OLYMPIA — It was a poignant moment of closure for the family of a murdered 14-year-old Clark County girl and the state senator who has championed their cause for the past three years.
On Thursday morning, Gov. Chris Gregoire signed the Chelsea Harrison bill, sponsored by Sen. Don Benton, which plugs a loophole in the state’s “Three Strikes You’re Out” law.
The governor said she was signing the bill “to honor a victim of this terrible situation,” then hugged Stephanie Johnson and Sylvia Johnson, the mother and grandmother of Chelsea Harrison.
The law’s loophole allowed Roy Wayne Russell to be free at the time of Chelsea’s murder. She died after attending a teen drinking party at the Vancouver home of Russell on Nov. 1, 2005. In 2006, Russell was convicted of charges including second-degree murder in connection with her death.
Russell was released from prison in 2001 after the Washington Court of Appeals overturned his life-without-release conviction in a 1998 arson. The court ruled that one of his three crimes was committed in another state and didn’t match the criteria in Washington’s “Three Strikes” law.
Senate Bill 6184 amends the law to specify that any felony crime conviction in another state with a finding of sexual motivation counts as a “Three Strikes” crime if the minimum sentence imposed was 10 years or more.
Outside the governor’s office, the two women faced television cameras and said they were grateful for this day.
“When we lost Chelsea, our family got together and decided something needed to be changed,” said Stephanie Johnson. Wiping away tears, she pulled a color photo of her daughter from her wallet and held it up for the cameras. “I know she is up there saying, ‘Right on,’ ” she said.
Sylvia Johnson thanked Benton for taking the issue on and working “relentlessly.”
“We think this should be a national law,” she said. She found it unbelievable, she said, when she learned that Russell had been “out on the street without any supervision” at the time of Chelsea’s death.
Benton, a Vancouver Republican, recounted the three years of effort that went into winning the bill’s passage. “The reason this one made it is, it’s a real bill about real people,” he said.
In 2006, his bill failed to get a hearing. Last year it passed the Senate but failed in the House. After that, Benton said, he drafted a new bill, lined up support from the state’s prosecutors, and signed up 46 co-sponsors. SB 6184 was the first bill in the Senate Judiciary Committee to get a public hearing this year. It passed the Senate unanimously and by a 92-2 vote in the House.
With this law, Benton said, “The word will go out that Washington is a state where we will put you away for life.”
Morning Briefing Newsletter
Get a rundown of the latest local and regional news every Mon-Fri morning.
