Hello Team! Today was a historic day! The Washington State Supreme Court issued its unanimous ruling in the Gregory case, declaring the death penalty unconstitutional because it is imposed in an arbitrary and racially biased manner. The ruling also converted all of the states current death sentences to the sentence of life without parole. Governor Inslee and Attorney General Bob Ferguson held a press conference that included a promise from Inslee to veto any proposed "fix" to the unconstitutional law that was struck. In the press conference Ferguson promised to again propose legislation to end the death penalty. With today's court ruling there is no viable death penalty, but legislative repeal would take the unconstitutional law off of the books so any future effort to bring back the death penalty would have to start from scratch rather than "fix" a law. So, for now, our work isn't changing. We will continue to work on passing a repeal bill in the 2019 legislative session. Winning together,
Stefanie | |
