"Hearing on Md. death penalty rules set next month," is John Wagner's Washington Post report.
Maryland lawmakers have scheduled a hearing on proposed death penalty regulations, a long-delayed step along the way to the possible resumption of executions in the state.
Use of the death penalty was halted by the state's highest court in December 2006, a month before Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) took office, pending new regulations from the administration spelling out procedures for lethal injection and other issues.
O'Malley instead lobbied the legislature to repeal capital punishment, and his administration waited until 2009 -- after those efforts fell short for a third year in a row -- to propose new regulations.
A legislative review panel headed by two Democrats opposed to capital punishment has now scheduled a hearing on the regulations on Feb. 16. Several powerful lawmakers, including Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) have urged the panel -- known as the Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive and Legislative Review -- to act.
Any action by the review panel does not need approval of the House or Senate, and technically the panel's role is only advisory. If he wanted to, O'Malley could put the recommendations in place over the panel's objections.
Earlier lethal injection coverage from Maryland is at the link.
Let me also note Baltimore Sun columnist Dan Rodricks latest, "If death penalty is wrong, why keep it? More than talk, the governor needs to demand repeal again."
"The line of history sometimes zigs and zags," the governor of Maryland said in an interview with a Washington Post reporter. "I think the big picture is our country is moving away from the death penalty, and I think as time goes on, more and more states will realize that it's not an effective tool for reducing violent crime or homicides. It's not a deterrent, it's very, very expensive, and the dollars could be used for other things, and it's ultimately inconsistent with the sort of nation we aspire to be."
So why doesn't the governor of Maryland, who three months ago handily won re-election, call again for repeal of the death penalty here? Why doesn't he commute the sentences of Maryland's last five death row inmates, all convicted and sentenced under a woefully flawed system, and be done with it? Why the oration about what's going on in the rest of the country and what people will come to think? He sounds like a presidential candidate (surprise!) — not a governor.
Here's an idea for the state's chief executive: Show some brass and call on every member of the legislature to certify in writing that they've read the Civiletti commission report that came out two years ago, then dare them to vote against repeal.
And:
Handed this report by the governor in 2009, a majority in the House of Delegates supported repeal. However, the Senate, led by a president who once said he'd eagerly insert the needle into a death row inmate, balked. Legislators struck a compromise toward eliminating the possibility that Maryland would execute an innocent person — a laudable goal, but not the main concern of the Civiletti commission. The problems that led the commission to call for abolition of the death penalty in Maryland remain; they were not fixed by the compromise, and the commission said one of them — jurisdictional disparities — was beyond reform.
And now we have the 68-year-old Senate president, who has been in the legislature since the Baltimore Colts beat the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl V, calling for blood. He wants the state to resume executions. He's the Maryland political leader out front on this issue — not the governor, who only two years ago called for repeal.
Of course, this is the same governor who has refused to commute the life sentence of Farley Grant, a 43-year-old inmate who has been in prison since he was 15 and whose innocence in a 1983 Baltimore murder has been established by law professors and students at the University of Maryland. A report on Mr. Grant went to the governor's office in 2008, and no action has been taken. If the newly re-elected Democratic governor won't act on the Farley Grant case, he can't be expected to commute sentences of those on death row. And he seems to be content to say, "I oppose the death penalty" and, with that established, do nothing else.
The Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment issued it's final report, in December 2008, urging abolition. Coverage of the Commission's work begins with the post, "Maryland Commission Issues Final Report."
Coverage of the 2009 Maryland General Assembly's consideration of repeal legislation and eventual compromise law begins with the post, "The Maryland Legislation."
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