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                            ENGROSSED SENATE BILL 5151

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State of Washington              52nd Legislature             1991 Regular Session

By Senators Hayner, Niemi, Thorsness, Nelson and Roach; by request of Department of Corrections.

Read first time January 22, 1991.  Referred to Committee on Law & Justice.Requiring that the death penalty be carried out by lethal injection.

     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.