Bill Would Ban Transplants On Death Row

A measure to ban publicly funded organ transplants for inmates sentenced to death was introduced Wednesday in the state Senate.

The measure follows news reports that Mitchell Rupe, who had been sentenced to death for the 1981 murders of two bank tellers, was being evaluated for a possible liver transplant. Prisons chief Chase Riveland said Rupe was not in line for a transplant but declined to discuss his medical condition on grounds it would violate the inmate’s legal right to confidentiality.

The bill, SB6243, sponsored by Sen. Calvin Goings, D-Puyallup, would ban the use of public money for organ transplants for any death row inmate, even those who are in the midst of appealing their sentences.

Rupe was convicted of the shooting deaths of two tellers at a Tumwater State Bank branch in Olympia.

He was sentenced to death, but the sentence was overturned in September 1994 by a federal judge in Seattle on grounds that lie-detector evidence about a witness improperly was excluded from his trial.

The state is appealing the ruling.