History

The death penalty was adopted by the legislature of the territory of Washington in 1854. Washington carried out its first execution as a state in 1904. Since that time 74 men have been executed by the state. The 1904 capital punishment statute mandated the death sentence for anyone convicted of murder in the first-degree. This statue was revised in 1909 to allow judicial discretion over sentences of death. The death penalty was abolished in Washington in 1913, but was reinstated in 1919 after the brutal murder of E.W. Olson enraged the community. The 1919 statute contained a provision that sentencing was to be done by the jury. (WCADP and Hayner 1954)

In 1972 the Supreme Court decided Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972) and ruled the death penalty to be unconstitutional. Based on this ruling the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the death sentence in Washington. In 1975 the Washington Legislature abolished the state’s death penalty  after concluding that under Furman it violated the Eight and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. constitution because it did not provide any control over sentencing authority. However, 1975 was an election year and voters approved a ballot measure to reinstate the death penalty that, in an attempt to provide the state with control over sentencing, mandated a sentence of death in all cases of aggravated murder in the first degree. That same year, the Supreme Court ruled mandatory death sentences to be unconstitutional in Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 238 (1976) and the Washington capital punishment statute, which did not allow juries to take mitigating or any other individualized factor of that particular case into account, was declared to be unconstitutional. (JC of the 9^th CC, 2006 and Kaufman-Osborn 2004)

In the 1975 case Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976) the Supreme Court ruled, “the death penalty should not be inflicted in an arbitrary and capricious manner”. In 1977 Washington adopted a new capital punishment statute based on the Georgia statute adopted after Gregg, integrating parts of it verbatim. This new statute allowed for a bifurcated trial, which allowed the jury to hear all evidence relevant to mitigation. It also provided for a mandatory appeal to the state Supreme Court, and required the court to conduct reviews of each capital punishment case to ensure that sentences were being imposed proportionally. The original statute was not specific about exactly how this review was to be conducted or what questions were to be asked, so in 1979 the Washington Supreme Court drafted a sample questionnaire and mandated its use. (JC of the 9^th CC, Treuthart, 2002, and Kaufman-Osborn 2004)

Under the 1977 Capital punishment statute, a defendant could avoid any possibility of the death penalty by pleading guilty. In the 1980 case, Washington v. Frampton, 627 P.2d 922 (Wash. 1981) the Washington Supreme Court ruled that the Washington capital punishment statute was unconstitutional because the severity of the punishment of the defendant was determined in the way in which guilt was determined, which “chilled a defendant’s right to trial” (Kaufman-Osborn 811). A new capital punishment statute was proposed in 1981, this is Washington’s current death penalty statute. To carry a possibility of the death penalty a murder must have been premeditated and fall within one of the aggravating factors defined in the statue. The jury must evaluate mitigating factors to determine whether to sentence the defendant with death or life without the possibility of parole. In order for this system to work as it is intended to, mitigating evidence must actually be presented. In circumstances where there is not sufficient mitigating evidence to “merit leniency”, whether because the defendant wishes to be executed or because of ineffective council, the jury is left will little choice under the Washington statute but to apply the death penalty.  It is estimated that 75% of those executed in Washington since the 1981 statute was introduced refused to provide mitigating evidence and received a sentence of death. The 1981 statute also codified the the requirement of a proportionality report to be filled out in any case, by the trial judge, where there was a conviction of first-degree murder. These reviews are intended to help the court determine “[w]hether the sentence of death is excessive or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases.” The 1981 statute also clarified the procedure that was to take place if a death sentence was found to be invalid upon appeal.(Treuthart, 2002, Kaufman-Osborn, 2004, Larranaga)

In 1997 the Supreme Court of Washington adopted new rules for the appointment of council in capital cases, under the new rules at least two attorneys will be appointed to represent a defendant at trial. Currently, aggravated first-degree murder and treason are both capital crimes in Washington, convictions for which carry the possibility of sentences to die by lethal injection or hanging. Thirty-three people have been sentenced to death in Washington since 1981, 20 of those sentences have been overturned on appeal. (JC of the 9^th CC, DCWS, 2012, and Nichols 2012)

Sources

1. Judicial Council of the 9th C.C., 2006 Capital Punishment Handbook, State Law Summaries: Washington, 185-197

2. Mary P. Treuthart, Anne Branstad & Matthew Kite, Mitigating Evidence and Capital Cases in Washington: Proposals for Change, 26 Seattle U. L. Rev. 241, 241-266 (2002)

3. Timothy V. Kaufman-Osborn, Capital Punishment, Proportionality Review, and Claims of Fairness (with Lessons from Washington State), 79 Wash. L. Rev. 775, 775-849 (2004)

4. Department of Corrections Washington State, Capital Punishment in Washington State, (2012) Available at http://www.doc.wa.gov/offenderinfo/capitalpunishment

5. Washington Coalition to Abolish The Death Penalty, Legal History of the Death Penalty in Washington State, http://www.abolishdeathpenalty.org/

6. Mark A. Larranaga & Donna Mustard, Washington Death Penalty Assistance Center, Washington’s Death Penalty System, A review of the Costs, Length and Results of Capital Cases in Washington State, 6-7, Available at http://www.abolishdeathpenalty.org/WCADPPublications.htm

7. Norman S. Hayner & John R. Cranor, The Death Penalty In Washington State, Vol. 284, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 101(1954) Available at http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1029448?uid=3739856&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21100852403591

8. David Nichols, It’s time for Washington to replace death penalty with life sentence, The Seattle Times, June 8, 2012, Available at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2018389798_guest09nichols.html