A bipartisan effort to repeal the death penalty fell short in the Washington Legislature this year. But a separate effort to overturn the state's capital punishment statute through the courts is ongoing. The constitutional challenge to the death penalty in Washington involves the case of Allen Eugene Gregory , 45, who was sentenced to die for the 1996 rape and murder of Geneine Harshfield in Tacoma. Gregory is one of three African-American men currently on Washington's death row. Citing a 2014 report by researchers at the University of Washington , Gregory's attorneys argue that black defendants in Washington are "more than four times as likely to be sentenced to death as other defendants." The researchers analyzed trial reports from more than 300 aggravated murder cases in Washington since 1981. They concluded that while race did not appear to influence whether prosecutors sought the death penalty, it was a factor in whether juries imposed a death ...
Striving for a World without Capital Punishment