Franklin County prosecutor favors asking Washington voters about death penalty

Franklin County Prosecutor Shawn Sant wants to see Washington voters get asked in 2016 if they support keeping capital punishment as an option for the most heinous crimes.

The death penalty has been on hold in Washington since February 2014, when Gov. Jay Inslee issued a moratorium for as long as he was in office.

Many of the state’s elected prosecutors haven’t backed off considering the death penalty in aggravated murder cases that merit it.

But the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys — a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization that supports county prosecutors and lobbies on their behalf — says it is time to have the electorate weigh in on the issue.

A two-page statement issued last week by King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg, the association’s president, asked Gov. Jay Inslee and the Legislature “to place a referendum on the ballot next year seeking guidance from the voters about this significant public policy issue.”

Sant, a Republican, said an overwhelming majority of prosecutors at their October meeting wanted to put this back to the people.

“The intent behind this was making taxpayers aware we, as prosecutors, kind of get a sense that a lot of people are not favoring the death penalty any longer, or their minds have changed from 40 years ago, when Washington got the initiative to have the death penalty,” Sant said. He noted that he was speaking for himself, and not the association.

“If that (consensus) has changed, we want to make sure we are in fact carrying out the will of the citizens of the state that we serve in prosecuting for state crimes,” he added.

If voters decide to keep the death penalty, Sant says the state then needs to address the funding issue so capital punishment cases aren’t a burden on counties, especially smaller ones.

Sant made the decision this summer not to pursue the death penalty against Prudencio Fragos-Ramirez, a Connell man accused of setting fire to his girlfriend’s car after shooting the woman and her 3-year-old son inside.

Sant acknowledged that it is concerning when a child is involved in this type of crime, but said his office had reservations after evaluating the circumstances and the available evidence.

“Obviously, we have a strong case,” he said, “but for the type of case and the scrutiny that would come with a death penalty case … we discussed that it wouldn’t be appropriate in this case.”

Fragos-Ramirez is charged in Franklin County Superior Court with two counts of first-degree murder, and is facing a minimum sentence of 50 years if convicted. Sant says his office can amend to aggravated charges if the case goes to trial.

Benton County Prosecutor Andy Miller is in the middle of a triple-homicide trial and wasn’t available to comment on the association’s announcement.

Jeremy Sagastegui is the only man from Benton and Franklin counties to be put to death since Washington reinstated the death penalty 34 years ago. He died by lethal injection for the 1995 killing of a child and two women.

Former Richland resident Westley Allan Dodd was the first to be executed after the reinstatement. The serial killer and child molester was convicted in Vancouver, Wash., and hanged in 1993 at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.

The state has executed a total 78 men since 1904.

Washington reportedly has no active capital punishment cases.

In May, a King County jury spared the life of a man convicted of killing six members of his ex-girlfriend’s family during a 2007 holiday gathering in Carnation. Satterberg then announced in July that he would no longer seek the death penalty against the co-defendant.

Also in July, another King County jury declined to send a convicted cop killer to death row, and instead sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of release.

Sant said a benefit of having capital punishment is that prosecutors can use the potential sentence as a negotiating tool, like in the case of Gary Ridgway. The Green River Killer, as part of his plea bargain to a life sentence, agreed to disclose the whereabouts of still-missing women.

Sant, who would like to see it remain a law, believes his colleagues have been cautious when exercising the option to seek the death penalty.

Since 1981, Washington prosecutors have sought the death penalty in 90 of 268 cases where it was a possible sentence, Satterberg said. And of those 90, jurors came back with unanimous verdicts for death in 32 cases, he wrote.

Five men have been executed in that time, including three who told their lawyers not to pursue appeals of their convictions.

Eighteen men have had their sentences reversed by appeals courts, and “their cases were ultimately resolved without imposition of the death penalty,” Satterberg said.

Nine convicted killers now live on death row.

Miller, a Democrat, has acknowledged in the past of having mixed feelings on the topic. He’s said that if given the option, he might vote as a private citizen to repeal capital punishment because he doesn’t know that it “adds anything.”

But on the job, Miller is obligated to enforce the law. He is the only active prosecutor in the state who has argued for the death penalty, prosecuted it, defended it all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, and watched the execution.

He has told the Herald that he won’t take the death penalty off the table from consideration if the circumstances warrant it, because Washington may elect a new governor in 2016 while a case is still working through the judicial system.

This story was originally published November 15, 2015 at 10:06 PM with the headline "Franklin County prosecutor favors asking Washington voters about death penalty."