June 2006

Letters to the Editor

Bar News welcomes letters from readers. We do not run letters that have been printed in, or are pending before, other legal publications whose readership overlaps ours. Letters should be no more than 250 words in length, and e-mailed to letterstotheeditor@wsba.org or mailed to WSBA, Attn: Letters to the Editor, 2101 Fourth Ave., Ste. 400, Seattle, WA 98121-2330. We reserve the right to edit letters. Bar News does not print anonymous letters, or more than one submission per month from the same contributor.

Bar News shouldn't be a political soapbox

Once again I object to Brooke Taylor's editorials with regard to medical malpractice litigation. His editorial in the April 2006 Bar News ("And Talk We Did") makes it sound as if a bill passed on that topic was a wonderful product of new found cooperation among formerly opposing parties. Only two people were neglected in this collaborative venture: the patient and the ratepayer. The editorial says the act is a solid start toward achieving the goals of patient safety, reduced insurance cost, efficiencies in the system, and avoidance of frivolous lawsuits. Nothing about the quality of patient care. The article says the WSBA stood "shoulder to shoulder" with the governor, the insurance commissioner, the WSMA, WSTLA, physicians insurance and the hospital association. Everyone except the ratepayer and the taxpayer, who pay for all those large verdicts and small verdicts, and for all those lawyers who make their living from "general damages." The failure to mention the patient and the taxpayer is a good indication that this bill was not designed to benefit the people of this country. I also object to the use of the Bar News to promote the political views of the president. The article appears to be a subtle put down of cap on damages, since it says "extreme" measures such as the initiative on caps were rejected. The president and the Bar Association have no business using a government publication to promote their opinion on caps or on one initiative or another. For that matter, the president and the Bar have no business using the pages of a government publication to promote a particular bill, whether it passes or not. And finally, I note that Mr. Taylor is lavish in his praise of Democrats, such as the governor and Pat Lanz, as well as WSTLA, but says nothing good about Republicans or people who might believe that PI lawyers take too much money out of the economy. The WSBA should stop its political lobbying, both in the Legislature and in the pages of the Bar News.

Roger Ley, Seattle

Death penalty on the ropes?

Recently  the Washington Supreme Court placed Washington's death penalty system on a precarious foundation. In a slim 5-4 decision, the majority concluded that Washington's death penalty statute was not administered in an arbitrary manner. The majority did acknowledge that serious questions exist about the fairness of its application, but suggested those questions best be left to the people of Washington State and the legislature. The dissent, citing the administration of Washington's death penalty statute, concluded "our proportionality review reveals the staggering flaw in the system of administration of the death penalty in Washington." To draw its disapproval, the dissenting justices reflected back to the 1972 United States Supreme Court decision, Furman v. Georgia, which held unconstitutional death penalty systems that are applied arbitrarily and capriciously. The four justices acknowledged that Washington's proportionality review was enacted as a mechanism to determine whether the death penalty has been imposed fairly and not "wanton or freakishly." Consequently, after reviewing the 25 years of the administration of Washington's death penalty, and approximately 270 death-eligible cases, the justices analogized who received a death sentence or not to lightning; randomly striking some and not others. A practice they were no longer going to tolerate.

We should applaud these justices for their historic position. At no time in its 25-year existence has Washington's death penalty system been questioned, criticized, and rejected to such an extent and by as many justices. Instead, courts have routinely adopted at face value that Washington's death penalty system was administered fairly. These justices, fortunately, decided the review process requires more. These justices did not rule that capital punishment will always be unjust or arbitrary; they merely exposed the arbitrariness of our current system and concluded that the only thing that has changed since Furman is now we have two and a half decades of experience to demonstrate these flaws.

A system so fraught with flaws needs, at a minimum, to be exposed and subjected to debate. Principles such as fairness, justice, and rationality, which are at the core of our criminal justice system, require as much. When a significant number of the members on the state's highest court concludes that a process that is to mete out the most severe punishment is significantly flawed, then at a minimum a moratorium on death sentences until these concerns are addressed is more than warranted.

Mark Larraņaga, Seattle