The Baltimore Sun carries the AP report, "Panel hears case for, against death penalty."
Yesterday's hearing was one of several that will be held before the panel issues recommendations to the Maryland General Assembly by Dec. 15.
A third hearing scheduled for Aug. 19 will focus on cost comparisons of the death penalty with alternative sentences. A fourth, set for Sept. 5, will include discussions about the risk of innocent people being executed.
There is a de facto moratorium on capital punishment in Maryland because of a ruling in late 2006 by the state's highest court.
The court ruled the state's protocol for lethal injection was implemented without proper approval by a legislative committee. Executions can't resume until Gov. Martin O'Malley's administration submits new rules for the committee to approve.
O'Malley, a death penalty opponent, has directed the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Corrections to begin working on the protocol, a process that could be finished by the end of the year.
Five inmates have been executed since Maryland reinstated the death penalty in 1978. Wesley Baker, who was put to death in December 2005, was the last person executed in Maryland.
Earlier coverage of the Maryland panel is here.
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