On March 24, Maryland law­mak­ers vot­ed to cre­ate a com­mis­sion to study the state’s death penal­ty. The House vot­ed 89 – 48 and the Senate by 32 – 15 to estab­lish the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment to research racial, socio-eco­nom­i­cal, and geo­graph­ic dis­par­i­ties in the appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty as well as eval­u­ate the risk of exe­cut­ing an inno­cent per­son. The com­mis­sion will con­sid­er the costs of the death penal­ty as com­pared to a sen­tence of life with­out parole. Its find­ings and rec­om­men­da­tions are due by December 15 and will be sub­mit­ted to the General Assembly. Delegate Sandy Rosenberg stat­ed that the bill aims to cre­ate “ a cred­i­ble task force — one that will objec­tive­ly look at the issues.” The gov­er­nor sup­ports the estab­lish­ment of the Commission.

Maryland has 5 inmates on death row and has exe­cut­ed 5 peo­ple since the rein­state­ment of its death penal­ty in 1978. Executions have been on hold since late 2006 when the state’s high­est court found errors in the way the lethal injec­tion pro­to­col had been put into law.
(“Lawmakers vote to cre­ate death penal­ty com­mis­sion,” Associated Press, March 25, 2008). See Recent Legislative Activity.

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