Prosecutors should automatically seek the death penalty against inmates serving life terms who stand accused of killing corrections officers. That doesn't even need debating, does it?
Well, there should probably be no debate. But discussing it with the victims' family members should be standard policy, and that's what Anne Arundel County prosecutors did in the case of corrections officer David McGuinn. But what happens if the family members of those victims don't want the death penalty?
Last Friday, prosecutors from the Anne Arundel County state's attorney's office confirmed they will seek the death penalty for Lee E. Stephens and Lamarr C. Harris, the two men charged in the fatal July stabbing of McGuinn at the Maryland House of Correction. That decision came after deliberation and consultation, not automatically.
Harris is serving a triple life sentence for murdering two people in 1989. Stephens got life plus 15 years after he killed a man in 1997.
Both men have pleaded not guilty in McGuinn's killing. They each get the benefit of a presumption of innocence, their prior convictions and life sentences notwithstanding. So let's presume just that, and talk in general about inmate X, serving a life term for murder, who kills corrections officer Y. Isn't it a no-brainer that prosecutors should automatically - with no discussions and no equivocating - seek the death penalty for inmate X?
Anne Arundel County prosecutors said the decision to seek the death penalty for Stephens and Harris came after consulting with other prosecutors, Maryland State Police investigators and McGuinn's family, according to an article by Sun reporter Anica Butler. The consultation with other prosecutors and state police was understandable; consulting McGuinn's family was imperative.
But suppose McGuinn's family didn't want the death penalty? Would prosecutors have sought the death penalty anyway? How could we punish lifers who kill corrections officers with anything other than a death sentence?
"Your question is hard to answer, because it's a hypothetical," said Kristin Riggin, a spokeswoman for the Anne Arundel County state's attorney's office. "We don't usually deal in hypotheticals."
Riggin's office does deal in specific cases. The one she compared to the McGuinn case was that of Betina "Kristi" Gentry and Cynthia V. Allen. Darris A. Ware was convicted of fatally shooting both in December 1993.
