Based on questions about his murder conviction raised in 1993 due to DNA testing, which had not been available at the time of trial, Washington's death sentence was commuted in 1994 by Governor Douglas Wilder to life imprisonment.
[7][8] Giarratano contacted Marie Deans, a volunteer advocate with whom he had worked, who enlisted pro bono help to gain a stay of execution.
Nine days before Washington's rescheduled execution, Virginia's Governor Douglas Wilder commuted his sentence to life in prison.
[3][9] In 2000, after more accurate DNA testing connected another man to the crime, Washington was exonerated, receiving a full pardon from Governor James Gilmore.
[9][10] Since Washington's exoneration, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia (2002) that the death penalty for persons with intellectual disability was unconstitutional.
It ordered states to review the cases of persons on death row who had been convicted and shown to have such disability, and to commute their sentences to appropriate lower levels of punishment.
[13] Jerry Givens, the executioner who had been scheduled to take Washington's life in 1985, cited this exoneration as a major factor in his conversion to anti-death penalty campaigner.