WA State moves closer to abolishing the death penalty!

The WA State House of Representatives committee hearing will occur on MON FEB 24, 2020, and more action will occur on THURS FEB 27.

The Washington State Senate has already passed SB 5339 to abolish the death penalty, and the House Public Safety Committee will hold its hearing on SB 5339 on Monday February 24, 2020, at 1:30 pm in Hearing Room D of the O-Brien Building (slightly SW of the Capitol Bldg).

I will testify to the House committee. Here is a fleshed-out version of what I will say to the committee during the brief time allotted to each person:

TESTIMONY 2020.02.24 — OK to share this with more people

This Thursday February 27 the committee will hold its executive session to decide whether to pass SB 5339 along to the House Rules Committee for possible movement onto the House Floor for final passage. If the House passes it, the Governor will certainly sign it. Then the death penalty statute will be removed from Washington State law.

I have been posting information to the “Death Penalty” part of my blog, www.parallaxperspectives.org. On February 8, 2020, I posted the news that the WA State Senate had passed this bill on January 31: http://parallaxperspectives.org/good-news-wa-state-senate-passed-sb-5339-to-repeal-was-death-penalty-law

In October 2018 the Washington State Supreme Court UNANIMOUSLY ruled that our state’s death penalty is unconstitutional because of its very long history of racial bias. This court decision prevented any current or future death penalty cases, but the statute remained in Washington State’s law (the Revised Code of Washington), so this legislation is necessary in order to repeal that law. I posted to my blog this information about the State Supreme Court decision:

http://parallaxperspectives.org/washington-states-death-penalty-is-unconstitutional-our-state-supreme-court-ruled-unanimously-on-oct-11-2018

http://parallaxperspectives.org/more-info-wa-state-death-penalty-is-ruled-unconstitutional

http://parallaxperspectives.org/fascinating-info-how-uw-research-convinced-our-states-highest-court-to-toss-out-the-death-penalty

 

 

 

 

About GlenAnderson 1499 Articles
Since the late 1960s Glen Anderson has devoted his life to working as a volunteer for peace, nonviolence, social justice, and progressive political issues. He has worked through many existing organizations and started several. Over the years he has worked especially for such wide-ranging goals as making peace with Vietnam, eliminating nuclear weapons, converting from a military economy to a peacetime economy, abolishing the death penalty, promoting nonviolence at all levels throughout society, and helping people organize and strategize for grassroots movements to solve many kinds of problems. He writes, speaks, and conducts training workshops on a wide variety of topics. Since 1987 he has produced and hosted a one-hour cable TV interview program on many kinds of issues. Since 2017 he has blogged at https://parallaxperspectives.org He lives in Lacey near Olympia WA. You can reach him at (360) 491-9093 glen@parallaxperspectives.org