Alford plea and death penalty?

On Sept. 26, the Washington Supreme Court held that a man who entered an Alford plea (commonly treated the same as a no-contest plea) in a capital case could then be sentenced to death, despite the longstanding common law prohibition against no-contest pleas in capital cases.

Dayva Cross entered an Alford plea to killing his wife and two of her three daughters in 2001 and was sentenced to death. Specifically, "[o]ne March 1999 evening, Cross struck his wife, Anoutchka, in the face during an argument. The next morning, Anoutchka's 13-year-old daughter, M.B., woke to the sounds of Cross brutally and repeatedly stabbing her mother and her elder sister, 18-year-old Solome, to death. Cross then tried to force his way into the bedroom M.B. shared with her 15-year-old sister, Amanda. Despite Amanda's efforts to keep the door closed, Cross forced it off its hinges and killed her in front of M.B.'s eyes. Cross then kept M.B. confined at knife point for five hours while he drank wine and watched television. M.B. escaped after he fell asleep." (citations omitted)

My question: Why the fuck did they let him enter an Alford plea?

Dammit Poole, if you're not going to shut down 4chan, are you going to fucking DO something with it?

We used the internet to shut down the fucking cold war.  I know you could do something great if you put your damn mind to it.  Are you going to keep using 4chan for your personal wankbank of nappy nerd hoes, or you going to usher in a bash worthy of the end of days?

4chan is your own personal party bus, but so far all you got are those chicks from across the street and a 6 pack of wine coolers.  Go for broke man, shoot this shit to the moon.

Imagine your the prosecutor in that case.

Now, you have a choice.  Take the plea, or spend the next year and a half showing tired ghetto jurors crime scene photos that would make goruchan puke.  He needs a god damn airhorn to keep them from nodding off and a fucking airsick bag when they are awake, and every night he has to go home to that shit, deal with his wife and kids, and cry himself to sleep wondering what the hell happened to the world he used to know.

All that, plus the slim chance he might get off on a technicality.

Apparently... there was no plea bargain. The nutbag just entered an Alford plea without a plea bargain. What the actual fuck? That's the exact same as pleading guilty; the only real use of an Alford plea or other forms of no-contest pleas is to avoid giving people automatic verdicts against you in civil suits stemming from your criminal conviction.

What a goddamn idiot.