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Daily Record
Death penalty advocates, opponents appeal to
legislators
STEVE LASH
Daily Record Legal Affairs Writer
February 18, 2009 7:05 PM
ANNAPOLIS — Gov. Martin O’Malley urged a divided panel of legislators
to abolish the state’s death penalty, saying the
ultimate punishment does not deter crime and runs
the risk of a wrongly convicted person being
executed.
“It’s impossible to find a way to reform the death
penalty so that it is carried out only when we are
absolutely, positively sure” the right person is on
death row, O’Malley told the Senate Judicial
Proceedings Committee on Wednesday. He also called
capital punishment an “utterly ineffective tool for
deterring violent crime” as murders continue to
occur even though the state has the death penalty.
The committee’s hearing room was standing room only
as O’Malley led off a succession of about 90 people
on either side of the debate who came to express
their views to the Senate committee, which in recent
years has rejected calls to repeal the ultimate
punishment. As the session proceeded, the continued
division on the committee became apparent.
Sen. Nancy Jacobs, R-Harford and Cecil, emerged
Wednesday as the most vocal supporter of preserving
the death penalty. She said surviving family members
of murder victims have a “right” to have the killers
of their loved ones put to death.
“We’re going to be taking that right away from them”
if the legislature repeals the death penalty, Jacobs
said. “I tend to side with the victims and their
families.”
But Sen. Brian E. Frosh, the committee’s chairman,
said the death penalty is not meted out in an
even-handed fashion across Maryland’s counties.
Prosecutors have overly broad discretion to decide
whether and when the ultimate punishment should be
sought, added the Montgomery County Democrat.
Frosh cited former Baltimore County State’s Attorney
Sandra A. O’Connor’s policy of always seeking the
death penalty in death-eligible homicides to avoid
the appearance that she was discriminating against
certain defendants because of their race.
Prosecutors should not have “that kind of goofy
discretion” to treat all violent criminals the same,
Frosh said. “It was logical but wrong,” he added of
O’Connor’s policy of non-discrimination.
Sharp division
O’Malley, acknowledging the sharp division on the
committee, told the panel that “good people on both
side may very well disagree.” But he added that the
raging debate over the death penalty will be “a
defining issue of our times.”
Allowing executions to continue runs counter to
American values amid evidence, found in a state
commission’s report issued in December that the
death penalty is more likely to be sought when the
defendant is black and the defendant was white, that
the threat of capital punishment is not a deterrent,
and that a real risk remains that an innocent person
can be convicted and executed.
“Freedom, justice, the dignity of the individual,
equal rights before the law — these are the
principles that define our character as a people,”
O’Malley said. “Are these principles compatible with
the civil taking of human life? Are these principles
compatible with the very real risk of erroneously
taking the life of an innocent neighbor?”
Maryland State Bar Association President Katherine
Kelly Howard also testified in favor of repealing
the death penalty. Howard’s appearance marked the
first time the MSBA has taken a stand on the
controversial issue. The association’s board of
governors on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly, but not
unanimously, to support the repeal measure, Senate
Bill 279. The board reached its decision based on
the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment’s
findings of racial and county-to-county disparities
in the death penalty process, as well as the expense
of the death penalty’s legal process and the risk of
executing an innocent person, Howard said.
But Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott D.
Shellenberger was just as impassioned in urging the
committee to preserve the death penalty, saying that
some murders are so heinous as to deserve the
ultimate punishment.
Shellenberger also said the death penalty is the
only way to discourage or punish prisoners serving
life sentences from killing their guards.
“We need it to protect our correctional officers and
make sure there is no murder that can go
unpunished,” Shellenberger told the committee. “Even
if the death penalty is rarely used over the
forthcoming years, history has shown that man will
again perform an act against his fellow man that
demands the ultimate punishment. Any lesser
punishment only diminishes the tools the state, and
therefore the people, have in carrying out justice.”
Shellenberger disputed the state commission’s
contention that prosecutorial discretion in seeking
the death penalty is a flaw in the justice system
that calls for repeal of capital punishment.
Such discretion is called “local rule: that is,
elected state’s attorneys reflecting the will of the
people they represent,” Shellenberger said. “That is
what representational democracy is all about.”
Shellenberger was a member of the Maryland
Commission on Capital Punishment, which voted 13-9
in favor of urging the General Assembly to repeal
the death penalty. Shellenberger wrote the
dissenting opinion.
Opposing views
Former Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran
Jr. and former Gov. Marvin Mandel also appeared
before the committee to give their opposing views on
the death-penalty issue.
Curran said he agrees with the commission’s call for
repeal based on its conclusion that the death
penalty process is laced with unintentional though
real discrimination, is not a deterrent, is
expensive and runs the risk of executing an innocent
person.
“The justice system is made up of people,” said
Curran, who served as attorney general from 1987 to
2007. “But we all make mistakes.”
Curran said even if it fails to approve the repeal
legislation, the committee should still allow the
“significant issue” of the death penalty’s future to
be considered and voted on by the full Senate.
“Bring it to the floor,” Curran told the committee.
