Bill > SB5639

This bill eliminates the death penalty for aggravated first-degree murder in Washington State, replacing it with a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of release or parole, which includes restitution to victims' families and other legal restitution requirements, and requires offenders to work to satisfy these restitution orders unless department of corrections policies prevent it. The bill also specifies that sentences of life imprisonment under this provision cannot be suspended, deferred, or commuted, and prohibits early release or furlough programs. For individuals convicted of aggravated first-degree murder committed before their sixteenth birthday, the sentence will be life imprisonment, and for those aged sixteen or seventeen at the time of the offense, the sentence will be life imprisonment with a minimum term of twenty-five years of confinement, with the possibility of a life minimum term, and the court must consider mitigating factors related to youth culpability, as outlined in the Supreme Court case *Miller v. Alabama*. The bill also repeals numerous existing statutes related to the death penalty process, including special sentencing proceedings, jury instructions, evidence, arguments, appeals, and the execution of death sentences, thereby streamlining the criminal justice system by removing the death penalty as a sentencing option.