Group Seeks to Block Execution by Hanging in Washington State

A civil liberties group Tuesday filed suit to try to block the first execution by hanging in the United States in nearly 30 years, saying the method was a cruel and unusual punishment barred by the U.S. Constitution.

A half-dozen of the plaintiffs told a news conference in Seattle they were not seeking to block the execution of Dodd by other means, although many of the plaintiffs, including all of those present, oppose the death penalty.

“This is not a plea for sympathy for Westley Allan Dodd,” said Edward Dolejsi, executive director of the state Catholic Conference. “I don’t think anybody in our society is too thrilled about Westley Allan Dodd.

“The issue here is that this constitutes cruel and unusual punishment,” he said, referring to the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits such forms of punishment.

Dodd, 31, was sentenced to death in 1990, a year after he raped and fatally stabbed two small boys, brothers aged 10 and 11, in a park near Portland, Ore., and murdered a 4-year-old boy after sexually molesting and torturing him.

The convicted killer confessed to the murders after he was caught trying to kidnap another boy, and he has asked his attorney to take legal action against any person or group who seeks to block his execution.

Dodd is scheduled to die Tuesday in the first hanging in Washington state since 1963 and the first in the United States since 1965.

Washington is the only state in the country that still employs hanging as its primary method of execution.