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Washington Governor Jay Inslee (D), who declared a moratorium on the death penalty in 2014, praised the court's decision. (Ted S. Warren / AP)
The Supreme Court of Washington State on Thursday unanimously declared that the death penalty was unconstitutional and "discriminatory", making it the most recent a series of states to abandon capital punishment in recent years.
The state of Washington had already put an end to executions under a moratorium put in place by Governor Jay Inslee (D) in 2014, so the decision on Thursday will not stop the executions already scheduled. But the court's order that death sentences in a state should be converted to life imprisonment is a radical rejection of the death penalty at a time when it is less commonly used. country where states struggle to obtain the drugs they need to die. injections.
In their view, the judges focused on what they said was the unequal use of the death penalty, describing it as a random punishment, depending little on the geography or the moment.
"The death penalty is invalid because it is arbitrarily and racially prejudiced," the judges wrote. "While this particular case offers the opportunity to deal specifically with racial disproportionality, the underlying issues underlying our position are rooted in the arbitrary manner in which the death penalty is generally applied."
[The Washington state Supreme Court justice who stepped down to protest the death penalty]
Chief Justice Mary E. Fairhurst drafted the opinion and four judges agreed, including one in the result. Four other judges signed an agreement declaring that they agreed with "the conclusions of the majority and its decision invalidating the death penalty", while adding other constitutional factors which, according to them, "impose this result" .
The arguments in Washington echo what Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer said in asking whether the death penalty itself is constitutional. In a joint dissent in 2015 by Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Breyer characterized the use of the death sentence as "capricious, random, even arbitrary" and told people sentenced to death that it was " the equivalent of being struck by lightning ". in 2016 during the examination of the application of the death penalty by California, claiming that it was just as unreliable, arbitrary and accused by delays.
The opinion in Washington was given in a case that has been going on in the criminal justice system for more than two decades and concerns a man convicted and sentenced to death for the rape and murder of Geneine Harshfield in July 1996.
Allen Eugene Gregory, who has been convicted and sentenced for the death of Harshfield, is one of eight people on Washington's death row; five of these people are white and three, like Gregory, are black. Gregory, 46, was convicted and sentenced for the first time in 2001 and then, when his case was overturned, convicted and sentenced again in 2012.
[Supreme Court Justice Breyer: California embodies the death penalty’s ‘fundamental defects’]
According to the penitentiary department, Washington currently has two methods of execution: lethal injection or hanging, if the inmate opts for it. The state carried out one last execution in 2010.
Executions throughout the country have steadily declined in recent years as several states or courts have completely abandoned the practice. The Washington decision made the state the 20th without the death penalty, according to the archives of the Information Center on the Death Penalty. Some states have abolished the death penalty only to face uncertainty about what would happen to prisoners already on death row or those convicted of criminal offenses before the end of the sentence. .
Maryland repealed the death penalty in 2013, but it was not until the following year that Martin O'Malley (D), then governor of the state, announced that he would commute the remaining death sentences. Connecticut abandoned the death penalty in 2012 but left it open as an option for crimes previously committed. The state high court said in 2016 that this option was unconstitutional.
[‘It was fundamentally unfair.’ A prosecutor apologizes for his role in putting an innocent man on death row]
In one recent case, a state abolished the death penalty to reverse the course of events. Nebraska lawmakers abolished it in 2015, but voters eventually restored it through a ballot initiative the following year. The state carried out an execution earlier this year, the first in the United States using the potent opioid fentanyl.
Washington is already among the states that have not advanced in the executions planned by the Inslee moratorium announced in 2014. Oregon has also introduced a moratorium on the death penalty, which governor Kate Brown (D) decided to keep in place when he took office.
"Today's decision by the state Supreme Court puts an end to the death penalty in Washington," Inslee said in a statement released Thursday after an order was issued. . "The court made it clear that the death penalty in our state was inflicted" arbitrarily and racially biased ", was" unequally applied "and did not serve any purpose in criminal justice. This is an extremely important moment in our quest for equal and equitable application of justice. "
The spokesman for Bob Ferguson, Democratic Attorney General of Washington, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the decision. Ferguson had already spoken out in favor of the abolition of the death penalty, saying that there was "no rule in capital punishment in a fair, equitable justice system." and human ".
The fate of the eight death row inmates remains unclear, but correctional officials said they would ask if they should be housed elsewhere. The Washington Department of Prison Services "is currently reviewing the decision to determine any necessary operational changes within the agency," wrote a spokesperson in an email after the decision.
Further reading:
Nebraska Becomes First State To Use Fentanyl In One Execution
The steady decline of US death corridors
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