Gov. Jay Inslee (D-WA) signed a bill on Thursday removing state laws that the Washington state Supreme Court determined are invalid or unconstitutional, effectively abolishing the death penalty .
“It’s official. The death penalty is no longer in state law. In 2014 I issued a moratorium. In 2018 the state Supreme Court deemed the death penalty unconstitutional. Now in 2023, passage of SB 5087 strikes it entirely from our statutes,” Inslee tweeted.
Substitute Senate Bill 5087, sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Jamie Pedersen with support from Attorney General Bob Ferguson, abolishes multiple unconstitutional statutes, one of them being the death penalty.