Maryland Lawmakers Call For End To Death Penalty

(WJZ/AP) Two state lawmakers want to see Maryland abolish the death penalty, and they've proposed a bill that would do just that.

As WJZ's Mike Hellgren reports, Senator Lisa Gladden and Delegate Samuel Rosenberg introduced bills Thursday which, would abolish capital punishment in Maryland.

Under Gladden and Rosenberg's proposal, the death penalty would be replaced with life without parole.

The death penalty repeal legislation follows just weeks after a Maryland Court of Appeals decision to halt the use of lethal injection in executions until acceptable procedures are developed with oversight by the Attorney General's office, the legislature, and comment by the general public.

Given the costs around changing these protocols, some have recommended to instead repeal the death penalty all together.

"There is a growing groundswell of support around death penalty repeal, both in Maryland and nationally," said Jane Henderson, executive director of MD Citizens Against State Executions. "An overwhelming majority of Marylanders support replacing executions with life without parole and we now have a governor who personally agrees that capital punishment is a failure."

Proponents of the death penalty disagree. They think violent criminals and killers should be subject to the same fate they handed their victims.

Fred Romano's sister was killed Steven Oaken--one of the last convicts to be executed in Maryland. Last month, Romano commented on the case of Vernon Evans, whose case is at the center of the recent freeze on Maryland executions.

"All their saying is 'Vernon Evans you get a needle in your arm and go to sleep.' If that's all you've got to do to pay for your crime, you shouldn't complain," said Romano.

Other issues in play in the death penalty debate include racial bias. A University of Maryland study released in 2003 found discrimination among those sent to death row with the murder of a white person being twice as likely to result in a death sentence as the murder of an african-american person.

Further discrimination was found regarding the location of a crime and the punishment received. If a murder is committed in suburban Baltimore County, the study found that there is a 13 times greater chance of the county pursuing the death penalty than if the crime was committed just across the line in Baltimore city.

Until lawmakers act on the issue of capital punishment in Maryland, no death sentences can be carried out statewide. There are currently six inmates sitting on Maryland's death row.

Washington Post
A Governor Stands Up
And Maryland's death penalty gets a powerful foe.

Thursday, February 1, 2007; Page A14

ABOLISHING Maryland's death penalty did not figure in Martin O'Malley's
successful campaign for governor last year or in his announced agenda for
this year's session of the state legislature. So the path of least
resistance would have been for him to say nothing, or very little, in
response to opponents of capital punishment, who are clamoring for its
repeal. Instead, he has joined their fight. In doing so he has lent his
fledgling administration a sense of purpose and moral clarity.

The governor, who has long opposed capital punishment, could probably have
achieved his policy goals by doing nothing. In December, Maryland's Court
of Appeals effectively halted executions by ruling that the state's
procedures for lethal injections were adopted without adequate legislative
oversight. In the absence of a legislative remedy to restart what are
already infrequent executions, Mr. O'Malley could have sat back and
enjoyed four years as governor without having a single death warrant land
on his desk for signature.

Instead, he has joined growing calls around the country to do away with
state-sponsored killings, which have been shown repeatedly to be
error-prone with regard to guilt or innocence; wildly expensive to
prosecute; racially tilted against killers whose victims are white;
arbitrarily pursued depending on jurisdiction; and ineffective as a
deterrent to the most vicious crimes. Across the country, Americans'
queasiness with capital punishment has grown steadily, particularly as DNA
evidence has pointed to mistaken convictions. The number of executions
carried out last year (53) was the lowest in a decade. While most citizens
still approve of capital punishment, the support has dwindled. Recent
polls suggest a majority would prefer the option of imposing a life
sentence in prison without the possibility of parole.

That is what a commission of law enforcement officials and victims'
representatives has recently advocated in New Jersey, and that is what
would be achieved in Maryland by a bill sponsored by state Sen. Lisa A.
Gladden and Del. Samuel I. Rosenberg, Baltimore Democrats. Mr. O'Malley is
on record as saying that he favors the bill and will work for its passage.

Although his governorship is just a few weeks old, Mr. O'Malley showed
himself as a candidate and a governor-elect to be cautious and reluctant
to get out in front on issues. That's not necessarily a bad thing in a
public official feeling his way in a new job. But by setting down his
marker on the death penalty, on whose merits Marylanders remain divided,
Mr. O'Malley has shown political courage and a glimpse of the gritty
resolve that he claimed as his legacy as mayor of Baltimore.

