Wroten's former wife, Tracey Wroten, who spoke for the family, said the Wrotens "completely supported" the prosecutors and the family should be able to decide whether it is willing to endure the appeals.
"It would have been worth that process for true justice to be served," she said after the sentencing.
Earlier this month, a jury found Morris guilty of first-degree murder and 21 other charges in the events surrounding the shooting death of Wroten in 2006.
FOR THE RECORD - An article in Tuesday's editions about a Howard County capital sentencing hearing reported that it has been a decade since a death sentence was imposed in Maryland that was not subsequently overturned by the state's appellate courts. During the same period, however, there have been two death sentences imposed by federal juries in Maryland that have not been overturned.
Morris, 22, of Baltimore, shot Jeffery Wroten in the face with the officer's state-issued revolver while escaping from Washington County Hospital in January 2006. Morris was serving a seven-year sentence at Roxbury for armed robbery and assault. He had been taken to the hospital for overnight treatment after stabbing himself near the liver.
Manck - who also sentenced Morris to 277 consecutive years for the other charges - told Morris that under state law, even if the murder conviction is overturned, he could not be considered for parole for nearly 150 years.
In addition to Morris' childhood, the judge said he considered that the killer has the "maturity level of, at best, a high school student, at worst, probably a sixth-grader."
Prosecutors had argued that Morris should not be given leniency because of his background.
"There is going to be an ongoing concern about public safety in the prison," said Washington County State's Attorney Charles Strong.
Although judges and juries in Maryland can sentence convicted murderers to death, the state's highest court halted all executions in 2006 until the steps for putting a prisoner to death by injection are rewritten with the required legislative oversight and public input.
Gov. Martin O'Malley, a death penalty opponent, has held off directing prison officials to draft new regulations on lethal injection, explaining that he wants to give the legislature another opportunity this year to debate repeal bills.
"It makes you kind of wonder why we have a death penalty - why we bother," said Jane Henderson, executive director of Maryland Citizens Against State Executions. "You'd think we'd just abandon the whole enterprise and recognize that Maryland judges and juries are going to sentence people to life without parole."
But Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott D. Shellenberger, a proponent of capital punishment whose office is handling seven capital cases, said the death penalty remains an essential sentencing option.
