reports in aggravated murder cases to conclude that racial disparities exist in how the death penalty is applied.

    "The trial reports were not designed as a source for statistical analysis," the prosecution wrote in a January filing with the Supreme Court. "[A] study that limits its information to material contained within the trial reports is unlikely to produce reliable results."

    The validity of the study by the UW researchers has been vigorously debated for nearly two years during what lawyers call "unprecedented" proceedings before a commissioner for the Supreme Court. Last November, that commissioner issued a 97-page report. While the report didn't offer a conclusion, it did lay out in technical detail the differences of opinion between the UW researchers and the researcher hired by Pierce County.

    That report is now in the hands of the justices. But it could be several months before they return a decision in this case.

    In recent years, supreme courts in Connecticut and Delaware have ruled the death penalty unconstitutional. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, capital punishment has been abolished or overturned in 19 states.

    The last person executed in Washington was Cal Coburn Brown in 2010 for the murder of Holly Washa. In 2014, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee imposed a moratorium on executions. The Democrat later issued a reprieve to Clark Richard Elmore who was scheduled to be executed for the 1995 rape and murder of 14-year-old Christy Onstad, his live-in girlfriend's daughter.

    Washington is one of four states, including Oregon, with a moratorium on executions.

    Oregon Gov. Kate Brown kept a moratorium put in place by then-Gov. John Kitzhaber in 2011. Currently there are 32 inmates on death row in Oregon and the last execution was in 1997, according to the Oregon Department of Corrections.

    Earlier this year, the Washington Senate voted to repeal the death penalty. The bipartisan vote represented the most significant step towards repeal since capital punishment was reinstated in Washington 37 years ago. However, the bill died in the Washington House.

    Gregory is one of eight people on death row in Washington. His appeal to the Washington Supreme Court has the support of 56 former and retired Washington state judges, along with the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups.

    Gregory was first convicted and sentenced to death in 2001, but that sentence was overturned on appeal in 2006 because of errors by prosecutors and the court at trial. In 2012, a second jury re-imposed the death penalty on Gregory.

    http://spokanepublicradio.org/post/w...-death-penalty
    In the Shadow of Your Wings
    1 A Prayer of David. Hear a just cause, O Lord; attend to my cry! Give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit!

  6. #56
    Senior Member Frequent Poster joe_con's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Posts
    292
    Interestingly enough Washington has not executed an offender of African ancestry since resuming executions in 1993. I believe four of the five men executed were of European descent. The fifth man was Jeremy Vargas Sagastegui who I believe was of Portuguese descent, which I guess arguably is Hispanic.

  7. #57
    Senior Member CnCP Addict johncocacola's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Posts
    643
    I thought for sure that Trump winning would sweep more democrats into the Washington State Legislature allowing them to repeal capital punishment soon. Wouldn't of mattered I guess.

  8. #58
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2015
    Location
    Pennsylvania
    Posts
    4,795
    So they are basing their ruling on decisions that Juries make and not the state? If this decision was made in Texas and appealed the higher courts would overturn this in a heartbeat.

    When anyone uses the argument ‘arbitrary and racially biased manner" and doesn't site evidence(actual evidence, not just the fact they were sentenced) to a case where person received punishment because of their race, then they don't have an argument and are just grandstanding. Horrible decision by a judiciary on the left coast.

  9. #59
    Senior Member Frequent Poster Alfred's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2014
    Posts
    446
    If race is an argument to abolish the death penalty, then that's absurd. If, for example, blacks were getting, relatively speaking, too often a death penalty, then they need to take a look at those who are handing them down. No doubt that the race disparity will continue to exist in that case among those who will now get LWOP. So then we can do away with LWOP as well for the same reason. That's a race to the bottom. Absolutely absurd imo.

  10. #60
    Moderator Dave from Florida's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2012
    Location
    Florida
    Posts
    810
    The states where the death penalty was abolished by a legislature or ruled unconstitutional by a state Supreme court rarely or never had any executions anyway.

Page 6 of 8 FirstFirst ... 45678 LastLast

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •