Maryland

John Huffington (pic­tured) has been exon­er­at­ed of all the charges that sent him to death row over 40 years after his ini­tial wrong­ful con­vic­tion. On January 13, 2023, out­go­ing Maryland Governor Larry Hogan grant­ed a full par­don to Huffington, stat­ing that evi­dence con­clu­sive­ly showed that his ​“con­vic­tions were in error.”

Kirk Bloodsworth, the first for­mer death-row pris­on­er to have been exon­er­at­ed by DNA test­ing, has become the first per­son to receive sup­ple­men­tal com­pen­sa­tion under a new Maryland wrong­ful impris­on­ment statute.

States that have recent­ly abol­ished the death penal­ty have not expe­ri­enced the ​“parade of hor­ri­bles” — includ­ing increased mur­der rates — pre­dict­ed by death-penal­ty pro­po­nents, accord­ing to death-penal­ty experts who par­tic­i­pat­ed in a pan­el dis­cus­sion at the 2017 American Bar Association nation­al meet­ing in New York City. Instead, the pan­elists said, abo­li­tion appears to have cre­at­ed oppor­tu­ni­ties to move for­ward with oth­er broad­er crim­i­nal jus­tice reforms.

Fifty years ago today, Thurgood Marshall (pic­tured) was con­firmed as the nation’s first African-American Supreme Court Justice.

A new film, ​“Bloodsworth: An Innocent Man,” pre­mieres on August 13. The movie, described as a ​“doc­u­men­tary mem­oir,” tells the sto­ry of Kirk Bloodsworth, an inno­cent man sen­tenced to death in Maryland who became the first death row pris­on­er in the United States to be exon­er­at­ed by DNA evi­dence. Bloodsworth was con­vict­ed and sent to death row in 1985 for the sex­u­al assault and mur­der of a 9‑year-old girl. He won a new tri­al as a result of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, but was con­vict­ed again and this time sen­tenced to life.…

On December 31, 2014, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley announced he will com­mute the sen­tences of the four men remain­ing on the state’s death row to life with­out parole. O’Malley signed Maryland’s death penal­ty repeal bill into law in 2013, but the repeal was not retroac­tive. In a state­ment, O’Malley said, ​“Recent appeals and the lat­est opin­ion on this mat­ter by Maryland’s Attorney General have called into ques­tion the legal­i­ty of car­ry­ing out ear­li­er death sen­tences — sen­tences imposed pri­or to abo­li­tion. In fact, the Attorney General has opined that the…

In a recent edi­to­r­i­al, the Washington Post urged Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley to com­mute the sen­tences of the four men remain­ing on the state’s death row, say­ing, ​“To car­ry out exe­cu­tions post-repeal would be both cru­el, because the leg­is­la­tion under­pin­ning the sen­tence has been scrapped, and unusu­al, because doing so would be his­tor­i­cal­ly unprece­dent­ed.” Maryland is one of three states that have repealed the death penal­ty prospec­tive­ly but still have inmates on death row. The oth­ers are Connecticut and New Mexico. O’Malley, who is leav­ing office in January, was a…

On November 6, Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler (pic­tured) filed a brief with an appel­late court, for­mal­ly request­ing that the death sen­tence of Jody Lee Miles be vacat­ed. Gansler argued that Miles’s death sen­tence is no longer valid. Miles was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1998. In 2006, Maryland’s Court of Appeals sus­pend­ed exe­cu­tions because the state’s lethal injec­tion pro­ce­dures had not been law­ful­ly imple­ment­ed. In 2013, the state repealed the death penal­ty for future offens­es. Upon repeal, Miles filed a motion to have his sen­tence changed to life…

Maryland​’s death penal­ty repeal leg­is­la­tion will take effect as sched­uled on October 1, 2013 after its oppo­nents were unsuc­cess­ful in secur­ing the num­ber of sig­na­tures required to put the issue on the November 2014 bal­lot. Efforts to put Maryland’s death penal­ty to a statewide vote were led by Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott D. Shellenberger and a group called MDPetitions​.com. On May 31, the group announced that it only col­lect­ed about 15,000 sig­na­tures, falling short of the 18,579 sig­na­tures required in order to pro­ceed. If the group had met the…