House Speaker Michael E. Busch said he had recently spoken with the governor, the Senate president and some death penalty opponents who advised that the House should accept a revised death penalty statute instead of attempting to repeal it.
"Sometimes politics is the art of the possible," said Busch, an Anne Arundel Democrat who has historically supported the death penalty but has concerns about the fairness of the state's application of it. "Do you pass something that founders in the Senate and then nothing changes? Or do you take something that is somewhat of a middle ground?"
Jane Henderson of Maryland Citizens Against State Executions said she was "extraordinarily disappointed" in the demise of the repeal. "That said, some action is better than no action," she said.
Del. Curtis S. Anderson, a Baltimore Democrat and death penalty opponent, said he had hoped his fellow Judiciary Committee members would approve a full repeal.
"I'm disappointed with the advocates, that they are willing to give up their principle for a slight move," Anderson said. "I guess it's a matter of practicality, but practicality is not something you would want to consider when you have an issue as important as the death penalty."
Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, a Democrat representing Prince George's and Calvert counties, strongly opposes a repeal but voted to limit capital punishment. He has said his chamber would not consider alternative House legislation.
The Senate's repeal bill failed in committee but was resurrected on the floor through an unusual parliamentary procedure that Miller said he allowed as a courtesy to the governor. The repeal attempt was quickly thwarted, and instead a plan emerged to allow capital punishment only in murder cases where there is DNA evidence, a video recording of the crime or a voluntary, videotaped confession by the killer.
If it becomes law, experts say Maryland would have one of the narrowest capital punishment statutes in the country. Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott D. Shellenberger, a death penalty proponent, says it would severely limit prosecutors' ability to seek capital punishment.
Five convicted murderers have been executed since Maryland reinstated the death penalty in 1978. But in December 2006, the state's highest court ruled that lethal injection regulations had not been properly adopted, effectively imposing a moratorium. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that execution by lethal injection is constitutional, a decision that required Maryland to begin redrafting its regulations.
