A five-member majority on the State Supreme Court did not say that executing people who commit heinous crimes is inherently wrong, but said evidence showed that death sentences had been “imposed in an arbitrary and racially biased manner.” Four other justices concurred with the conclusion in a separate, equally sweeping decision.

“We are confident that the association between race and the death penalty is not attributed to random chance,” the majority’s decision said. The finding grew out of an appeal brought by Allen Eugene Gregory, a black man who was convicted of the rape, robbery and murder of a waitress named Geneine Harshfield in 1996. Mr. Gregory, 46, was sentenced to death in 2001.

Use of the death penalty has been in decline across the nation for nearly two decades, and Washington has not executed anyone since 2010. In 2014, Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, ordered a moratorium on all executions.

Capital punishment remains legal in 30 states, and is also allowed by the federal government and the United States military. But the number of death sentences actually imposed has steadily fallen since a peak in 1999, when there were 98 executions across the nation, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. In 2017, there were 23. Only 10 states, including Texas, Ohio and Florida, have carried out any executions since 2014.

In its decision, the Washington Supreme Court said that death as a penalty for crime is not in itself unconstitutional, but that the law as it has been written by the Legislature and applied by judges and juries was too deeply flawed to continue.

“We leave open the possibility that the Legislature may enact a ‘carefully drafted statute,’” the majority wrote. “But it cannot create a system that offends constitutional rights.”

Mr. Inslee said in a news conference that he would veto any bill that attempted to reinstate the death penalty or to fix the flaws outlined by the justices.

Article written by Kirk Johnson
Source: Article