We as humans have no right to dictate a person’s life, much less their death. Since 2018, Washington state has abolished the death penalty and the bill has been recently renewed earlier this year.
Before the law was abolished, it was used to negotiate information from those on death row, like in the case with Gary Ridgway, who was charged for multiple murders and was offered a plea bargain to exchange information on his victims, such as their location. The Gary Ridgway case is used as Rep. Jenny Graham’s argument (her sister was one of Ridgway’s victims) as to why there should be a death penalty. Some say that the same thing could be said as to why there shouldn’t be a death penalty, since in this case it wasn’t even used.
I disagree with that last statement. I think that the death penalty being used to bring closure instead of death is a good thing. In the Gary Ridgway case, everyone wins; the family gets closure and there is no ironic justice of killing a killer. I think that there is a way to use the death penalty without causing death but peace of mind. There could be a law that restricts the death penalty or to be used under circumstances where providing closure is the motive, not death.
