Legal Question in Criminal Law in Washington

Re: Gary Leon Ridgway

Ridgway admitted murdering 42 women on investigators' list of Green River Killer victims, as well as six women who were not on the list. But the plea agreement Ridgway reached between his lawyers and the King County Prosecutor�s Office did not address what would happen if it�s discovered that he actually murdered more people.

Washington State has, as all states do, no statute of limitations on the offense of murder. This means that if it is ever discovered that Ridgway committed another murder or murders, he can be charged and put on trial. And yes, in deed, if he is convicted of any more murders, it would be likely that he will face the death penalty.

The agreement reached in Ridgway�s cases are strikingly similar to the deal reached in another serial killer case, that of Robert Yates. Mr. Yates pled guilty to 13 murders in Spokane in Eastern Washington. He had been suspected of 18 murders, but took the plea deal to avoid the death penalty. Then, a few months later, his DNA was linked to murder cases in Tacoma in Western Washington State. He was put on trial, pled guilty, and did receive the death penalty.

Some people in Washington are now debating whether the Ridgway plea bargain signals the end of the death penalty in this state. If someone who kills 48 people can�t get the death penalty, then who can? But the plea deals in both Ridgway�s and Yates� cases represent the recognition of two key issues, both of which are weaknesses in our system of justice.

The first is the sheer cost that it would have taken to prosecute Ridgway. One expert said that the trial make take two years to complete at a cost of over $100 million. Then if he was convicted and given the death penalty, the automatic appeals would have rippled through the system for over 20 years, adding millions of dollars in additional costs.

Secondly, the system would have struggled to find an impartial jury. The Green River Killer case was headline news for decades in this state. The jury system provides that defendants shall have a neutral and impartial jury. Bias and pre-decision are grounds for striking a juror from the panel. It would have been difficult to impossible to find qualified people to serve as a juror in Ridgway�s case.

A society�s response to the most severe crimes, when critically evaluated, tells you a lot about the society members� morals, values, and beliefs. Did Ridgway deserve to die � maybe so. Was our justice system quite able to deal with the magnitude of what he did? Not at all.

I know that this is a long answer to your question, but it�s definitely the kind of think that should be discussed in the classroom and it�s the kind of thing that your students can really learn from.