The state offered inmates the choice of execution by lethal injection or hanging. If the inmate did not choose, execution would be by hanging. Campbell declined to choose how he would be executed, arguing that participating in the decision on how he would die was akin to his committing suicide, which Campbell's lawyers argued violated Washington public policy. While his case was at various stages of appeal, he remained a much-feared figure in Walla Walla's death row for the next decade, even spitting at then-Governor Booth Gardner when he peered into his cell.