Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer is pictured in this Chronicle file photo taken last June.
While nine Washington state senators have joined together to introduce a bill to abolish the death penalty in Washington at the request of the state Attorney General’s Office, Lewis County Prosecutor Jonathan Meyer told The Chronicle this week he is opposed to the effort.
“As prosecutors we have been very careful about cases involving the death penalty,” he said. “We’re not just going to go and seek the death penalty just because we can.”
Meyer said he plans to attend a future public hearing on the bill in the state Legislature.
He said prosecutors in Washington have only rarely and thoughtfully pursued the death penalty, rather than life imprisonment, in cases of aggravated first-degree murder.
Meyer said he’s not aware of any cases in which a person was sentenced to death in Lewis County in recent memory.
Senate Bill 6052, officially introduced on Monday, proposes to reduce criminal justice expenses by eliminating the death penalty and instead sentence those convicted of first-degree aggravated murder to life in prison without possibility of release under any circumstances.
Under the bill’s current language, a person between 16 and 18 years old convicted of first-degree aggravated murder must be sentenced to a minimum of 25 years to a maximum of life in prison.
Washington has convicted murderers currently on death row, but Gov. Jay Inslee signed an executive order in 2015 suspending the death penalty.
An unanswered question, Meyer said, is whether the change would be retroactive — commuting the sentences of people currently awaiting execution to life in prison or a sentence with a possibility of release.
If the death penalty is abolished in the state, Meyer said he believes it should be through a vote of Washington residents.
