There is nothing more frightening than political beef being hashed out live and in-your-face. Perfectly coordinated arguments are met with quickly designed insults and the result is verbally destructive. Not only is it highly entertaining to watch full-grown, educated adults resort to childish bickering, but it is especially entertaining when one of them is your own father.

My father is a major player in the fight against the death penalty, fighting case after case and pushing legislation through government, hoping one day he won’t have to anymore. My mother and I tagged along February 10th to a judicial hearing he was speaking at, expecting to see democracy at its finest. We ended up watching a political “battle royale” between opposing opinions.

The cause of this battle was a lone Washington State Senate bill, 5476, to abolish the death penalty. Local Senator Ed Murray (D) and Brandon Roche drew up this bill that challenges Washington State Law.

Washington is unique on the issue of the death penalty. Despite Seattle’s liberal majority, the state is politically divided along geographic lines. Washington only prosecutes first-degree aggravated murders, which is murder alongside a variety of other horrors.

This new bill proposes changing Washington State law to administer a life sentence without parole as the maximum sentence for aggravated murder, and not a lethal injection. This would be a major step in the fight that many have taken up to end the use of the death penalty in the United States. Lawyers, law professors, and a Bishop who supported this bill showed up to testify. None who opposed the bill showed up.

Still, the voices of the opposition did not go unheard as Senator Pam Roach ® and Senator Mike Carrel ®, who were a part of the judicial committee, both spoke frequently in opposition to the bill. And it was these voices that met in conflict with Kim Shelly, a representative of the Catholic Bishops of Washington State, and Jeff Ellis, a law professor, lawyer, the president of the Washington Coalition to Abolish the Death penalty, and my father, time and time again.

“The Bishops frame their opposition and their support for this bill in the context of the respect for the sanctity of human life,” Shelly said.

He spoke of faith and human rights. The inconsistency of sentencing, along with the possibility of the innocent being executed was enough to motivate the Bishops. Shelly touched on the Green River murders and how the inconsistent nature of sentencing was one of the many faults of the death penalty.

“When the desire for vengeance motivates us to demand a state-sanctioned killing, we foster a culture of death,” Shelly said. “Violence begets violence. The unnecessary use of the death penalty erodes our respect for human life.”

Yet Senator Carrel ® spoke out, calling Shelly’s example of Ridgeway “an absolute travesty.”

“Let’s say those forty-something women could come back and see what was done with that case,” he said. “Do you think they would believe that was justice?”

“The answer to that question can only be answered by those women, unfortunately, and we have a different job here — you especially — in leading us forward,” Shelly said. “We have to be consistent in how we apply a penalty that is so permanent.”

The microphone was then passed to Jeff Ellis. Ellis directed his arguments to the financial costs of the death penalty.

“I want our precious resources spent on preventing crime,” he said. “The death penalty takes away from our ability to do that, especially in times of tight budget. We could take that money and spend it on victims’ resources, programs for victims.” Ellis, a defense lawyer for those who commit high crimes like murder, also actively participates in Friends and Families of Victims, a program for those who have lost a loved one to murder.

“I would fully understand if they told me ‘I want him dead,’” he said. “They have instead said to me something else: ‘I want answers.’ But what the death penalty does is takes away those answers.”

A red light flashed on the table where he was sitting, signaling his time was up.

“But if the victim’s families sought the death penalty, don’t they deserve it?” said Senator Pam Roach ®.

The floor broke out in disagreement. Both Ellis and Roach were speaking at the same time. With fists clenched and eyes rolled, both Ellis and Roach refused to hear the other’s side.

“Senator Roach, I’m trying to answer your question,” said Ellis.

“Well, I’d like to ask a few more questions, and he’s going on and on and on,” Roach said. “I didn’t need an explanation if you’d already given it.”

“I am deeply disturbed at the level of discourse that this hearing has descended into,” Ellis said. “There is a wealth of disagreement about this and I support bringing that disagreement to the floor. I recognize, Senator Roach, that people don’t share my view.”

“You don’t know what my view is!” Roach said.

The time for questioning was over, both according to the timer-light and the general state of disagreement-bordering-chaos that the meeting had suddenly become. As the testifiers excused themselves, Roach spoke out in her defense. As she represents the voice of Auburn, she felt the need to speak out for all the opponents of the bill who could not or did not appear at the hearing.

Yet, as Senator Adam Kline (D) put it, “This is an announced agenda, open to the world, and anybody who wanted to testify in favor of the death penalty had an opportunity to do so.”

Despite so many opposing opinions, it seems many could agree that this bill was destined to be forgotten.

“Normally when we have everybody testifying in favor of the bill and nobody testifying against it, we think it’s a slam dunk,” said Kline, who was leading the meeting. “But I don’t think anybody thinks that about this bill.”

Ellis showed up to testify in favor of this bill but believes that the hope for abolition lies with less aggressive measures.

“We need a full hearing on this issue.” Ellis said. “This is the most profound thing government does, to take a life. It deserves a full hearing with careful consideration.”

As the hearing came to a close and people quietly shuffled from their seats into the white-marbled hallway, I felt a sudden emptiness inside: after all the arguing, rolled eyes, and “huffy breathes” (as Junie B. Jones so perfectly put it) there were many valid questions raised but a serious lack of concrete answers.

Even if this bill makes its way into the legislative recycling bin, the argument still isn’t over. So maybe the most important question we, as Garfield students, as the next generation and as the future, can answer, is: “Is the Death Penalty justified or unjustified?”

And hopefully we can answer this in less childish terms.