Md. Gov. - Elect to Lift Moratorium [on Death Penalty]

AP via NYTimes.com ^ | 11/16/2002

[GeneD]

Filed at 7:25 p.m. ET

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) -- Following through on a campaign promise, Gov.-elect Robert Ehrlich said he will lift Maryland's moratorium on the death penalty immediately after taking office in January.

Lifting the ban Gov. Parris Glendening declared in May could mean as many as seven inmates would be executed in Ehrlich's first year in office.

Ehrlich, who made the announcement Friday, said the governor should review the case of each person on death row individually, rather than issuing a blanket moratorium.

Death penalty opponents said they will try to persuade Ehrlich to wait to lift the moratorium until the legislative session ends in April.

Maryland and Illinois have halted executions because of doubts about the fairness of the death penalty. Glendening said he was troubled by claims that black killers of white victims are disproportionately sentenced to death.

Most Maryland murder victims are black, but all 13 men on the state's death row were sentenced to die for killing whites.

Glendening commissioned a study of state murder prosecutions to look for evidence of racial bias. The results are due in late December.

Six of 10 people shot to death in last month's Washington, D.C., area sniper attacks were killed in Maryland. But suspects John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo are expected to be tried first in Virginia, site of three of the shooting deaths, because that state is considered more likely to impose the death penalty.

[anniegetyourgun]

Make good on the campaign promise....for the sake of the citizenry.

[winin2000]

Most Maryland murder victims are black, but all 13 men on the state's death row were sentenced to die for killing whites.

Aside from the fact that 13 cases is far too fragmentary to say anything meaningful about the system, did it occur to the author that maybe the murderers of blacks simply weren't caught?

Has anyone else noticed how the bar establishing "racism" in the justice system keeps being moved? At first it was simply a question of are disproportionate numbers of blacks being executed relative to whites. Now the complaint here seems to be we aren't arresting and prosecuting enough when the victims are black!

But wait a minute! If most black crime is, in fact, committed by fellow blacks, and those perps are brought in and sentenced, wouldn't that put us right back at the originial complaint?

Anyway, sounds like Ehrlich's making a positive difference already!

[Cicero]

Obviously you would have to look at all the murder cases individually. In the old days, first degree murder got the death penalty pretty much automatically. In recent years, there has to be extreme cruelty or other aggravating circumstances.

Probably a lot of black-on-black murders are between rival gangs or drug dealers, in which case most jurors would have a hard time working up much sympathy for the victims. I'm just speculating here, which is why you would really have to review all the cases in detail before drawing any conclusions.

[jackbill]

What many people don't want to accept is the fact that in Maryland, in the jurisdictions where most of the murders happen, the prosecutors won't ask for the death penalty for fear of the O.J. effect.

What is that, you say? In Baltimore City, Montgomery County and Prince Georges County, where the vast majority of murders happen, the black population is greatest. Prosecutors fear that with a jury of a lot of blacks, they won't convict if they know the "Bro" will be subject to the death penalty.

As Casey Stengel said, "You could look it up". By far, the majority of convicts on death row are there because of one person - Susan O'Connor, the State's Attorney from Baltimore County.

Check out:

http://www.mdcase.org/death_penalty/deathrow.htm

Nine of thirteen convicts on death row were put there by Ms. O'Connor. And we are eternally grateful for that.

[jackbill]

See #5

[Senator Goldwater]

Since Maryland has had only three executions since 1976, the last of which occured two years ago, it seems to me that a death penalty moratorium has been in effect since the Bicentennial.

As to who killed who, what difference does it make? Of course there hasn't been enough black-on-black executions with only three since 1976. Time to ratchet things up if they have fallen behind.

This is why Kennedy lost. Maryland contains two large metropolitan areas. Can Democrats, who have been in charge in Maryland since 1966, credibly argue that there hasn't been more than three crimes warranting capital sanction since the restoration of the death penalty?

[FF578]

Most Maryland murder victims are black, but all 13 men on the state's death row were sentenced to die for killing whites.

Anti-Capital Punishment Liberals repeat this garbage over and over again to try to paint the death penalty as racist.

Notice they never say the majority of Death Row inmates are black? The Majority of death row inmates are actually white.

The left is simply anti-punishment period for criminals. They think a session with a social worker will reform the savage.

I think the death penalty needs to be expanded, and the sentences for other crimes stiffened.

Forget the reform garbage. I don't believe very many criminals can change. A few maybe, the majority nope.