12:05 PM PST on Wednesday, November 5, 2003

Associated Press

SEATTLE - Legal experts say the plea bargain with the Green River Killer could make it all but impossible to win a death sentence against another murderer in Washington state.

The question raised by Gary Ridgway's plea is this: If the state is not going to execute someone who has confessed to murdering 48 people, how can it execute anyone?

It is more than a question of simple fairness: The Washington state Supreme Court is required to review every death sentence handed out, and must consider whether the sentence "is excessive or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases, considering both the crime and the defendant."

Some lawyers say that a death sentence for someone who killed one or two people could well be considered "disproportionate" when compared to what Ridgway got.

"People are concerned that if they don't seek the death penalty in the Ridgway case, it would not be permissible to seek it in any case," said University of Washington criminal law professor John Junker. "How do you find anybody who's done worse than he's done?"

Ridgway, a 54-year-old truck painter, pleaded guilty Wednesday to the murders of 48 women in a deal that spares him from the death penalty for those slayings and assures him a sentence of life in prison without parole.

Washington state has executed four people since the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976 cleared the way for capital punishment to resume. Washington is one of 38 states with the death penalty.

Initially, King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng vowed that he would not bargain with Ridgway over the death penalty, precisely for the reason of proportionality. It would be unfair not to apply it to the Green River Killer when the state has executed far less prolific killers, he said.

But Maleng also faced other powerful concerns. There were 49 women, mostly prostitutes and runaways, listed as victims of the serial killer, and without Ridgway's cooperation, their families might never know how they died. Ridgway, in fact, directed investigators to four sets of remains this summer

And there was the cost of the case: well over $12 million since Ridgway's arrest, with the expected costs of the trial even higher, at a time when the county has had to make budget cuts.

Junker said the state might be able to continue applying the death penalty because of language in the law that says a death sentence must be proportionate to "similar cases." Because Ridgway was able to help investigators solve so many killings, it could be argued that his case is not similar to any other capital murder case, Junker said.

Roger Hunko, president of the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, is already testing the proportionality argument in an attempt to save another serial killer -- Spokane's Robert Yates -- from execution.

Three years ago, Yates confessed in Spokane County to killing 13 people, but he was then tried, convicted and sentenced to death for killing two other people in Pierce County.

Hunko, his lawyer, is arguing this on appeal: If Yates did not get the death penalty for 13 murders in one county, how can he get it for two in another?

Mark Roe, Snohomish County's chief criminal deputy prosecutor, said it is too soon to tell how sweeping an effect the Ridgway plea will have.

"We don't stop trying cases because we're pessimistic about what the Supreme Court will do with it some day," Roe said.