OLYMPIA — Gov. Jay Inslee signed legislation Thursday permanently scrubbing the death penalty from Washington law.
Senate Bill 5087 erased several sections of state law held unconstitutional by the state State Supreme Court, including provisions authorizing capital punishment for aggravated first-degree murder.
“Let’s be clear, by this act we are ending the death penalty in the state of Washington, period,” Inslee said as he signed the bill surrounded by faith leaders, lawmakers, Attorney General Bob Ferguson and other opponents of capital punishment.
Inslee imposed a moratorium on use of the death penalty in Washington in 2014. At that time, nine people were sentenced to die for crimes in Washington. One of those was Byron Scherf, an inmate who received a death sentence for the 2011 strangling of Monroe corrections officer Jayme Biendl.
Four years later, the state Supreme Court ruled those provisions allowing capital punishment were unconstitutional. Justices concluded the law is imposed in an arbitrary and racially biased manner, and converted all death sentences to life imprisonment.
The new law removes nearly three dozen sections of state law invalidated by the court that still remained on the books.
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