Capital punishment is a legal form of punishment in the U.S. state of Washington. A total of 110 executions have been carried out in the state and its predecessor territories since 1849. All but three were by hanging.
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The first hangings occurred on January 5, 1849 when Cussas and Quallahworst, two Native Americans, were hanged for murder. Executions are rarely carried out in the state — the most executions in one year was five in 1939, and there was an average of less than one hanging per year between 1849 and 1963.
The death penalty was abolished in 1913 and reinstated in 1919. The statute remained unchanged until 1975, when it was again abolished. A referendum in the same year reinstated it for a second time as the mandatory penalty for aggravated murder in the first degree. Supreme Court of the United States rulings in Woodson v. North Carolina, 428 U.S. 280 (1976) and Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 325 (1976), 431 U.S. 633 (1977), meant that such a law was unconstitutional and the statute was modified to give detailed procedures for imposing the death penalty.
This new law was itself found unconstitutional by the Washington Supreme Court, as a person who had pled not guilty could be sentenced to death, while someone who pled guilty would receive a maximum sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole. The current law was passed in 1981 to correct these constitutional defects.
Death Row for males is located at Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla, which is also the site of executions. Females are housed at Washington Corrections Center for Women at Purdy near Gig Harbor while awaiting execution.
Since June 6, 1996 inmates have been able to choose if their execution will be carried out by lethal injection or hanging. If the inmate makes no decision, the default method is lethal injection. It should also be noted that Washington is the only state with an active gallows (Delaware dismantled theirs in 2003).
According to the Revised Code of Washington § 10.95.180, executions in Washington:[1]
On September 10, 2010; Washington became the second state, after Ohio, to use a single dose injection of sodium thiopental as opposed to the typical three drug protocol used in most other jurisdictions. The single-drug protocol was used during the execution of Cal Coburn Brown.[2]
The following are considered circumstances for aggravated first degree murder:[3]
Other offenses that may result in a death penalty include:
As in any other state, people who are under 18 at the time of commission of the capital crime [5] or mentally retarded[6] are constitutionally precluded from being executed.
A total of five individuals have been executed by the state of Washington since 1976. All were convicted of murder.
| Executed person | Date of execution | Method | Victims | Under Governor | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Westley Allan Dodd | January 5, 1993 | hanging | Cole Neer, William Neer, and Lee Islei. | Booth Gardner |
| 2 | Charles Rodman Campbell | May 27, 1994 | hanging | Renae Wicklund, Shannah Wicklund, and Barbara Hendrickson. | Mike Lowry |
| 3 | Jeremy Vargas Sagastegui | October 13, 1998 | lethal injection | Kievan Sarbacher, Melissa Sarbacher, and Lisa Vera Acevado. | Gary Locke |
| 4 | James Homer Elledge | August 28, 2001 | lethal injection | Eloise Jane Fitzner. | Gary Locke |
| 5 | Cal Coburn Brown | September 10, 2010 | lethal injection | Holly Washa. | Christine Gregoire |
As of September 10, 2010, there were eight individuals on Washington's death row, all of them men.[2]
The Washington State Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty is a 501(c)3 organization, incorporated in 1986. They oppose the death penalty on several moral and practical grounds, including its financial cost, low value as a deterrent, psychological cost to victim families and the clear execution of innocent people in other states.
In 2004, the Washington State Bar Association's Council on Public Defense chartered a sub-committee to examine "the practical wisdom of continuing to pursue death penalty prosecutions in light of Washington's experience with sentence reversals, potential benefits to the criminal justice system from cost savings" and other matters. Made up of both opponents and advocates, the subcommittee issued its final report in December, 2006. Noting the extra costs associated with capital trials and great disparities in the current system, the report suggested that compensation for attorneys be increased, with all defense and prosecution costs to be paid by the state.
As of 2010, the Washington State Department of Corrections lists eight men on death row. Three of these are African-American, at a incidence rate approximately ten times greater than their 3.7% presence in the general population of Washington state.
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