[WCADP-list] Wenatchee World Editorial: "This state should give up the death penalty."

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Wenatchee World 

Editorial 



  _____  

Article published Sep 27, 2007 
The penalty we won't use 

By Tracy Warner 
Editorial Page editor 

The United States Supreme Court has agreed to consider the argument, which
is: Executing condemned prisoners with an intravenous injection of chemicals
violates the Constitution's prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishment."
The case in question originated in Kentucky.  The contention is the most
popular "three-drug cocktail" method of lethal injection can be botched by
incompetent executioners.  It can fail to work properly, causing the
condemned to die in silent, paralytic agony.  The technique is to issue
three drugs in sequence: sodium thiopental, to bring unconsciousness;
pancuronium bromide, to stop breathing; and potassium chloride, to stop the
heart. 

Whatever the court rules, Washington will be affected, being one of the 37
states that prescribes lethal injection as its favored method of execution.
The condemned in this state may also choose to be hanged, the traditional
technique, but that's not proven popular. 

The main effect of any ruling, at most, will be to rearrange some wording in
a statute or regulation and provide defense attorneys new angles of
argument.  It will not affect executions, because we don't actually do
those.  We have a statutory death penalty, of course.  We have trials,
hearings, we occasionally condemn people.  Then, generally, they sit for
decades in isolation at the penitentiary in Walla Walla while lawyers work
on appeals and stays.  The death penalty in Washington is hypothetical.  It
may be useful for political and legal purposes, but as an actual means of
executing the condemned it is useless.  That's what happens when you have a
death penalty that is never used. 

This is a sparse record.  Since the death penalty was reauthorized by the
Supreme Court in 1976, Washington has executed four people. First was
Westley Allen Dodd from Vancouver, whose hobby was kidnapping, torturing and
murdering small boys.  He volunteered to go to the gallows in 1993.  He
preferred hanging, he said, because that was a technique he used himself. In
1994 came Charles Rodman Campbell of Everett, who slit the throats of a
mother and her 8-year-old daughter.  He was hanged against his will after 12
years of appeals.  He rejected lethal injection as part of his defense
strategy.  The last two - Jeremy Sagastegui in 1998 and James H. Elledge in
2001 - were executed by lethal injections they took voluntarily, after
waiving appeals. 

So, in more than 30 years the state has executed one person who did not
choose to go. There now are eight prisoners on death row but, naturally, no
pending executions. None is expected in the soon. 

Never mind the Supreme Court. Don't switch to whatever lethal chemicals it
deems constitutional.  Washington has no business having a death penalty on
its books if it chooses not to use it. Its only practical effect now is to
waste court time and drain the public treasury through interminable legal
maneuver.  It is morally suspect because it is inconsistently imposed - you
can murder more than 50 women for sport, as Gary Ridgway the Green River
Killer did, and escape it.  It provides no deterrent, and not just because
we don't actually do it. The only justification left is the need for
vengeance, which we obviously don't find compelling enough to actually go
through with it. 

This state should give up the death penalty.  The Legislature should look at
this pending Supreme Court ruling as an opportunity to erase it. It serves
no good purpose. 


Tracy Warner's column appears Tuesday through Friday. He can be reached at
warner at wenworld.com or 665-1163. 

  _____  

 
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The Washington Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
It's easy to support the death penalty when you don't have all the facts.
P.O. Box 3045
Seattle, WA 98114-3045
phone (206) 622-8952
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www.abolishdeathpenalty.org <http://www.abolishdeathpenalty.org/> 
 
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