OLYMPIA, Wash. — Gov. Jay Inslee signed off on a bill Monday that strengthens anti-hazing laws in Washington state.
The "Sam Martinez Stop Hazing Law," or House Bill 1002, increases penalties for the most serious types of hazing from a misdemeanor to a felony.
“This bill recognizes the death of a Washington State University student and reflects the inherent danger of hazing rituals that can pressure students to consume large amounts of alcohol," Inslee said Monday at the bill signing.
Sam Martinez of Bellevue died in 2019 after a night of hazing at a fraternity at Washington State University. A total of 15 fraternity members were charged with misdemeanors for supplying alcohol to a minor.
Since then, Martinez's parents have pushed lawmakers to strengthen hazing laws.
The "Sam Martinez Stop Hazing Law" makes hazing a gross misdemeanor, instead of a lower-level misdemeanor. In incidents where someone is killed or suffers “substantial bodily harm,” hazing could be charged as a felony.
"People, they don’t send their kids off to college to be hazed to death," said Sam Martinez's mother, Jolayne Houtz. "That’s what happened to us and really we’ve just committed ourselves to making sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else’s child.”
The bill passed unanimously off the floor of the House on March 1, and the state Senate approved the measure April 6.
Washington is the 15th state to make hazing a felony under the new law.
“If you’re going to haze these young kids coming into college and try to do something to them, there's big consequences,” said Martinez's father, Hector Martinez.
This is the second anti-hazing law for which Sam Martinez's family has advocated. In 2022, lawmakers approved a bill that requires universities to publically report hazing violations and provide hazing education for students.
“I pray that it never touches another family in our state or beyond,” Houtz said.