Guest Commentary

By Sen. Mark Schoesler

R-9-Ritzville

Over the past couple of years, the Democratic majorities in the Legislature have pushed through laws that have weakened public safety. Since then, we’ve experienced the consequences of that party’s soft-on-crime approach.

The 2021 crime report recently released by the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs showed an increase in several categories of violent crime in our state, including auto theft.

So far this year, auto theft is becoming even worse in Washington. According to a guest editorial by one of my Republican colleagues, 18th District Sen. Ann Rivers, that was published July 28 in the (Tacoma) News Tribune, “Through the first half of this year, according to data provided by the Washington Crime Information Center (WACIC), 23,212 vehicles were stolen in Washington. That’s more than 99% of total auto thefts for all of 2019. It’s more than 87% of the total stolen in 2020. It’s also an 81.5% increase over the first half of 2021.”

Until Democrats reverse course and restore the ability of law-enforcement officers to pursue suspects, the spike in auto thefts will continue.

Earlier this week, I read a story in The (Vancouver) Columbian that shows how another recent law passed by the Democrat-led Legislature will eventually allow a man who murdered a 14-year-old girl to walk free instead of spending the rest of his life behind bars. From The Columbian story: “A convicted murderer from Vancouver has beaten a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of release — for a second time.”

Roy Wayne Russell Jr. first walked free in 2001 after winning an appeal following an arson conviction. Just four years later, at age 45, he suffocated 14-year-old Chelsea Harrison after hosting underage drinking and drugs parties at his Vancouver duplex.

Russell now admits he killed Chelsea. But due to a change made by the Washington Legislature last year, he may walk free again in the coming years.

Under the revised three-strikes law, a prior out-of-state robbery conviction no longer counts as his first strike offense; his mandatory life sentence will be vacated, and he will be resentenced. He is likely to be ordered to spend from 21 to 30 years in prison, with credit for about 16½ years already served.

In 2008 I helped pass the Chelsea Harrison Act, sponsored by the Republican senator who served the part of Clark County where she lived. Using Roy Wayne Russell Jr. as the example, it amended the persistent offender act to specify that any felony conviction in another state with a finding of sexual motivation counts as a “three strikes” crime if the minimum sentence imposed was 10 years or more. What the Democrats did last year undermined the three-strikes law from a different direction, but with an equally outrageous result.

I don’t know about you, but I think Roy Wayne Russell Jr. should remain in prison for the rest of his life. Period. But this change in the Three Strikes law will let him free in a few years.