S-0851.1                   _______________________________________________

                                                     SENATE BILL 5415

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State of Washington                              53rd Legislature                             1993 Regular Session

By Senators Prentice, Pelz and Talmadge

Read first time 01/27/93.  Referred to Committee on Law & Justice.

Requiring that the death penalty be carried out by lethal injection.

          AN ACT Relating to method of execution; and amending RCW 10.95.180.

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) 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.  ((In any case,)) Death shall be pronounced by a licensed physician.

          (2) All executions, for both men and women, shall be carried out within the walls of the state penitentiary.

(3) If any provision of subsection (1) of this section or its application to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the punishment of death shall be supervised by the superintendent of the penitentiary and shall be inflicted by hanging by the neck:  PROVIDED, That the inmate to be executed may elect to receive by intravenous injection a lethal substance or combination of lethal substances in sufficient quantity to cause death.  Any inmate who elects to receive such substance or substances shall be injected with such substances until dead.  In any case, death shall be pronounced by a licensed physician.

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