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"We are convinced that the association between race and the death penalty is do not randomly assigned, "wrote the judges of the state Supreme Court in a majority opinion.
Ted S. Warren / AP
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Ted S. Warren / AP
"We are convinced that the association between race and the death penalty is do not randomly assigned, "wrote the judges of the state Supreme Court in a majority opinion.
Ted S. Warren / AP
The Washington Supreme Court abolished the state's death sentence, claiming that it was arbitrarily and racially biased.
"We are convinced that the association between race and the death penalty is do not randomly assigned, "wrote the majority.
Governor Jay Inslee declared a moratorium on the death penalty in Washington in 2014 and on Thursday called the notice "an extremely important moment in our quest for equal and equitable application of justice".
Thursday's decision makes Washington the 20th state to abolish the death penalty. According to the ACLU, this Supreme Court is the third to do so, citing concerns about racial disparities, alongside Massachusetts and Connecticut.
The court decided to convert the current death sentences into life imprisonment in Washington. The state's penitentiary division says that there are currently eight people sentenced to death.
The case was triggered by one of those inmates, Allen Eugene Gregory, who was convicted of the aggravated first degree murder of a woman. Gregory argued that the death penalty in Washington was "unequally applied" and that the judges agreed with him.
According to the opinion, the convicted murderer commissioned a study on racial prejudice and the death penalty which revealed that "black defendants were four and a half times more likely to be sentenced to death than white defendants in the same situation".
The report "stated that race did not seem to influence whether or not prosecutors sought the death penalty, but it was a determining factor as to whether jurors imposed a death sentence," reported the NPR member station, KUOW.
The state disputed the claims of the study, but the judges eventually indicated that they accorded "great weight" to its findings.
They also stated that, while the death penalty was intended to "punish and deter capital offenses," the death penalty does not serve these purposes, such as are currently applied in the state.
At the same time, they have not completely ruled out that the state again imposes the death penalty in the future.
"We leave open the possibility that the legislator can adopt a" carefully crafted law "(…) to impose the death penalty in that state, but it can not create a system that violates constitutional rights", states l & # 39; majority opinion. A concurring opinion also supported the invalidation of the death penalty, but for a different reasoning.
The judges refused to reopen Gregory's conviction for aggravated first-degree murder, claiming that she "had already been the subject of an appeal and had been upheld by our court".
Opponents of the death penalty, such as the ACLU, applaud the decision.
"The role that racism has played in the death penalty in Washington is nothing unique," said Jeff Robinson, deputy legal director and director of the ACLU's Trone Center for Justice.
"What is rare is the will of the Supreme Court to tell the truth that has always been there … Racial prejudice, conscious or unconscious, plays a role in the decisions on the death penalty in the United States. States, influencing who faces this ultimate punishment, who sits on the jury, what type of evidence of impact on the victim and mitigation is used and who is given life or death ", was -he declares.
KUOW announced that the execution of Cal Coburn Brown in 2010 was the last time the death penalty had been applied in Washington.
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