[JURIST] The Washington state legislature [official website] proposed bills on Monday to eliminate the death penalty. HB 1739 and SB 5639 [texts] are sponsored by Democratic Representative Reuven Carlyle and Republican Senator Mark Miloscia [official websites], respectively, and the bills will replace the death penalty with life imprisonment without opportunity for parole or early release for those convicted of aggravated first degree murder. This legislation would also require the convicted felons to work throughout their prison sentence to pay restitution to their victims’ families. Last year Washington Governor Jay Inslee [official website] announced [JURIST report] a moratorium on executions in the state, and these proposed laws seek to further this goal. Currently nine men are on death row [Seattle Times report] in Washington. This legislation would make Washington the nineteenth state to eliminate the death penalty.

Use of the death penalty [JURIST backgrounder] has been a controversial issue throughout the US and internationally. Earlier this month an Indiana senator proposed a bill [JURIST report] to end the death penalty in the state. In May the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights [official website] urged the US to impose a moratorium on the use of the death penalty following a botched execution [JURIST reports] performed in Oklahoma the previous week. In April the Supreme Court of Oklahoma [official website] ruled [JURIST report] that inmates’ constitutional rights were not violated by keeping the sources of lethal injection drugs secret. Earlier that month a judge for the US District Court for the Western District of Missouri [official website] allowed the continuation [JURIST report] of a lawsuit challenging a bill that would conceal the identities of individuals involved in the administration of the death penalty.