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Thread: Washington Capital Punishment News

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    Washington Capital Punishment News

    September 28, 2007

    OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - Just last year, the Washington Supreme Court was divided 5-4 over the death penalty and speculation abounded that prosecutors wouldn't be able to use that tool much longer.

    Foes contend the death penalty is "like lightning, randomly striking some defendants and not others." They noted that the Green River serial killer, Gary Ridgway, escaped the needle after killing 48 women, but that other killers drew the death penalty for killing far fewer.

    Scholars and death penalty foes thought the court was edging toward abolishing capital punishment.

    But on Thursday, a strong majority of the court backed away from that brink, not directly discussing the overarching constitutional debate, but defending the death penalty from attack on a number of fronts.

    In a surprisingly lopsided 8-1 ruling, the state's highest court upheld the death sentence for serial killer Robert Yates Jr. The court said it refused to throw out capital punishment just because prosecutors are inconsistent in how they use it.

    Pierce County Prosecutor Gerald Horne hailed the decision and said the death penalty was designed for heinous criminals like Yates, "the worst of the worst." Horne once called the state's death penalty a farce and a charade that should be abolished if the legal system can't really deal with it. But he said Thursday that prosecutors are happy to retain it as an option.

    Yates was convicted for shooting two Tacoma prostitutes and suffocating them by tying plastic grocery bags over their heads. The smelter worker and Air National Guard helicopter pilot also received a 408-year sentence for murdering 13 women in Spokane, Walla Walla and Skagit counties. All those victims were prostitutes he killed in the same manner as the Tacoma women.

    The author of last year's anti-death penalty dissent, Justice Charles Johnson, switched to the majority on this case. The majority opinion was written by another of last year's dissenters, Justice Susan Owens, and dissenter Barbara Madsen also joined the Yates majority. They essentially conceded that they'd lost the battle last year and would now stick with precedent.

    Yates had asked the court to take a fresh look at how capital punishment is applied here, pointing to Ridgway and to Yates' own experience of agreeing to a plea bargain in Spokane County and getting life in prison for slaying 13 women, but death for killing two Tacoma women.

    That disparity shows that Washington state allows "disproportionate, freakish, wanton and random" application of the death penalty, Yates' lawyers told the high court last fall.

    Yates also contested Pierce County's decision to withdraw from what he called a deal with the Spokane prosecutors to take the death penalty off the table in exchange for his guilty pleas and information about his victims.

    But the high court swept away all of his points, saying prosecutors' discretion to seek the death penalty as they see fit doesn't pose a basic constitutional flaw in how the state applies capital punishment.

    After Ridgway avoided lethal injection, legal scholars and lawmakers began debating whether the state could ever actually use capital punishment again.

    The high court answered that question in clear terms Thursday.

    Owens, in her majority opinion, quoted from last year's ruling she had resisted, saying it's on point in the Yates case: "Ridgway's abhorrent killings, standing alone, do not render the death penalty unconstitutional or disproportionate. Our law is not so fragile."

    Yates' attorney, Gregory Link of the Washington Appellate Project, said he and Yates were deeply disappointed in the ruling. Link declined to criticize the court, but other attorneys said the justices have backtracked.

    "The court was deeply divided on the proportionality question, 5-4, and they've stepped away from that," said Jeff Ellis, an attorney who heads the Washington Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

    The court stuck with last year's precedent, a case involving a triple homicide in King County, and may be waiting for a later case to revisit the entire issue, he said in an interview.

    The Yates' ruling "tells us the court isn't ready to engage in a serious discussion yet," he said.

    State Senate Judiciary Chairman Adam Kline, D-Seattle, who has tried to persuade his colleagues to study how the death penalty is applied in Washington, said Thursday it could be years before the courts or lawmakers abolish it.

    "I'll bet the sea change won't happen in my tenure in Olympia or even in my lifetime," said the 61-year-old attorney.

    The case is State of Washington v. Robert Lee Yates Jr., No. 73155-1.

