As Maryland Circuit Court Judge Steven I. Platt signed a death war­rant sched­ul­ing the exe­cu­tion of Heath W. Burch for the week of December 6, a Potomac Inc. poll of state res­i­dents revealed that only 53% sup­port cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Burch has been on death row since 1996 and would be the first per­son since 1953 to be exe­cut­ed for a crime com­mit­ted in Prince George’s County. Experts pre­dict that his exe­cu­tion would be met with resis­tance from coun­ty res­i­dents, 50% of whom oppose cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment accord­ing to the Potomac Inc. poll. Judge Platt also grant­ed Burch a 30-day stay of exe­cu­tion to pro­vide his attor­neys with time to file an appeal that they state will be based on a University of Maryland study that showed death sen­tences are imposed more often when the vic­tims are white. Burch, a black man, was con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing an elder­ly white cou­ple. Earlier in 2004, Maryland car­ried out the exe­cu­tion of Steven Oken, the first per­son to be exe­cut­ed by the state since 1998. (The Washington Post, October 22, 2004) See Public Opinion and Race.

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