Chief
02-05-2008, 01:20 PM
http://www.columbian.com/opinion/news/2008/02/02052008_In-Our-View-Progress-for-Benton.cfm
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Bill to strengthen state's three-strikes law passes key committee in Senate
On his third try, state Sen. Don Benton, R-Vancouver, is making significant progress toward strengthening the state's three-strikes law. We hope that legislators see the common sense in Benton's bill and pass the measure.
This time, collaboration is Benton's most effective tactic. He has convinced 44 of the Senate's 48 other state senators to co-sponsor Senate Bill 6184, which would allow serious offenses in other states to count toward Washington state's three-strikes law.
More than the right thing to do in the realm of criminal justice, passing the bill would honor the memory of Chelsea Harrison, the 14-year-old who died in 2005 at the home of Roy Wayne Russell, who was convicted on multiple charges in the girl's death and currently is serving a life sentence.
Russell should have been serving a life sentence prior to killing Harrison, Benton argues. Russell had been released in 2001 after the Washington Court of Appeals overturned his life sentence in a 1998 arson conviction. As The Columbian's Kathie Durbin reported recently, the loophole under which he was freed had to do with a conviction in Arizona, which Russell's attorney had argued did not apply in this state.
Benton's bill would make two much-needed changes. It would include any out-of-state conviction for a felony with a finding of sexual motivation if the minimum sentence imposed was 10 years or more, and if the conduct meets the statutory test in Washington state for "sexual motivation."
In 2006, a similar bill by Benton did not get out of committee, but at the end of the session Benton stepped up his efforts with a passionate speech, correctly reminding fellow senators that Harrison would not have been killed if the bill had been law when Russell was released in 2001.
Then, last year, Benton made progress on his bill as it moved passed in the Senate, but it died in a House committee after a scheduled hearing on it was canceled on the last day policy bills originating in the Senate could be passed by House committees.
Fortunately, Benton persisted into 2008, and this year, with added support from his colleagues, SB 6184 passed recently in the Senate Judiciary Committee and sent to the Senate Rules Committee. Among the co-sponsors that Benton had secured was state Sen. Adam Kline, D-Seattle, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee.
"You just have to keep working at it," Benton was quoted in Durbin's story. "This year I put the full weight of the Senate behind the bill. It was the first bill to get a public hearing on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and it was voted out of the committee with a unanimous voice vote ... I think it is just unconscionable that a young girl paid for this loophole (that allowed Russell to be released in 2001) with her life."
The state's three-strikes-law is a good one, and its strength should transcend state lines.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Bill to strengthen state's three-strikes law passes key committee in Senate
On his third try, state Sen. Don Benton, R-Vancouver, is making significant progress toward strengthening the state's three-strikes law. We hope that legislators see the common sense in Benton's bill and pass the measure.
This time, collaboration is Benton's most effective tactic. He has convinced 44 of the Senate's 48 other state senators to co-sponsor Senate Bill 6184, which would allow serious offenses in other states to count toward Washington state's three-strikes law.
More than the right thing to do in the realm of criminal justice, passing the bill would honor the memory of Chelsea Harrison, the 14-year-old who died in 2005 at the home of Roy Wayne Russell, who was convicted on multiple charges in the girl's death and currently is serving a life sentence.
Russell should have been serving a life sentence prior to killing Harrison, Benton argues. Russell had been released in 2001 after the Washington Court of Appeals overturned his life sentence in a 1998 arson conviction. As The Columbian's Kathie Durbin reported recently, the loophole under which he was freed had to do with a conviction in Arizona, which Russell's attorney had argued did not apply in this state.
Benton's bill would make two much-needed changes. It would include any out-of-state conviction for a felony with a finding of sexual motivation if the minimum sentence imposed was 10 years or more, and if the conduct meets the statutory test in Washington state for "sexual motivation."
In 2006, a similar bill by Benton did not get out of committee, but at the end of the session Benton stepped up his efforts with a passionate speech, correctly reminding fellow senators that Harrison would not have been killed if the bill had been law when Russell was released in 2001.
Then, last year, Benton made progress on his bill as it moved passed in the Senate, but it died in a House committee after a scheduled hearing on it was canceled on the last day policy bills originating in the Senate could be passed by House committees.
Fortunately, Benton persisted into 2008, and this year, with added support from his colleagues, SB 6184 passed recently in the Senate Judiciary Committee and sent to the Senate Rules Committee. Among the co-sponsors that Benton had secured was state Sen. Adam Kline, D-Seattle, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee.
"You just have to keep working at it," Benton was quoted in Durbin's story. "This year I put the full weight of the Senate behind the bill. It was the first bill to get a public hearing on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and it was voted out of the committee with a unanimous voice vote ... I think it is just unconscionable that a young girl paid for this loophole (that allowed Russell to be released in 2001) with her life."
The state's three-strikes-law is a good one, and its strength should transcend state lines.