Aclu Files Suit To Stop Dodd Hanging

Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union today filed a superior-court lawsuit attempting to block next Tuesday's scheduled hanging of Westley Allan Dodd.

The lawsuit, whose plaintiffs include religious leaders, law professors, physicians, retired judges and a murder victim's mother, contends that hanging is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual.

They asked the Thurston County Superior Court to immediately prohibit state Corrections Department officials from proceeding with the hanging.

The move came after Attorney General Ken Eikenberry rejected the ACLU's request to stop the hanging.

Plaintiffs in the suit include:

-- State legislators Dwight Pelz, Margarita Prentice, Cal Anderson and Grace Cole.

-- Retired Washington Court of Appeals Judges Robert Winsor and Sollie Ringold.

-- John Boonstra, head of the Washington Association of Churches, and David Bloom, associate director for the Church Council of Greater Seattle.

-- Patricia Welch, whose son, Kelly Emminger, was murdered in 1976.

Plaintiffs base their legal standing on the fact that they are taxpayers attempting to stop what they regard as use of state money for an unconstitutional purpose.

The suit says hanging is "cruel, mutilating and uncertain."

"Historical reports show that many men who have been hanged in the state of Washington have experienced prolonged suffering," the lawsuit says. "Others have suffered horrible disfigurement, including decapitation."

Plaintiffs contend the likelihood of suffering increases when the hanging is performed by an inexperienced person. The Corrections Department has said it trained its own executioners using a military manual on hanging.

Yesterday, Eikenberry blasted the attorneys who made the request to stop the hanging, threatening legal sanctions. "Your demands are motivated by the political objective of eliminating the death penalty, not by your claimed concern for the expenditure of state funds," he said.

Jerry Sheehan, ACLU's legislative director, said, "We wanted to put the state on notice there are people willing to contest this illegal and unconstitutional method of execution."

Eikenberry accused the ACLU and attorneys working with it on the Dodd case of staging "an obvious attempt to cause unnecessary delay in the scheduled execution of Mr. Dodd."

Further, said Eikenberry, "it would be a misuse and waste of taxpayers' money" to challenge the execution. He threatened sanctions against attorneys involved in the ACLU challenge.

Eikenberry did not say what sanctions he might seek, but he pointed to a Washington court rule that prohibits litigation intended to harass the court or cause needless delay in proceedings. Attorneys who violate the rule could be fined.

Sheehan flatly denied the attorney general's assertion that the ACLU was using the Dodd case to try to eliminate the death penalty.

Sheehan said the plaintiffs include some who don't oppose the death penalty but believe hanging is a cruel and unusual act.

Dodd, 31, is scheduled to die Jan. 5 for killing three young boys in 1989. The execution would be the first in Washington state since 1963 and the first hanging in the United States since 1965.

Dodd has waived his appeal rights and said he wants to die by hanging.

In his letter, sent to Seattle attorneys Jeffrey Cohen and Timothy Ford, who are working with the ACLU in this case, Eikenberry said the Legislature has maintained hanging as the preferred method of execution and the state Supreme Court has ruled that lawmakers, not the courts, should make this determination.

But the ACLU points to a 1981 state Supreme Court ruling in which a divided court upheld the state's death penalty, even though several justices found hanging unconstitutional.

In another development yesterday, U.S. District Judge John Coughenour indicated he'll decide this week on a request by another death-row inmate to videotape Dodd's hanging.

Triple killer Charles Campbell wants to use the tape to bolster his own legal challenge that hanging is cruel and unusual.