“Let everybody vote.”
Mandel joined Shellenberger in urging lawmakers to
keep the death penalty, saying the threat of
execution is an effective deterrent to violent
crime, particularly for those serving life
sentences. Any racial inequity in how the death
penalty is sought should be remedied, but capital
punishment should remain available, said Mandel, who
was governor from 1969 to 1979.
“It can be done if it has to be done,” Mandel said
of the legitimacy of executing the most violent of
criminals.
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Baltimore Sun
O'Malley calls for Senate vote on death
penalty repeal.
Governor urges committee to send issue to full chamber
By Julie cz | julie.bykowicz@baltsun.com
February 19, 2009
Gov. Martin O'Malley urged lawmakers yesterday to allow the full
Senate to vote on his proposed repeal of the death penalty, an
issue he called "the defining question of our time."
O'Malley, a Democrat who has long advocated an end to capital
punishment, asked senators to consider both "empirical evidence"
and "higher truths" when making their decision. "This goes to
the very soul of who we are as a people and as a state," he
said.
The governor's testimony before a closely divided Senate
committee that has twice rejected repeal efforts came just hours
after Sen. President Thomas V. Mike Miller sternly warned his
colleagues not to let the emotionally charged issue hold up
other legislative business.
After 4 1/2 hours of testimony from more than 50 witnesses -
including political heavyweights, law enforcement officials and
relatives of murder victims - the Senate Judicial Proceedings
Committee will decide next whether to vote or to take a more
unusual route by sending the repeal to the full Senate without a
recommendation.
The committee appears poised to take that contentious step,
which would need approval from six of its 11 members.
Yesterday, Sen. James Brochin, a Baltimore County Democrat who
opposes a total repeal, said he was "strongly considering"
joining repeal proponents in turning the death penalty debate
over to the full chamber. Another repeal opponent, Sen. Alex X.
Mooney, a Republican representing Frederick and Washington
counties, also has said he would like the entire Senate to weigh
in.
Acknowledging the likelihood of a full-body debate, Miller, a
supporter of capital punishment, said he worried that the
discussion could last for days and "turn ugly," similar to a
filibuster on abortion rights in 1990. There might not be enough
senators on either side to block a filibuster, and a narrow
majority of senators would likely vote down a repeal.
A recent survey of all 47 senators by The Baltimore Sun found
that 19 are inclined to vote for O'Malley's bill and 24 oppose a
total repeal of the death penalty. Four declined to answer as to
how they would vote. Twenty-nine votes are needed to end a
filibuster.
"These are fiery emotions," Miller said from the Senate floor
yesterday, encouraging the Judicial Proceedings members to vote
with him to limit debate if they forward the repeal without a
recommendation.
The committee probably will wait a week before making its next
move, said Sen. Lisa A. Gladden, the vice chairman and a
Baltimore Democrat. She sponsored the repeal measure backed by
O'Malley.
Yesterday's hearing opened with an impassioned plea by the
governor, who said the country was "not founded on fear and
retribution" or the belief that two wrongs make a right. He
referred frequently to the work of a commission he appointed
last summer to study capital punishment in Maryland.
That commission, headed by former U.S. Attorney General Benjamin
R. Civiletti, concluded that the death penalty is costly,
ineffective and unevenly applied. Civiletti also testified
yesterday, fielding the most questions of any speaker.
Sen. Nancy Jacobs, a Republican representing Harford and Cecil
counties, asked Civiletti why he believes that "regional
disparities" in the application of the death penalty are
troublesome. Baltimore County seeks the death penalty far more
often than other parts of Maryland. Other places, such as
Baltimore City, almost never file capital charges.
"I do not believe that the irreversible punishment of death
should be frivolously or capriciously applied based on where the
occurrence happened," Civiletti replied. "I think there ought to
be a reasonable uniformity. It is a statewide law."
Former Gov. Marvin Mandel testified first for the death penalty
proponents. He said he had once opposed capital punishment but
several experiences changed his mind. He said he believes
capital punishment is an effective deterrent to crime.
Former Gov. Harry R. Hughes wasn't at the hearing but wrote to
O'Malley, in a note distributed by O'Malley aides: "It seems to
me a civilized society should be above that for both moral and
practical reasons."
Baltimore County's top prosecutor, Scott D. Shellenberger, a
member of the Civiletti commission, urged the lawmakers to keep
the death penalty. "Maryland is different," he said. "We're much
more careful here about who we put on death row. We're much more
judicious."
Since the Maryland General Assembly reinstated capital
punishment in 1978, five men have been executed. Five remain on
death row.
There have been no executions since December 2006, when
Maryland's highest court ruled that lethal injection regulations
had not been properly adopted. The Department of Public Safety
and Correctional Services is revising protocols.
Union leaders for police officers and state troopers also
testified against a repeal, saying that it would put officers at
risk.
"We get to see firsthand what one human being did to another,"
said Bernard Shaw of the Maryland Troopers Association.
Baltimore Sun reporter Laura Smitherman contributed to this
article.
Copyright © 2009, The Baltimore Sun |
