Washington Supreme Court throws out the state’s death penalty

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The Washington Supreme Court has thrown out the state’s death penalty, saying it violates the state’s Constitution.

Thursday’s ruling makes Washington the latest state to do away with capital punishment. The court was unanimous in its order that the eight people currently on death row have their sentences converted to life in prison. Five justices said the “death penalty is invalid because it is imposed in an arbitrary and racially biased manner.”

Four other justices, in a concurrence, wrote that while they agreed with the majority’s conclusions and invalidation of the death penalty, “additional state constitutional principles compel the result.”

Governor Jay Inslee, a one-time supporter of capital punishment, had imposed a moratorium on the death penalty in 2014, saying that no executions would take place while he’s in office. The ruling was in the case of Allen Gregory, who was convicted of raping, robbing and killing a 43-year-old woman in 1996. His lawyers said the death penalty is arbitrarily applied and that it is not applied proportionally, as the state Constitution requires.

In its ruling Thursday, the high court did not reconsider any of Gregory’s arguments pertaining to guilty, noting that his conviction for aggravated first degree murder “has already been appealed and affirmed by the high court.” (AP)

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