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    Man on Death Row for Bremerton Girl's Death Appeals Execution

    A lawyer for two men on Washington’s Death Row is appealing their execution order, arguing that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment.

    The Seattle Times reports Gil Levy filed an appeal this week in Thurston County Superior Court on behalf of Cal Coburn Brown and Jonathan Gentry.

    The Seattle lawyer says the drugs used in lethal injections are not administered by a doctor. A Department of Corrections spokeswoman says a medical professional — not necessarily a doctor — can be on the team that administers the drugs.

    The Washington state Penitentiary at Walla Walla is preparing to execute Brown on March 13. He tortured and killed a Burien woman in 1991. No execution date has been set for Gentry who killed a 12-year-old girl in 1981 near Bremerton.

    http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2009/f...ppeals-execut/

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    State's execution team resigns, fearing identities would be revealed


    4 people who voluntarily administer lethal injections to death-row inmates at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla quit their positions this week, apparently worried that their identities could become public as a result of an ongoing court case to decide whether lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

    4 people who voluntarily administer lethal injections to death-row inmates at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla quit their positions this week, apparently worried that their identities could become public as a result of an ongoing court case to decide whether lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

    The four resigned Tuesday, which was the deadline Thurston County Superior Court Judge Chris Wickham had set for the team's records — detailing the members' credentials, qualifications and experience in administering lethal drugs — to be submitted for his review.

    The state is now without a lethal-injection team, and it's unclear what effect the resignations will have on the court proceedings.

    Death-row inmate Darold Stenson, who was sentenced to die in 1994 for killing his wife and business partner, filed his lawsuit last year, claiming that lethal injection can result in excruciating pain if not administered correctly. 2 other death-row inmates, Jonathan Gentry and Cal Coburn Brown, later filed similar suits, and the 3 cases were consolidated.

    "It's a surprising and disturbing development," said Scott Englehard, the attorney representing Gentry. "This issue has nothing to do with guarding their identities."

    Englehard said the plaintiff's attorneys already agreed that no identifying information related to the team members would be disclosed. The records were to be reviewed in camera, a time-honored legal tradition in which only a judge sees sensitive and confidential documents and then decides what information attorneys will be privy to, he said.

    His client and the other plaintiffs have a right to inquire about the team's "experience or qualifications to properly carry out a lethal-injection execution," Englehard said.

    Dan Sytman, a spokesman for State Attorney General Rob McKenna, confirmed the resignations and said the four were worried about Wickham's order to have their records held under seal inside the state Attorney General's office. Typically, those records are kept in the office of the superintendent at the state penitentiary in Walla Walla, he said.

    "They were concerned their identities would become known as the process went along," he said. "We believe the court can confirm the constitutionality of the lethal-injection procedure without knowing the qualifications, training and experience of each of the lethal-injection team members."

    Team members, who must all meet minimum qualifications, were approached and asked to serve based on their respective backgrounds, Sytman said. 3 are current Department of Corrections (DOC) employees and the fourth is a retired employee, he said.

    "Walla Walla is a small town, so it's not hard to figure out (someone's identity) based on their qualifications," Sytman said. "They don't want picketers showing up on their front lawns, and they don't want offenders knowing who they are."

    The team members' identities are a closely guarded secret, known only to a handful of people, said Eldon Vail, secretary of the state DOC. He said even he doesn't know who serves on the team.

    "Historically and in the future, we'll do everything we can to guard their identities," Vail said. "It's not easy finding individuals" willing to serve on the lethal-injection team, and anyone who participates in an execution does so voluntarily.

    There are currently no scheduled executions, "so we have some time" to figure out how to go about assembling a new team, Vail said. He's been in touch with other officials in other states, who have agreed to send a lethal-injection team to Washington if needed, but only if members' names are kept confidential.

    "This is a very, very difficult duty that state law requires," Vail said. "This is tough work for lots of people, and it is not taken lightly."

    (source: Seattle Times)

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    The March 31 resignations of a four-member execution team at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla appeared to have been provoked by the likelihood their identities would surface in a court battle over the constitutionality of injections. News reports indicated the four anonymous volunteers, who administer the injections to death-row inmates, quit their posts over concern attorneys for three condemned inmates could leak the personal information being gathered for legal challenges.

