In his words, Washington State Governor Jay Inslee has suspended the state's death penalty in order to "join a growing national conversation about capital punishment."
At a news conference, Inslee went on to say "There have been too many doubts raised about capital punishment, there are too many flaws in this system today.  There is too much at stake to accept an imperfect system."

While he iterated that "nobody is going to be let out of prison. Period." there are currently nine men awaiting execution at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.

Last year, Maryland abolished the death penalty, the 18th state to do so and the sixth in the last six years.  Also, 2/3'rds of the the planet's countries do not employ capital punishment as a penalty.

Washington State re-enacted the death penalty in 1975.  Since then, five people have been executed in within the state.  One innocent person has been freed from Death Row in that time.  Washington gives the choice of lethal injection or hanging as form of execution.

Washington State's murder rate is 2.3 persons for every 100,000.

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