The death penalty: King, Snohomish prosecutors’ opposing views

Abolishing the death penalty in Washington state has been on the agenda for years.

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Attorney General Bob Ferguson has pushed for it, and Gov. Jay Inslee imposed a moratorium on the death penalty back in February 2014. He says no one will be executed in our state while he remains in office.

A bill in Olympia would eliminate the death penalty as the sentence for aggravated first-degree murder. It proposes to replace it with life imprisonment without possibility of release or parole.

On Monday, King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg said the death penalty is unnecessary.

“I think that the criminal justice system will be stronger without the death penalty,” he said.

Satterberg says when we send people to prison for life without the possibility of parole, we’re sending them there to die. He insists the death sentence is simply an effort to hasten the prisoner’s death.

Washington death penalty

There are nine people on death row in our state right now. Some of them have been there for 20 years.

“I think it’s also unworkable in our state,” Satterberg said. “We have thirty-nine counties, but very few of the counties have the resources to undertake the three to five million in defense costs for a single case.”

He added that the death sentence doesn’t help victims’ families.

“It’s not necessary for public safety. Doesn’t work across the state. It’s very expensive and very slow. We can get the same kind of finality for victim families by giving someone a life without the possibility of release sentence.”

Up north, Snohomish County Prosecutor Mark Roe said the debate over the death penalty shouldn’t involve money.

Roe read a letter from a father of a correctional officer who was killed by an inmate serving life in prison without parole. The father said these people are monsters and need to be dealt with accordingly.

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“There are a ton of people back here who I know are completely against the death penalty because they think it’s wrong, it’s wrong to kill. There are people like me who think some people do things so horrible they deserve to die.”

Roe rejects the argument that the death penalty is too expensive.

“I certainly reject the notion that the death penalty doesn’t have value. I think people who think it doesn’t have value simply don’t know where to look.”

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