The Sunday Baltimore Sun editorial was titled, "Inherently inhumane: Gov. O'Malley should take advantage of changes in Annapolis and a temporary shortage of a key lethal injection drug to work toward abolishing Maryland's death penalty law."
An unexpected confluence of events this year has given Gov. Martin O'Malley a chance to advance a much-needed reform that he has long championed. Because of changes in the composition of the state Senate after last year's elections, the General Assembly may be more receptive than it has been in years past to ending executions in Maryland, not just limiting their application. Moreover, the only American manufacturer of a key chemical used in lethal injections announced last week that it would no longer produce the drug, a move that will likely put a de facto halt to executions across the U.S., at least temporarily. It is disappointing, then, that Mr. O'Malley has left off his agenda for the current legislative session a call to abolish the death penalty in Maryland.
And:
Mr. O'Malley doesn't have to wait for a vote by the review panel (whose role in any case is only advisory) in order to decide whether to resume executions in Maryland. Nor does he have to succumb to pressure from European lawmakers who want to ban the sale of lethal injection drugs to the U.S. because they oppose capital punishment. If he truly believes the penalty is unjust and immoral, he can immediately commute the sentences of the five inmates currently on the state's death row to life without parole, then take the lead in calling on lawmakers to permanently ban the practice. Regardless of what happens elsewhere, that is something he already has the power to do whenever he wishes.
"The right death penalty conversation," is the title of a Cleveland Plain Dealer editorial. It appeared in the Sunday edition.
Ohio corrections officials are still having the wrong discussion about the death penalty.
As they have since the tortured execution of Joseph Clark in 2007, those who run Ohio's death row keep looking for the best -- that is to say, the most efficient and pain-free -- way to put condemned prisoners to death.
Last week, they announced that Ohio would change the drug used for lethal injections after the next scheduled execution on Feb. 17. The manufacturer of sodium thiopental has announced plans to drop that product line. So Ohio must shift to another powerful sedative, one possibly untested for executions.
But even as the state tinkers with the machinery of death, Ohio Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeifer is trying to start a far more important discussion. Pfeifer wants Ohioans to reconsider not how this state puts prisoners to death, but whether it should.
And:
During Pfeifer's swearing-in this month, he urged new Gov. John Kasich to commute every death row sentence to life without parole. That would in no way sanction or diminish what they did. It would bring closure to the families of victims who now must endure endless appeals -- Frank Spisak, the next in line for execution, committed his murders in 1982. And it would guard against the chance of an innocent person being put in death.
Kasich, so far, has shown no interest in Pfeifer's suggestion. He should. So should we all.
Today's Toledo Blade carries the editorial, "Time to talk about death."
BEFORE Ohio begins using a new drug - its third in just over two years - to execute death-row inmates, state officials should take advantage of this opportunity to make sure they administer capital punishment fairly and humanely.
And:
Ohio's death row now includes 157 prisoners. Our state executed eight men in 2010, the most since the death penalty was reinstated nationally nearly 30 years ago.
Ohio ranked second to Texas' 17 executions last year. It was the only state in which executions rose in 2010.
Supreme Court Justice Paul Pfeifer, who was chairman of the state Senate Judiciary Committee when Ohio's modern death penalty became law in 1981, is often called the father of that penalty. In the past decade, however, he has spoken out strongly against capital punishment.
More recently, Terry Collins, who was director of the corrections department between 2006 and 2010, joined the call for debate on the death penalty. In an essay in the Columbus Dispatch, Mr. Collins said that each time he witnessed an execution - 33 times in all - he wondered: "What if we got it wrong for those we executed?"
The system is not perfect. Three times during his term, Governor Strickland granted clemency to death-row inmates because of evidence that they might have been innocent.
Justice Pfeifer's suggestion that Ohio eliminate the death penalty goes too far. But if the state is going to deprive people of their lives, there can be no room for error. And the punishment must be administered justly.
It is reasonable to ask whether Ohio has applied the ultimate penalty fairly and enforced it humanely. If the answer is no, as it appears to be, then the time to debate how to improve the system is now, before anyone else is executed.
Related posts are in the editorial index; earlier coverage from Maryland and Ohio's lethal injection switch and the call for repeal, at the links.
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