    The reports may be only half right, says Paul Wright. It was likely because of him the team resigned, he suspects. And the four volunteers should be worried their names will be made public, since he might reveal them in his magazine. A former inmate who served 17 years for second-degree murder of a drug dealer, Wright (above) is now editor and publisher of Prison Legal News. He filed a public records request with the state Department of Corrections in January asking for the identities of those who participate in executions.


    "The history of state murder is there's never a shortage of executioners. But if we are going to have the death penalty the public should know who its killers are," he says. A controversial figure who regularly challenges the state to release sensitive documents, Wright sometimes has to go to court over them, but successfully: he won a record $541,000 fine from the state in 2007 after officials illegally withheld disciplinary records of prison medical providers.

    The latest request came after the resignation late last year of the department's top medical officer Dr. Marc Stern, who said it was unethical for him - a physician sworn to save lives - to supervise executions. Wright, whose publication has frequently reported on questionable medical procedures in U.S. prison, says, "Knowing doctors, I figured if one resigned, at least a dozen would be happy to kill people. Hence the records request."

    In part, he wants to find out who on the team is a doctor. If any show up on the records he obtains, says Wright, "I will review their medical discipline, criminal and litigation histories, and see what turns up. And PLN will most likely alert medical licensing authorities to the fact that medical personnel are violating their professional and ethical responsibilities." And yes, he'll publish their names.

    http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/daily...ow_resigna.php

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    OLYMPIA – A lawsuit that could delay the executions of three men on Washington’s death row alleges that the state Department of Corrections’ method of administering lethal injections violates the state’s constitutional protections against cruel punishment and unnecessary pain.

    The three convicted killers named as plaintiffs in the suit – Darold Stenson, Cal Coburn Brown and Jonathan Gentry – will get their day in court Thursday, when the civil trial of their suit starts in Olympia before Thurston County Superior Judge Chris Wickham.


    A brief by Stenson’s attorneys filed May 5 finds fault with DOC’s lethal injection protocols – and spells out in chilling detail how the improper administering of the drugs can cause “undue pain and suffering.”


    DOC’s three-drug lethal injection protocol prescribes three drugs – three grams of sodium thiopental, 100 milligrams of pancuronium bromide and 240 millequivalents of potassium chloride.


    According to the brief:


    Sodium thiopental is a barbiturate and an ultra-short general anesthetic that, if properly administered, “will render the inmate unconscious.”


    Pancuronium bromide, the second drug to be administered during the lethal injection, “paralyzes all voluntary movement.”


    “Its administration without proper anesthetic would paralyze the inmate’s diaphragm, causing the inmate to experience a feeling of suffocation, as the inmate would struggle to breathe but would not be able to,” the brief says. Pancuronium bromide masks any outward signs of pain, creating the risk that an inmate will suffer “excruciating pain before death.”


    The third drug administered, potassium chloride, stops the heart. “Its injection into a conscious inmate would be extremely painful and would cause an excruciating burning feeling throughout his veins,” the brief reads.


    “When DOC employs a method of execution that is vulnerable to multiple errors, any one of which may result in the infliction of agonizing pain, it has a state constitutional obligation to provide adequate, practicable safeguards against those errors,” says a brief filed by lawyers with the Perkins Coie firm in Seattle, which is representing Stenson in the suit.


    Stenson’s attorneys also argue that Washington’s lethal injection protocols fail to meet the standards set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court in a case arising from Kentucky. The Washington Attorney General has argued that DOC’s protocols are “substantially similar” to the Kentucky protocols ruled to be constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.


    Kentucky’s lethal injection protocols include safeguards that are not included in Washington’s protocols, according to Stenson’s attorneys’ brief. Among the alleged differences:


    • A requirement that Kentucky’s lethal injection team members “must remain certified in their profession and must fulfill any continuing education requirements in their profession.”


