Inslee signs bill permanently erasing death penalty from state law
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.
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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.
https://www.heraldnet.com/news/inslee-signs-bill-permanently-erasing-death-penalty-from-state-law/
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