The desires of the victims' families are taken into account when the prosecutor enters into a plea bargain.
I think what's at work here is he pled to 48 murders. There was no way the families of all 48 victims would agree on the sentence. Some were opposed to the death penalty as a matter of personal conviction. Some wanted an eye for an eye.
I think Norm Meleng did the right thing in agreeing to the deal. They closed a lot of murder investigations that otherwise would have remained unresolved and actually found more bodies since Ridgeway began cooperating.
The deal, however, does raise real issues for the future of the death penalty in Washington state and possibly elsewhere. If you don't execute the worst serial killer in US history, then can society justify executing someone who kills a cop in a shootout?
By the way, I think he'll ultimately meet the same fate as Jeffrey Dahamer and be the victim of a prison yard stabbing.
Here's that article I linked. I didn't realize they are now requiring a logon:
Ridgway deal could change criteria for death penalty
By Ian Ith
Seattle Times staff reporter
It's a fundamental issue of fairness, say attorneys for two men accused of killing a young Marysville woman in Snohomish County last year:
How could prosecutors in Snohomish County justify seeking the death penalty against the men, accused in one slaying, if prosecutors in King County end up sparing the life of Gary L. Ridgway, accused of seven of the Green River killings and possibly owning up to many more?
In Everett, attorneys for defendants John Anderson, 20, and John Whitaker, 22, succeeded in delaying a decision by prosecutors on whether to seek the death penalty in the September 2002 slaying of 18-year-old Rachel Burkheimer. They want to wait to see whether Ridgway is given a plea deal.
"If they don't seek the death penalty in Ridgway's case, how can a prosecutor morally seek the death penalty against someone who's not a killer?" said Whitaker's attorney, John Muenster of Seattle.
By making the argument in a courtroom in Everett on Wednesday, the defense lawyers had the distinction of being the first in the area to specifically use Ridgway's case to fight a death penalty.
A look at the cases
King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng has been seeking the death penalty against two men, Gary L. Ridgway and Charles Champion. He has declined to seek the death penalty in six pending aggravated-murder cases. He is still reviewing two recent cases.
Death-penalty cases:
• Gary L. Ridgway, 54, charged in seven slayings of young women in South King County in the early 1980s, a portion of 49 women whose deaths were attributed to the Green River killer.
• Charles Champion, 20, charged in the fatal shooting of Des Moines police Officer Steven Underwood in March 2001.
Not death-penalty cases:
• Herbert Ray Riggins, 46, charged in the killing of Jamare Johnson, 12, and David Rodriguez, 9, in their Rainier Valley home and critically injuring their mother, Kathy Johnson, 43, his former girlfriend, last January.
• Ronald Keith Matthews, 45, charged in the shooting of sheriff's Deputy Richard Herzog, 46, in Newcastle in June 2002.
• Richard Saintcalle, 36, of Federal Way, charged in the killing of Keymhare Germain, 32, and wounding their daughter, Elizabeth, in August.
• Neelish Phadnis, 22, charged in the deaths of his parents, Ravindra and Surekha Phadnis, who were shot in their home in August 2002.
• Leemah Carneh, 22, charged in the March 2001 deaths of Richard and Leola Larson, 63 and 64, their 17-year-old grandson, Taelor Marks, and his 17-year-old girlfriend, Josie Peterson.
• Ronald Lakey, 33, of Kirkland, charged in the January 2002 slaying of David Barzilai, 25, a Microsoft program manager.
Still considering:
• John Morimoto, 33, charged in the slaying of Loc "Michael" Phan, 46, and Phuong "Michelle" Dung Phan, 34, and critically injuring their daughter, Cindy, at their home in Kent two weeks ago.
• Jason Scott Roberts, 28, charged in the fatal shooting of Federal Way police Officer Patrick Maher on Aug. 2 after grabbing the officer's weapon during a struggle.
But they're first in what experts say could be a very long line.