    • A requirement that Kentucky’s lethal injection team conduct 10 practice sessions annually, “including during each session a complete walk through of the execution, regardless of whether an execution is scheduled.”


    A trial brief filed by the attorney general goes into detail about the DOC’s lethal injection protocols, including the requirement that the superintendent of the Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla ensure twice that no stays are in place for a defendant before he or she is executed, “once before the condemned is brought into the execution chamber and once immediately prior to the administration of sodium thiopental.”


    According to the AG’s brief, Washington’s lethal injection protocols also require:


    • That the lethal injection team participate in “a minimum of three practice sessions preceding an execution that shall include the siting of intravenous lines.”


    • That a physician be present during an execution. The physician’s function is solely to “pronounce death at the conclusion of the execution process.” The physician does not assist in the siting of intravenous lines and is not present in the execution room when the execution takes place.


    The AG’s trial brief says: “The plaintiffs bear the burden of rebutting the presumption of constitutionality by presenting clear, objective evidence that lethal injection is cruel punishment.” The AG also argues that the U.S. Supreme Court has already rejected claims that the three-drug lethal injection combination is unconstitutional.


    In Washington, death row offenders have the option of death by lethal injection or by hanging. Washington has executed only two people by lethal injection – James Elledge on Aug. 28, 2001, and Jeremy Sagastegui on Oct. 13, 1998.


    “Neither of those men appealed their death sentence or challenged Washington’s lethal injection methods,” says the brief by Stenson’s attorneys.


    Washington DOC spokeswoman Maria Peterson said two death row offenders in recent years have been executed by hanging – Wesley Alan Dodd in 1993 and Charles Rodman Campbell in 1994.


    Although the lawsuit filed by Stenson’s attorneys seeks only to create a policy for Washington’s lethal injections that does not cause undue pain and suffering to the offender, a lawyer with the Washington attorney general’s office who is representing the DOC in this suit thinks it has a larger goal.


    “The state believes the purpose of this action is to prevent the executions from occurring,” said Assistant Attorney General John Samson, who is trying the case with Assistant Attorney General Sara Olson.


    Sherilyn Peterson, one of Stenson’s attorneys, said the plaintiffs are not trying to delay the executions but only want “meaningful judicial review” of Washington’s lethal injection procedures.


    Peterson noted that after DOC’s lethal injection team resigned in March in response to her client’s suit, the state has made no efforts to reconstitute it.


    Peterson said: “The state has no execution team. They all resigned and the state refuses to reconstitute the team until after this case is over. The Supreme Court and other courts reviewing the legality of state lethal injection procedures have identified the qualifications and competence of the lethal injection team as key to approving the process. The state’s refusal to show that it is capable of assembling a qualified team is evidence that it cannot. We do not see how there can be any meaningful judicial review until the state reconstitutes its team.”


    Olson said that the volunteer members of the lethal injection team resigned because they did not want to lose their anonymity if their names were published as a result of the current death penalty litigation.


    No executions are scheduled in Washington, Olson said.


    “We are months, if not years, from an execution,” she said.


    Olson also said Peterson’s claims that the state is unaware of the qualifications necessary for future lethal injection team members is inaccurate.


    Olson said that of the men on death row named in the suit, Gentry has a pending federal habeas corpus hearing, and the other two plaintiffs have exhausted all of the state and federal appeals regarding their convictions and sentences.


    There is a stay of execution entered in Clallam County that would prevent Stenson from being executed until additional DNA testing in his case is completed. Peterson said prosecutors in Clallam County now are trying to get that stay lifted.


    The Washington Supreme Court has issued a stay of execution for Brown, pending the results of the litigation to be heard at trial in Olympia.


    Attorneys and court employees in Thurston County said that no matter how Wickham rules at the end of this week’s trial, the outcome almost certainly will be appealed all the way to the Washington Supreme Court.

    http://www.theolympian.com/localnews...ry/853989.html

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    OLYMPIA — Lethal-injection drugs administered by the state in carrying out capital-punishment sentences result in cruel and unusual punishment for the condemned, attorneys for three death-row inmates argued Thursday.

