Gov. Jay Inslee (D-WA) signed a bill on Thursday removing state laws that the Washington state Supreme Court determined are invalid or unconstitutional, effectively abolishing the death penalty .

“It's official. The death penalty is no longer in state law. In 2014 I issued a moratorium. In 2018 the state Supreme Court deemed the death penalty unconstitutional. Now in 2023, passage of SB 5087 strikes it entirely from our statutes,” Inslee tweeted .

PENNSYLVANIA GOVERNOR WON'T ENFORCE DEATH PENALTY AND ASKS LEGISLATURE TO ABOLISH IT

Substitute Senate Bill 5087, sponsored by Democratic state Sen. Jamie Pedersen with support from Attorney General Bob Ferguson, abolishes multiple unconstitutional statutes, one of them being the death penalty.

The bipartisan bill passed out of the Washington state Senate in February in a 34-14 vote and passed in the House earlier this month in a 58-39 vote.

Washington state has a long history of attempting to overturn the death penalty, with many of the same supporters attached to the most recent legislation. In 2014, Inslee ordered a statewide moratorium on the death penalty, citing that capital punishment is inconsistent and unequal. Three years later, Ferguson introduced Senate Bill 5354 to end the death penalty by requiring life in prison with the possibility of parole or release as an alternative.

In 2018, the Washington state Supreme Court unanimously voted to end the death penalty. In State v. Gregory , Chief Justice Mary Fairhurst wrote it was “now apparent that Washington’s death penalty is administered in an arbitrary and racially biased manner,” declaring the practice unconstitutional.

Cal Coburn Brown was the last person executed in Washington. Brown was found guilty of the rape and murder of Holly Washa in 1997. He was one of two people executed by the state in this century, James Homer Elledge being the former, for murdering Eloise Jane Fitzner in 1998. Both were executed through lethal injection.

Twenty-seven states currently still have the death penalty, with California , Oregon , and Pennsylvania having governor-imposed moratoriums pausing the practice, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

“The Washington state Supreme Court ruled that Washington’s death penalty is invalid because it’s applied in an arbitrary and racially biased manner,” Ferguson said in a statement . “On Friday, the legislature took the important and appropriate step of repealing the death penalty from our state statutes once and for all. Thank you to Sen. Pedersen for his leadership.”