Criminal Justice

You Can Help Abolish Capital Punishment in Maryland

by Matt Kelley

Published November 13, 2008 @ 05:33AM PST

A panel appointed to study Maryland's death penalty system by Gov. Martin O'Malley voted last night to recommend abolishing the practice, based on racial disparities in executions, the chance of executing an innocent person and the system's cost.

The Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment voted 13-7 to abolish the state's death penalty, and will issue a final report next month. The governor has voiced public opposition to capital punishment, and opponents say he stacked this panel with opponents of the practice. It will be up to the state legislature to end executions in Maryland, however, and a deadlock in a key State Senate committee kept the issue off the Senate floor last recent year.

Among the the panel's initial findings:

*Racial and geographic disparities exist in how the death penalty is applied

*Death penalty cases are more costly than non-death penalty cases and take a harder toll on the survivors of murder victims

*There is no persuasive evidence that risk of execution is a deterrent to crime, and the unavailability of DNA evidence in all cases does not eliminate the "real possiblity" of wrongly executing an innocent person

Last year, the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee voted 5-5 on a bill to abolish capital punishment, keeping the issue off the senate floor. Republic State Senator Alex X. Mooney could be a swing vote this year. He told the Baltimore Sun that he was interested in "reading every word" of the report.

"I still haven't come to the position where I would ban the death penalty in all circumstances," Mooney said. "I'll continue to pray about it and make up my mind."

Send Mooney an email today urging him to vote for an end to this cruel - and ineffective - punishment in his state.

Hat tip: Capital defense weekly

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Matt Kelley Matt Kelley
Brooklyn, NY

Matt has worked and volunteered in various capacities in criminal justice reform for several years. When he's not blogging, he works as the Online Communications Manager at the Innocence Project. Views expressed here are Matt's, and don't represent the positions of the Innocence Project.

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