On October 11, 2018,
the Washington State Supreme Court ruled the current death penalty statute
unconstitutional, on the ground that it resulted in racial bias, thus
abolishing capital punishment in the state. It became the 20th state in the
nation to outlaw executions. The eight inmates that were on death row at the time
of ruling had their sentences converted to life in prison. The State Supreme
Court did not rule out the possibility that the state legislature could enact a
constitutional death penalty statute in the future.
A word of warning to
those 8 Death Row Inmates who think they will live ‘forever’, you do not know
when but your lives will end like Dante Taylor or Charles Manson, if the state does not
execute you, you will die by any means.
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"There
is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you
arose this morning but that God's hand has held you up." - Jonathan
Edwards
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List of inmates whose
sentences are changed from death row to life in prison
Eight death-row inmates will now serve
life in prison after Thursday's ruling by the Washington state Supreme Court.
The
Washington State Supreme Court ruled
on Thursday that the death penalty violates the state constitution. The
unanimous decision orders the sentences of eight people on death row to be
commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Here’s
the list of those inmates, according to the state’s Department of Corrections:
Jonathan L. Gentry, 62, convicted in 1991 of fatally
bludgeoning Cassie Holden, 12, in Kitsap County in 1988.
Cassie,
who was living in Idaho, was visiting her mother in Bremerton for the summer
when she was killed with blows from a two-pound rock. She appeared to have been
sexually assaulted before she was killed. Three witnesses reported seeing a man
matching Gentry’s description near the time and place of the murder, and three
fellow inmates testified that he had admitted to them that he killed the girl.
The
Supreme Court in 2014 rejected
his petition for release, which argued that his trial was tainted by racial
bias. Gentry is black; Cassie was white. He claimed that prosecutors made
racist comments to his counsel, offered testimony of white witnesses who used racist
language and focused on physical evidence that described the suspect as having
“Negroid characteristics.” Gentry also emphasized that he was sentenced by an
all-white jury and his trial was presided over by a white judge.
Clark R. Elmore, 66, convicted in 1995 of the rape and
murder of Christy Onstad, 14, in Whatcom County in 1995.
Christy
was the daughter of Elmore’s girlfriend, who lived with Elmore in Bellingham.
In a graphic taped confession, Elmore said Christy had threatened to tell
someone that he had molested her when she was younger. On the day she was
murdered, Elmore picked her up at school, took her to a secluded area, and then
raped and strangled her.
The
9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld
his death sentence in 2015. Elmore claimed his trial was prejudicial
because the jury was allowed to see him shackled and that his attorney made
mistakes in having him plead guilty and not pursue a brain-injury defense.
Cecil E. Davis, 59, convicted in 1998 of the murder of
Yoshiko Couch, 65, in Pierce County in 1997.
Couch
was found dead at her Tacoma home after being robbed, raped and suffocated with
towels soaked in a solvent. A Pierce County jury sentenced Davis to death after deliberating for just 90
minutes. (Davis was also convicted in 1997 of the murder of Jane
Hungerford-Trapp in Tacoma.)
The
Supreme Court overturned his sentence in 2004, saying that a juror may have
considered him dangerous because they saw him in ankle shackles during his
trial. But a second jury in Pierce County re-sentenced him to death in 2007.
The
Supreme Court upheld the death penalty last year, rejecting his argument that
the state’s system fails to protect defendants with intellectual disabilities
from being executed. No one at Davis’ trial testified that he had an
intellectual disability.
Dayva M. Cross, 59, convicted in 2001 for the stabbing
deaths of his wife, Anouchka Baldwin, 37, and stepdaughters Amanda Baldwin, 15,
and Salome Holle, 18, in King County in 1999.
Cross
and Anouchka Baldwin had been arguing in their Snoqualmie home when Cross
stabbed her, Baldwin’s third daughter testified. He then attacked Holle and
forced his way into a bedroom where Amanda and the third daughter were hiding.
He then stabbed Amanda.
The
Supreme Court upheld
Cross’ sentence in 2014, rejecting his claims that his admission of guilt
when he was first in custody violated his constitutional rights and that he had
had ineffective counsel.
Robert Lee Yates Jr., 66, convicted in 2002 of murdering
Melinda Mercer, 24, in 1997 and Connie LaFontaine Ellis, 35, in Pierce County
in 1998.
Yates, a serial killer, received a plea deal and was sentenced to 408 years in
prison in 2000 after he confessed to 13 murders in Spokane, Walla Walla and
Skagit counties. In Pierce County, prosecutors sought and obtained the death
penalty for the murders of Mercer and Ellis.
The
Supreme Court in 2015 rejected
his petition to overturn his convictions and death sentence, saying that it
had been filed too late after his sentence became final.
Conner M. Schierman, 37, convicted in 2010 of murdering Olga
Milkin, 28, her sons Justin, 5, and Andrew, 3, and her sister, Lyubov Botvina,
24, in 2006 in King County.
Schierman
stabbed Milkin, her sister and two children and then burned their Kirkland
house down to cover the crime. Schierman was seen on surveillance video buying
gas from a nearby station right before the fire broke up but told investigators
that he had been in an alcoholic blackout. Milkin’s
husband had been deployed in Iraq when the murders occurred.
In
a
split decision earlier this year, the state Supreme Court upheld the
conviction and sentence after debate that centered on whether Schierman’s
rights to a public trial were violated.
Allen E. Gregory, 46, convicted in 2001 of raping and
murdering Geneine Harshfield, a 43-year-old cocktail waitress who lived
near his grandmother, in 1996. Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling came in his
case.
His case was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2006 but he was
reconvicted in 2012.
Byron E. Scherf, 60, convicted in 2013 of the murder of
correctional Officer Jayme Biendl of Granite Falls at the Monroe Correctional
Complex in 2011.
Scherf
was serving
a life sentence for the abduction and rape of a Spokane real-estate agent
after making an appointment with her to see a home in 1995.
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BURN IN HELL: Mourners
at Manson's funeral reportedly sang Guns N' Roses and Beach Boys songs
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Executions in the past
25 years
There
have been five executions since 1993, when the death penalty was carried out
for the first time in 30 years. Two inmates were from Snohomish County and one
each was from King, Benton and Clark counties. All were men; a woman has never
been executed in Washington.
Westley Allan Dodd, 31, was executed by hanging in 1993. Dodd was convicted of
killing three boys in the Vancouver and Portland areas in 1989. He chose hanging
over lethal injection because, he said, he had hanged one of his victims.
Charles R. Campbell, 39, was executed by hanging in 1994. He was convicted of the
murders of Renae Wicklund, 31, her daughter, Shannah, 8, and a neighbor,
Barbara Hendrickson, 51, in Clearview, Snohomish County, in 1982.
Jeremy Sagastegui,
27, was executed by lethal injection in 1998. He was convicted
of the 1995 murders of Mellisa Sarbacher, 21, her son, 3-year-old Keivan, and
her friend, Lisa Vera-Acevedo, 26, near Kennewick. He was the first inmate to
die by lethal injection. He said he committed the murders because he knew he
would receive the death penalty.
James H. Elledge, 58, was executed by lethal injection in 2001. He pleaded guilty
to murdering Eloise Fitzner in a Lynnwood church in 1998 and urged the jury to
sentence him to death.
Cal Coburn Brown, 52, was
executed by lethal injection in 2010. Brown was executed 16 ½ years after
he was convicted of the rape and murder of Holly Washa of Burien in 1991. Brown
was the first inmate in Washington to be executed by a single-drug lethal
injection.
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