Inslee reverts to DC-style politics, ends death penalty

One day after President Obama again changed the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, Governor Jay Inslee exhibited a similar go-it-alone style of governing.  Without notice, debate or public discussion, Inslee announced his refusal to carry out the state’s death penalty laws.  Inslee said that if any death penalty case arrives on his desk he will decline to act on it.

Inslee arrived at this surprise decision on his own, without consulting the legislature, holding hearings or allowing the public a forum for comment.  Inslee’s solo pronouncement shows insensitivity to the difficult decisions juries and judges have made in these cases, in their efforts to bring justice and closure to the families of victims.  Many of the victims in current death penalty cases involve women and very young children.  In a single surprise announcement Inslee overturned years of painful review by the judiciary, as citizen juries and court officials struggled to reach the right decision in each case.  Some victims’ families said they had attended every hearing related to the death of their loved ones.

List of people on death row. Source: KIRO TV

Yet even as Inslee said he won’t carry out Washington’s death penalty laws, he didn’t show the leadership or courage that would conclude these cases based on principle or moral belief.  He didn’t commute the sentences and he didn’t issue pardons (actually he sternly proclaimed, “They get no mercy from me”).  Inslee provided no resolution or closure to these tragic cases.  He simply announced a moratorium that is only good as long as he’s governor.

That leaves victims’ families with years of uncertainty about the course of justice in our state, and it leaves the people of Washington unsure about what surprise announcement our unpredictable governor might make next.