Cassie Holden would be 34 years old today — perhaps the mother of a young daughter herself — if she hadn’t been raped and beaten to death with a rock at the tender age of 12 in 1988.

She was visiting from Pocatello, Idaho, when she went for a walk before dinner in Bremerton and never returned.

Her killer, Jonathan Lee Gentry, was younger then, at 32, than Cassie would be today if she had lived.

Because of his long criminal history, the jury that heard the case voted for the death penalty. And yet, 22 years later, he’s still alive and well on the taxpayers’ dime.

But hopefully that’s going to change soon.

The Washington State Supreme Court last week rejected a challenge to the lethal-injection procedure, clearing the way — hopefully — for justice to at last be done.

Gentry and another death row inmate had joined an appeal lodged on behalf of condemned killer Cal Coburn Brown claiming the state’s preferred method of execution was unconstitutional, clearing the way for all of their executions.

Brown’s date with justice is currently scheduled for Sept. 10, and if he’s finally dispatched, he would be only the fifth condemned killer to die in Washington since the death penalty was reinstated in 1993.

Gentry, meanwhile, is currently the longest-tenured prisoner on death row in Washington state — a dubious record not so much for him as for the justice system he and his taxpayer-supported legal team.

Capital punishment foes argue disingenuously that executing killers doesn’t deter murders, but how on earth would we know for sure if we have to wait 22 years — at least — for the sentence to be carried out?

The old saying that “Justice delayed is justice denied” has been in force in Washington state for too long. But hopefully for Brown, Gentry and others who’ve gamed the system to prolong their miserable lives, the end is near.