Gov. Martin O'Malley moved yesterday toward ending Maryland's moratorium on executions, saying he "sadly" ordered the drafting of procedures for executing inmates by lethal injection.
The announcement by O'Malley, who has opposed the death penalty, came nearly 18 months after the state's highest court ruled that the Maryland's execution protocols were improperly developed without legislative oversight or public input. And last month, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Kentucky's use of lethal injection protocols virtually identical to those Maryland's.
"I wish we would arrive at a point where we would repeal the death penalty, but I do not have the luxury in this job or the permission in this job only to enforce laws that I'm in favor of and that I agree with," O'Malley, a Democrat, told reporters in Annapolis. "So, sadly, we'll be moving forward with those protocols."
The governor said that Gary D. Maynard, secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, will review the state's existing lethal injection procedures in consultation with "the best advice of medical people in the state."
His comment suggests that the administration intends to go beyond the requirements of the 2006 Maryland Court of Appeals' ruling, which dealt exclusively with the mechanics of how the state's execution procedures were drafted rather than the specific steps involved in putting to death condemned prisoners.
"I hope that's what they will do," said A. Stephen Hut Jr., a defense attorney who challenged Maryland's execution procedures on behalf of Vernon L. Evans Jr., a death row inmate whose case prompted the state's de facto moratorium on executions.
"Now, there's an opportunity to bring forward new procedures and make them as good as they can be," Hut added. "Whether or not the past procedures complied with the Constitution - and we did not think they did - it's certain that they can do a whole lot better. We hope they will."
The protocols outline the three-drug procedure used for putting prisoners to death: an anesthetic, a drug that paralyzes muscles, including the lungs and diaphragm, and a drug that stops the heart. O'Malley had said he wanted to hold off drafting the new procedures until the legislature had another chance this year to debate a repeal bill - it stalled again in a Senate committee - and until the Supreme Court ruled in the Kentucky case.
