Bill Favors Lethal Injection Over Hanging

A bill to make lethal injection rather than hanging the primary means of execution in Washington sailed through the Senate on a 45-3 vote Monday, but it faces an uncertain future in the House.

The measure was proposed by Attorney General Christine Gregoire, who told lawmakers it would close a significant loophole in the state’s death penalty law.

Under current law, condemned inmates can choose hanging or lethal injection. If they refuse to make a choice, they are hanged.

Hanging, Gregoire told the lawmakers at an earlier hearing, is far more susceptible to appeal and, consequently, to delays in executions.

She said the case of Mitchell Rupe illustrates the predicament the state is in.

Rupe, who was sentenced to death for the September 1981 killing of two Olympia bank tellers, successfully argued in U.S. District Court that he is too heavy to be hanged without the threat of decapitation, thereby violating the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

It took 12 years to carry out the death sentence for triple murderer Charles Campbell. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals took five years to determine hanging would not violate Campbell’s Eighth Amendment rights.

During brief debate on the Senate floor, Sen. Adam Smith, D-Kent, said a change to lethal injection wouldn’t stop appeals, “but there would be fewer.”

Rep. Cal Anderson, D-Seattle, who voted against the measure, said he fears the change would sanitize executions. “We’re not putting Spot to sleep; we’re putting a human being to sleep,” Anderson said.