In re the Personal Restraint of Gentry

¶1 Jonathan Lee Gentry was convicted in 1991 of the aggravated first degree murder of 12-year-old Cassie Holden and sentenced to death by a jury. Gentry is African American, and Holden was white. Gentry’s direct appeal before this court was unsuccessful. State v. Gentry, 125 Wn.2d 570, 888 P.2d 1105 (1995). One of the issues he raised there was a claim that the decision to pursue a capital case against him, and the trial that ensued, was unfairly tainted by the specter of racial bias on the part of the prosecution. Id. at 609. We rejected that contention, concluding in part that Gentry had…