09 March 2020 :

HB 1488 that would formally remove Washington’s judicially abolished death penalty from the state’s statute books has failed. HB 1488/SB 5339, which passed the state senate on January 31 and was approved by the House Committee on Public Safety on February 27, did not come up for a vote on the floor of the state House of Representatives by the March 7 deadline for consideration during the 2020 legislative session. The failure has no effect on the judicial abolition of the state’s death penalty in 2018. It was the second consecutive year in which legislative efforts to repeal the state’s unconstitutional death-penalty law failed to receive a vote in the full House.