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ENGROSSED HOUSE BILL 1043
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State of Washington 53rd Legislature 1993 Regular Session
By Representatives Schmidt, Appelwick, Morris, Long, I. Ballasiotes, Riley, Springer, Shin, Brough, Eide, Johanson, Fuhrman, Silver and J. Kohl
Read first time 01/13/93. Referred to Committee on Judiciary.
AN ACT Relating to method of execution; amending RCW 10.95.180; and prescribing penalties.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:
Sec. 1. RCW 10.95.180 and 1986 c 194 s 1 are each amended to read as follows:
(1) For
any defendant sentenced to death for a crime committed before the effective
date of this act, the punishment of death shall be supervised by the
superintendent of the penitentiary and shall be inflicted ((either by
hanging by the neck or, at the election of the defendant,)) by intravenous
injection of a substance or substances in a lethal quantity sufficient to cause
death and until the defendant is dead, or at the election of the defendant
by hanging by the neck until the defendant is dead. In any case, death
shall be pronounced by a licensed physician.
(2) For any defendant sentenced to death for a crime committed on or after the effective date of this act, the punishment of death shall be supervised by the superintendent of the penitentiary and shall be inflicted by intravenous injection of a substance or substances in a lethal quantity sufficient to cause death and until the defendant is dead. In the event execution by lethal injection is held invalid or unconstitutional by a court of competent jurisdiction, the method of execution shall be hanging by the neck until the defendant is dead.
(3) All executions, for both men and women, shall be carried out within the walls of the state penitentiary.
(4) If any provision of this section or its application to any person is held invalid, the remainder of this section, or the application of the provision to other persons or circumstances, is not affected.
(5) The office of the administrator for the courts shall conduct an ongoing comparison study of racial and gender proportionalities with respect to aggravated first degree murder cases before and after the effective date of this act. The office shall report annually to each member of the legislature the cumulative results of its study. The study shall specifically include, but not be limited to, gender and race proportionalities during the period from 1981 until the effective date of this act as compared to those same proportionalities during the period after the effective date of this act with respect to each of the following categories of aggravated first degree murder prosecutions:
(a) All cases in which the death penalty has not been sought;
(b) All cases in which the death penalty has been sought;
(c) All cases in which a sentence of death has been entered; and
(d) All cases in which a sentence of death has been carried out.
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