    Two executions and the case of a third man on death row are on hold because of a civil suit challenging the state Department of Corrections' method of lethal injection. Defense attorneys said they are not arguing to save their clients' lives, only to change the type of heart-stopping medication given to the condemned and who administers them.

    "This case is about suffocation and searing pain," said Seattle attorney Scott Englehard, who is representing death-row inmate Jonathan Gentry.

    In their opening statements, the inmates' attorneys criticized the state's lethal-injection protocols for lacking supervision by state-licensed doctors and nurses and for insufficient training and medical expertise for the execution-team members.

    Englehard honed in on the three-drug cocktail used by state execution staff, saying only one fatal drug should be used. That drug, sodium thiopental, is enough to end a life without the combination of the two other drugs, which often yield painful results, he said.

    Assistant Attorney General Sara Olson countered by arguing that state protocols are in line with execution methods in Kentucky, whose system was upheld last year by the U.S. Supreme Court.

    The suit is being argued before Thurston County Superior Court Judge Chris Wickham, who is expected to release a decision sometime after the four-day trial.

    The case is a combined lawsuit on behalf of three death-row inmates: Darold Stenson, who killed his wife and business partner in Clallam County in 1993; Cal Coburn Brown, who tortured and killed a Burien woman in 1991; and Gentry, who killed a 12-year-old girl in Kitsap County in 1988.

    Stenson was to have been executed Dec. 3, but his case was stayed pending the lawsuit. In March, Brown was spared hours before he was supposed to enter the death chamber because of the lethal-injection argument.

    Stenson, who is spearheading the case, testified Thursday over a Web camera from the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. In his testimony, Stenson focused on his health problems and how the veins in his arms are difficult to find. Stenson said he has diabetes and has to have blood drawn from his hands.

    Washington mimics many states by using the three drugs in the death chamber. Sodium thiopental, the first drug, is a high-powered barbiturate used for anesthesia. The second drug, pancuronium bromide, paralyzes the muscles with a suffocating effect. The third, potassium chloride, stops the heart.

    Englehard said the three grams of sodium thiopental given by executioners is enough to kill but takes longer to take effect without the other drugs. The defense attorneys told Wickham their concern with potassium chloride is that it can cause tremendous pain if the inmate is still conscious.



    Concerns over the three-drug cocktail, as well as questions about executioners' medical training, has been heard in courtrooms across the country.

    Stenson's defense attorney Sherilyn Peterson grilled Washington State Penitentiary Superintendent Stephen Sinclair on Thursday about the training of execution staff and his own medical training. Sinclair, who has worked in a number of prison positions over the past 20 years, testified that he determines if the inmate being executed is unconscious after the first drug is injected.

    Last month, the four-member team responsible for administering lethal injections to death-row inmates at the Washington State Penitentiary resigned out of concern that their identities could become public as part of the Thurston County court case. Sinclair testified Thursday that he has identified several people who could be part of the state's execution team.

    http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...yndication=rss

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    Judge says execution by lethal injection is legal

    By RACHEL LA CORTE, Associated Press

    OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - A judge has affirmed Washington state's procedures for executing prisoners by lethal injection, turning aside complaints that condemned inmates could be partially conscious when fatal drugs flow into their veins.

    In a ruling released Friday, Thurston County Superior Court Judge Chris Wickham said that the inmates presented no evidence that the state "intended to impose punishment that was 'cruel."'

    "The procedure to be used by defendants, although not fail-safe, appears to have been designed to administer the death penalty in a way that is humane for the inmate and the observers," Wickham wrote. "It is an attempt to provide some dignity to this most grave event."

    The inmates are likely to appeal the ruling. A message left with one inmate's attorney Friday morning was not immediately returned.

    The lawsuit, filed by three death-row inmates, argued that Washington's preferred method of execution needs a major overhaul to satisfy constitutional bans on cruel punishment.

    The lawsuit did not seek to end the death penalty in Washington. Instead, the inmates' lawyers asked the state to trade its current mix of three intravenous drugs for a large dose of one powerful sedative - an approach that plaintiffs said would kill a condemned prisoner with virtually no risk of pain or suffering.

