Senate Votes To End Hanging

The Senate voted Friday to change Washington’s preferred method of execution from hanging to lethal injection.

Under current law, death row inmates are executed by hanging, unless they choose lethal injection.

The Senate voted 45-3 to pass the bill and send it to the House.

“It’s not going to make the appeals process go away,” said the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Adam Smith, D-Kent. “But, hopefully, it will speed it up.”

Attorney General Christine Gregoire told lawmakers last month that changing the method would save taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, paid to defend hanging against inmate appeals.