Sister of murdered Monroe officer fights bill to abolish death penalty

The bill to abolish the Washington death penalty continues to make headway in Olympia, but not without significant debate.

The House Judiciary Committee held a public hearing Tuesday morning after the bill cleared the Senate last week — without proposed amendments that would have allowed the death penalty for cop killers and those who kill corrections officers. Another amendment that would have put the issue to voters via referendum also failed. There is no emergency provision in the bill that would stop voters from doing so, however, even if the Legislature opts to abolish the death penalty.

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The bill — SB 6052 — eliminates the death penalty as an option in aggravated murder cases, and replaces it with a mandatory sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

Governor Jay Inslee and State Attorney General Bob Ferguson have been pushing it for years. Republican King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg also jumped on board this year, testifying in favor of abolishing the death penalty for the first time. Satterberg told the House panel that the death penalty is too expensive, can take up to 20 years to carry out, and is applied unevenly. He said that only large counties are able to afford to go after the death penalty.

“This fight over which we have spent millions and millions of dollars is about whether we get to hasten that date that they’re going to die in prison,” Satterberg  said. “Whether we’re going to authorize a state employee to give a lethal dose to somebody so that we can say somehow that we’ve achieved justice, where sending them to prison to die should be enough.”

“When I say that we don’t need the death penalty, I think that the criminal justice system would be stronger without it because we could achieve finality on aggravated murder cases where life without the possibility of release was the sentence,” he said. “Those cases would be over in about three years.”

Washington death penalty debate

Lisa Hamm argued strongly against ending the death penalty, pointing to the 2011 murder of her sister, Monroe Corrections Officer Jayme Biendl.

“She was murdered by an inmate in the chapel in the Monroe state prison,” Hamm said. “The inmate was already serving a life without parole sentence. By abolishing the death penalty, that effectively removes any type of punishment for the monster who killed my sister.”

Beindl’s killer, Byron Scherf, was sentenced to death for the killing, but Governor Inslee issued a moratorium on the punishment a short time later. Scherf remains one of eight death row inmates in Washington.

Despite statements from some bill supporters that ending the lengthy death penalty process makes things easier on the families of victims, Hamm told lawmakers, “abolishing the death penalty will in no way be a relief to myself or my family.”

But Satterberg argued that the death penalty didn’t work in that case either, “It doesn’t work in any of these cases. That individual is still a long way from facing execution in our state.”

Others testified the death penalty was an important bargaining tool in murder cases, including Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs Director Steve Strachan. He said having the death penalty made a difference in a child murder case in Kitsap County just last week.

“Little 6-year-old Jenise Wright was abducted, sexually assaulted and murdered by a neighbor,” Strachan said. “He pleaded guilty just last week to a lengthy sentence, and the dynamic and the ability of the death penalty did play a part in that outcome, which is a good outcome for the family and for the community because there was not a trial, there was a plea.”

Satterberg has testified he doesn’t believe the death penalty should be used as leverage.

The measure has already cleared the Senate. It has to be passed out of the House Judiciary Committee by the end of this week in order to make it to the House floor.

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