    Attorneys for the state countered that Washington's lethal injection system passes constitutional tests because it is substantially similar to a Kentucky system upheld last year by the U.S. Supreme Court.

    Washington, like roughly three dozen states, performs lethal injections by administering successive doses of three separate drugs. The chemicals are intended to render a condemned prisoner unconscious, then paralyze the person's body, and, finally, stop the inmate's heart.

    The lawsuit, however, argued that Washington's lethal injection procedures are so sloppy and inconsistent that inmates might be partially conscious when fatal drugs flow into their veins. If that happened, the condemned person could be subjected to suffocation and excruciating pain.

    The lawsuit alleged a long list of shortcomings in the state's lethal injection methods: No supervision by doctors or nurses, inadequate training and rehearsals for the execution team, and lack of medical qualifications for everyone involved.

    At trial, lawyers for the state said the lawsuit essentially demanded "a perfect execution." But the state said prison officials were not required to prove that execution procedures would be followed in a flawless manner that eliminated all risk of pain.

    Moreover, the similarities between Washington's policies and those of Kentucky - including the requirement of some medical training or experience for the execution team - are strong enough to prevent a substantial, intolerable risk of harm, the state said.

    The state also rejected the plaintiffs' argument that the Washington Constitution offers a stronger protection against cruel punishment than the U.S. Constitution's Eighth Amendment.

    The case is a combined lawsuit on behalf of three death row inmates: Darold Stenson, who shot his wife and business partner in Clallam County; Cal Coburn Brown, who tortured and killed a Burien woman; and Jonathan Gentry, who killed a 12-year-old girl in Kitsap County.

    Washington death row inmates may opt for hanging instead of lethal injection. The state's last execution was the lethal injection death of James Elledge in 2001.

    http://www.komonews.com/news/local/50475187.html

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    THE OLYMPIAN | • Published July 20, 2009

    Three inmates on Washington’s death row took another step closer to execution recently when Thurston County Superior Court Judge Chris Wickham ruled that the state’s lethal injection procedures are constitutional.

    Attorneys for the three condemned inmates say they will appeal Judge Wickham’s decision to the Court of Appeals and state Supreme Court, so Washington residents are not likely to see an execution anytime soon.


    But heightened public awareness of these cases prompts a question: Isn’t it time Washington residents be asked if they still support capital punishment? After all, it has been 34 years since Washington voters last had their say on this life-and-death issue.


    On the November 1975 general election ballot was Initiative 316 which asked whether the death penalty should be mandatory for aggravated murder in the first degree. A resounding 69.1 percent of the voters said “yes” to capital punishment. The vote margin in Thurston County was 19,737 in support, 8,398 opposed.


    Fewer than 1 million voters cast ballots in that election. Compare that with last year’s presidential election when nearly 3 million votes were cast. Clearly, the state has millions of new residents who have not been asked their views on capital punishment. They deserve a say on such an important social and ethical issue.


    OUT OF THE NEWS


    The imposition of the death penalty has not been in the news in recent years in Washington state. Lethal injection is the prescribed method of death, but inmates may choose hanging. The last hanging was of Charles Campbell in May 1994. The state’s last execution was the lethal injection death of James Elledge in 2001.


    After that interest peaked in November 2003 when Gary Leon Ridgeway, the “Green River Killer,” pleaded guilty to the murder of 48 women. He entered a plea in exchange for King County prosecutors taking the death penalty off the table. Ridgeway is serving life in prison without the possibility of release.


    Victim rights advocates were sharply critical of prosecutors saying if ever there was a case warranting execution it was the case of the Green River Killer.


    Defense attorneys representing clients in other murder cases with far fewer victims have pointed to the Ridgeway case and asked why their clients should be subjected to death when Ridgeway was not held to the same standard for 48 murders.


