Bishops ask Gov. Gregoire to stop execution

SEATTLE — The state's Roman Catholic bishops are asking Gov. Christine Gregoire to commute the death sentence of Darold Ray Stenson.

The three bishops, representing Catholic dioceses in Seattle, Spokane and Yakima, are asking that Stenson instead receive life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Stenson, 55, is set to be executed Dec. 3. He was convicted of aggravated murder for the 1993 shooting deaths of his wife and a business partner while his three young children slept nearby in his Clallam County farmhouse.

Seattle Archbishop Alex Brunett, Spokane Bishop William Skylstad, and Yakima Bishop Carlos Sevilla made the request in a letter to Gregoire on Friday. Gregoire's spokesman, Pearse Edwards, said Monday the governor was reserving comment until she reviews the letter.

The bishops wrote that while they understand the responsibility of the state to punish Stenson, "there remains no moral justification for imposing a sentence of death."

"Violence begets violence both in our hearts and in our actions," they wrote. "By continuing the tradition of responding to killing with state-sanctioned killing, we rob ourselves of moral consistency and perpetuate that which we seek to sanction."

Stenson would be the first inmate put to death since 2001 if none of his pending appeals is granted.

Stenson has long claimed he didn't commit the murders, and is one of just two inmates in recent years to continue to appeal his death sentence.

When Stenson called authorities in 1993 to report the deaths, he suggested that his business partner, Frank Hoerner, had killed Denise Stenson and then shot himself in another room. Prosecutors have said Stenson, struggling financially and in dire business straits, shot the two in order to collect $400,000 in life insurance.

A federal appeals court lifted a stay last month, and prison officials are preparing for the execution to go forward as scheduled. Several walk-throughs have already been conducted, with another still to come this week.

Because he declined to choose between lethal injection and hanging, Stenson would be killed by lethal injection if the execution goes forward as planned.

Since 1904, 77 men have been executed in Washington, the last being James Elledge in August 2001. No woman has ever been sentenced to death in the state.