Washington Supreme Court tosses out state’s death penalty [Barf Alert]

AP News ^ | 10/11/2018 | Rachel La Corte

[fwdude]

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Washington state’s Supreme Court has ruled that the death penalty violates its Constitution.

The ruling Thursday makes Washington the latest state to do away with capital punishment. The justices said the “death penalty is invalid because it is imposed in an arbitrary and racially.” They ordered that people currently on death row have their sentences converted to life in prison.

[stylin19a]

thanks. I dug a little further regarding background and came up with this:

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/dozens-of-judges-ask-washington-high-court-to-ban-execution/

seems the political makeup of Wash. Supremes changed and was a factor in the ruling.

“The majority in his case ruled that outliers such as Ridgway don’t render the law unconstitutional. But the court’s make-up now might be more hostile to capital punishment. Four of the justices remain from 2006, three of whom were in the minority: Charles Johnson, Barbara Madsen and Susan Owens.

One of the newer justices, Charles Wiggins, has expressed concerns over indications blacks are statistically more likely to be sentenced to death in Washington than whites, while another, Sheryl Gordon McCloud, represented defendants who had been sentenced to death — and criticized the way the death penalty is applied — during her previous career as an appellate lawyer.”

I do like your version of a life sentence.

Thanks again.

[HollyB]

What does race have to do with it?