A look inside: The history of Washington’s execution chamber

Описание: Fourteen years after the last death sentence was carried out in Washington, the execution chamber at the state penitentiary in Walla Walla was officially closed in a ceremony on September 18, 2024.

Gov. Jay Inslee, who issued a moratorium on the death penalty 10 years ago, said shuttering the chamber was the “final closure” of the controversial issue in Washington state law.

In 2014, Inslee issued a moratorium on the death penalty. In 2018, Washington's Supreme Court unanimously struck down the death penalty, calling it arbitrary and racially biased. In 2023, the state legislature officially removed the death penalty from state law with Senate Bill 5087. 

The execution chamber opened in 1904 and was the site of 78 executions in its history. Washington used two methods of execution over the years: hanging and lethal injection.

The hooks remain in the gallows on the second floor of the chamber, with the marks from the ropes that were used to hang the condemned clearly visible.

On the first level of the chamber, the execution gurney remains in place with straps and belts where the condemned would be given a lethal injection. A small stool sits underneath the gurney where the condemned would climb onto the table.

Around 15 observation chairs also remain in the chamber, with the front row reserved for families of the victims. Prison inmates made a plaque that was installed on the wall of the chamber, commemorating the closure.

The three clocks in the execution chamber are all set to 12:56, the time when the last execution was carried out on Cal Coburn Brown in September of 2010.

The Washington Department of Corrections plans to keep the execution chamber intact, for now.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 23 states have abolished the death penalty, and six states have paused executions through executive action. Twenty-one states still have the death penalty. 

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