US wrestles with execution question

By Iain Watson
BBC News, Washington

On a pitch black winter's night at the Lady of Mercy church in the small town of Potomac, Maryland, about 50 people have braved sub-freezing temperatures to hear a chilling tale of an early death.

Vicki Schieber has come to talk about her daughter, Shannon.

Shannon was a student in nearby Pennsylvania.

She was raped and murdered at her hall of residence and the killer was caught only after he moved to a different state and committed another rape.

A transfixed audience listens to her mother's hushed yet longing tones: "What do you do when this happens to you? The death of a family member is a tragedy of unimaginable proportions."

Similar cases are often cited by supporters of capital punishment to argue that the families of murder victims get "closure" only when the killer is executed.

But Vicky Schieber is talking to an audience of abolitionists - those who want to end the death penalty in her home state of Maryland.

Ban plan

She says was pressed by state prosecutors to call for the death penalty for her daughter's killer, but she refused.

"It was against everything I was brought up to believe. Taking another person's life is wrong. Don't put a question mark where God puts a period," she told the crowd to spontaneous cheering.

We have to have courage, we can lead the way
State Senator Lisa Gladden

Maryland may be about to become the first state to ban the death penalty outright since the United States reintroduced it more than 30 years ago.

State Senator Lisa Gladden, a lawyer who has defended those accused of murder, has introduced a bill to ban executions and has called exonerated death row inmates to testify this week.

Maryland's new Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley has said he would be willing to sign any law which ended capital punishment.

Opponents of the death penalty like Sen Gladden believe that if Maryland outlaws capital punishment, other states will follow suit.

"We have to have courage, we can lead the way - I believe other states will think the death penalty is more trouble than it's worth and will repeal" it, she says.

Temporary suspensions

Thirty-eight of the 50 US states have the death sentence on the statute books - but almost a third of them have placed temporary bans on executions.

The suspensions follow concerns about the possibility of wrongful convictions in some areas, and worries about the method of execution in others.

Late last year, the outgoing governor of Florida - President Bush's brother Jeb - suspended executions when it was revealed it took prisoner Angel Diaz 34 minutes to die after a lethal cocktail of drugs was apparently injected into tissue rather than into his veins.

But while many of the temporary bans centre on technical and legal challenges to the death penalty, politicians in Maryland seem willing to take on the moral arguments.

The state legislature has a Democratic majority, but that does not mean Sen Gladden's bill will pass automatically.

Even some Democrats are worried that a full frontal assault on the death penalty - rather than simply continuing with a moratorium on executions - could lead to an unwelcome counterattack by populist political opponents at the next election.

Strong support

Supporters of the death penalty think it likely that Maryland will formally abolish the ultimate sanction.

But they say the decision should be in the hands of all voters, and not just the politicians.

The death penalty is underutilised - there have been 7,000 intentional murders since the death penalty was restored in Maryland and only a handful of killers executed
Mike Paranzino,
Throw Away the Key

And that is because recent evidence suggests that even in states which currently have no death penalty, support for capital punishment remains strong.

Wisconsin was one of the first states to abolish capital punishment, in 1853. (Yes, 1853 not 1953).

Yet in a recent referendum, a narrow majority voted to re-instate it for the most vicious crimes, and on condition that DNA evidence of guilt was provided.

The referendum was not binding and the Democrat-controlled state legislature is unlikely to pass such a law.

But death penalty supporters cite Wisconsin's vote as an example of the continuing popularity of the death penalty so long as voters - and juries - are convinced they are not sentencing potentially innocent people on the basis of unreliable evidence.

Will of the people?

Mike Paranzino runs the pressure group Throw Away the Key from the town of Kensington in Maryland and is a former adviser to senior Republican politicians.

He says a referendum would better inform the voters of his state, many of whom would be shocked not at the imposition the death penalty, but about how rarely it is used.

"At the moment, the people of Maryland don't really know the ins and outs of how the death penalty is applied," he argues.

"Most child killers are exempt from the death penalty. Serial killers are exempt unless they kill more than one person on the same day.

"In fact, the death penalty is underutilised -there have been 7,000 intentional murders since the death penalty was restored in Maryland and only a handful of killers executed."

The anti-death penalty campaigners who listened to Vicky Schieber's harrowing story were treated to polling evidence commissioned by Maryland CASE - Citizens Against State Execution.

They said the polls show a narrow majority in the state still supports the death penalty.

But when asked if they would find life in prison without the possibility of parole a suitable alternative, two-thirds of them said they would support that option.

But it's unlikely this issue will be put to a popular vote.

And for the moment, existing evidence suggests Americans may be more queasy about how people are put to death - rather than why.