    CLOSE TO DEATH


    Capital punishment was back in the headlines in March of this year when the state Supreme Court intervened in the case of Cal Coburn Brown, who was within hours of execution. The court stayed Brown’s execution based on a case brought by Darold Stenson, another death row inmate who challenged the constitutionality of the state’s lethal injection procedures. Stenson’s attorneys said the lack of training by staff and inadequate lethal injection safeguards constituted cruel and unusual punishment which is prohibited by the U.S. Constitution.


    It was the Stenson case that was before Judge Wickham. The outcome of the case affected both the case of Brown and a third murderer, Jonathan Gentry. Stenson shot his wife and business partner in Clallam County; Brown tortured and killed a Burien woman; and Gentry killed a 12-year-old girl in Kitsap County.


    In his ruling, Judge Wickham said, inmates for the three men presented no evidence that the state “intended to impose punishment that was ‘cruel.’ ” Wickham said the method of execution was constitutional under both the state and U.S. constitutions.


    “The procedure to be used by defendants, although not fail-safe, appears to have been designed to administer the death penalty in a way that is humane for the inmate and the observers,” Wickham wrote. “It is an attempt to provide some dignity to this most grave event.”


    While attorneys for the three murderers promised an appeal, Attorney General Rob McKenna moved forward to have Brown’s stay of execution vacated.


    “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the victims of these convicted murderers,” McKenna said. “Today’s decision clears a significant hurdle, and brings us one step closer to carrying out the penalties unanimously set by the juries in these cases. My office will now ask the courts to remove the final barriers between these convicts and their final justice.”


    While the courts continue to wrestle with the legal issues, it’s time Washington residents be consulted on their views of capital punishment — either through the citizen-driven initiative process or through a constitutional amendment proposed by the Legislature.


    Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have joined Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Australia and others without a death penalty statute. Do Washington residents want to add this state to that list? It’s time they were asked.

    http://www.theolympian.com/opinion/story/915374.html

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    Bill proposes abolishing Wash. death penalty

    OLYMPIA, Wash. —

    Lawmakers are considering a bill that would abolish Washington state's death penalty, though its own sponsors acknowledge it's a long shot.

    The Senate Judiciary Committee heard public testimony on the measure Friday. Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, is sponsoring the bill and told the committee that the death penalty is ineffective, expensive, unequal and inhumane.

    No opponents of the bill testified at the hearing.

    "There's a debate that's not being heard here," said Sen. Adam Kline, D-Seattle, the chairman of the committee who is a co-sponsor of the bill. Opponents "may have a case to be made, but they need to come make it."

    It seems unlikely that the death penalty elimination would pass the Legislature this year. Kline said he realizes the bill does not have a strong chance to be passed this session, but it's an issue he will keep addressing.

    "I'm not going to give up," Kline said. "We will get there, but it may not be in my lifetime."

    Sen. Mike Carrell, R-Lakewood, said after Friday's hearing that he would vote against the bill because he believes it is not what murder victims would want.

    "This is not something that the people of my district would want me to be party to," he said.

    Supporters of the bill focused their testimony on the state's current $2.6 billion budget deficit, and said money spent on death penalty cases far exceeds that which is spent on people sent to prison for life.

    "Change is necessary to protect our communities, but we are in time of economic crisis," said Jeff Ellis, a former president of the Washington Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and a Seattle attorney who defends those on death row.

    In 2006, the state Supreme Court narrowly rejected a constitutional challenge of the death penalty.

    Eight men are on the state's death row.

    http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...yndication=rss

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    WA Supreme Court to hear death penalty debate


    The state Supreme Court will hear arguments on the constitutionality of the state's execution process.

    OLYMPIA, Wash. —

    The state Supreme Court will hear arguments on the constitutionality of the state's execution process.

    Thursday morning, the high court will hear debate on whether one aspect of a lawsuit filed by a death row inmate who is challenging the constitutionality of death penalty procedures is now moot because of a recent change made by the state Department of Corrections.

    Earlier this month, the state revealed that it was changing its method of execution from a three-drug cocktail to a one-drug system.

    The court will also consider whether the department has the authority to draft execution policy and whether lethal injection violates federal laws because a doctor doesn't obtain or administer the drugs.

    http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...yndication=rss

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