Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley (pic­tured) has said that he plans on sup­port­ing recent­ly intro­duced leg­is­la­tion to repeal the state’s death penal­ty. ​“I’ve had a pret­ty con­sis­tent posi­tion on this. Now that it’s salient, I’m cer­tain­ly not going to try to duck or hide. I would like to see us repeal the death penal­ty,” stat­ed O’Malley, who has argued that the death penal­ty is not a deter­rent and that mon­ey spent on pros­e­cut­ing death penal­ty cas­es could be bet­ter spent fight­ing violent crime. 

The pro­posed leg­is­la­tion would replace Maryland’s death penal­ty with life with­out parole. Maryland Senator Lisa A. Gladden, the bil­l’s lead spon­sor in the Maryland Senate, said that she believes the bill could be passed this year. Delegate Samuel I. Rosenberg, the mea­sure’s chief spon­sor in the House of Delegates, echoed Gladden’s enthu­si­asm for the bill and added, ​“The time and effort lit­i­gat­ing these cas­es, that goes into leg­is­lat­ing this issue, could be spent on pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures that make each and every cit­i­zen more safe in their home.”

Maryland Senate President Thomas Mike V. Miller, Jr., a cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sup­port­er, said he thinks there needs to be a ​“healthy debate” on the sub­ject. He said he would not block efforts to con­sid­er the mea­sure, stat­ing, ​“I real­ize the trend is against the death penal­ty.” The bill comes just weeks after a court ordered Maryland to halt exe­cu­tions until new reg­u­la­tions on lethal injec­tion are put for­ward by the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.

(Washington Post, January 26, 2007). See Recent Legislative Activities. See also, Lethal Injections and Life Without Parole.

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