Lawyers and legal observers agree that if King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng, who has said he would seek the death penalty against Ridgway, agrees instead to spare his life in exchange for cooperation in solving more Green River slayings, all death-penalty defendants likely will be lining up to argue that their sentences also are unfair.
Death-penalty opponents say that if Ridgway is spared, it could effectively help spell the end of executions in Washington.
Prosecutors and death-penalty supporters agree it would be extremely difficult then, bordering on impossible, to actually see a death penalty through the appeals courts to the execution chamber.
"It's going to be very difficult for prosecutors and the Supreme Court to say that other cases that are less egregious deserve the death penalty," said Mark Larranaga, a Seattle defense attorney who heads the Death Penalty Assistance Center, an advocacy group for defendants in capital cases.
"I don't know how you could come to any other educated conclusion."
At the core of the Ridgway issue is the legal concept of "proportionality."
The law says that to execute people in Washington, their crimes should be comparable to other crimes that resulted in execution — and worse than crimes that did not.
Ridgway, 54, is charged with aggravated murder in seven of the Green River slayings. Sources have said he is dealing with prosecutors and may be directing them to find remains of missing Green River victims.
Sources familiar with the case said yesterday the unveiling of the plea deal is expected next month.
The State Supreme Court reviews every case in which the death penalty is given, in part to see whether the proportionality standard is met.
Death-penalty opponents criticize the court, though, because it has never overturned a death sentence on the basis of proportionality, but has ruled generally that death-penalty decisions should rest largely with elected county prosecutors and citizen juries.
If Maleng spares Ridgway, the Supreme Court may have to start paying attention, opponents hope.
"The proportionality problem has really been growing and growing for years now," said Tim Ford, a Seattle defense attorney and longtime death-penalty opponent. "I've been making this argument for 30 years, but this will be a very visible and a very dramatic example of a phenomenon that's happening all the time. So you've got to be wondering what Norm Maleng is going to do then."
Ford and other death-penalty opponents say no other death-row inmate would benefit from a Ridgway plea more than Robert Lee Yates, the convicted Spokane serial killer whose case is most similar to Ridgway's.
Yates accepted a plea bargain with Spokane prosecutors to spare him the death penalty in exchange for admitting to other slayings. But when Pierce County prosecutors charged him with murders near Tacoma, they didn't honor the bargain. Yates is now on death row.
At the time, Maleng was an outspoken critic of Spokane County Prosecutor Steven Tucker for plea-bargaining away the death penalty.
Sources say Ridgway likely wouldn't face the same problem as Yates because prosecutors and Ridgway's lawyers would ensure no other prosecutors would go after him if he signs a deal.
Defense attorneys say if Ridgway is spared, Yates could argue that it would be disproportional to put him to death for his serial killings, which were very similar to the Green River killings — prostitutes killed and their bodies left in remote areas.
Pierce County Prosecutor Gerald Horne said a Ridgway deal wouldn't take away a prosecutor's right to seek the death penalty. He said even more egregious cases could come along — someone who tortures and kills children, for example.
"There is still a (death-penalty) law on the books that everyone should have the resolve to uphold," he said. "There's still a law, and each case has to be evaluated on its own merits."
But Horne, who said he pressed for the death penalty against Yates because he refused to "make a deal with the devil himself," said he lately has become disillusioned with the death-penalty process in Washington, and has recently decided not to seek it at all, except in "the very worst of the very worst" cases.
The appeals courts, he contends, have made it virtually impossible to execute anyone but those who volunteer to be executed by waiving their appeals.
Adding Ridgway to the proportionality standard will only make execution more rare, he predicts.
"No county has put more people on death row than Pierce County, but no one (convicted there) has ever died," Horne said. "If there is, in fact, no death penalty, then why are we expending the resources on it? It misleads the community as a whole."
Seattle Times reporter Jennifer Sullivan contributed to this report. Ian Ith: 206-464-2109 or iith@seattletimes.com |
