Appeals Process

ANNAPOLIS -- The chief judge of Maryland's highest court told a Senate committee yesterday that it was unlikely anyone on Maryland's death row would be executed soon.The state's law went into effect 14 years ago and 10 men are sentenced to death. But the state's laws, dogged public defenders and "technicalities" have kept those cases in the appeals process, Judge Robert C. Murphy told the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee.Sen. Walter M. Baker, D-Cecil, the committee chairman, introduced a package of eight procedural bills to speed up the process.

Orioles third baseman Manny Machado didn't mask his frustration Monday that Major League Baseball upheld its decision to suspend him five games for his bat-flinging incident against the Oakland Athletics on June 8. "It's very disappointing. I'm not going to stand here and smile about it and be excited about missing five games,” said Machado, whose suspension started Monday night against the Texas Rangers and will continue through Friday's game in Boston. “Just go about it, put it behind us and serve the five games.” Machado and Orioles executive vice president Dan Duquette, among others, met Wednesday for an appeal hearing before Joe Garagiola Jr., baseball's senior vice president of standards and on-field operations.

SAN QUENTIN, Calif. -- From the chaos and emotion of one murderer's execution, a message rang clear: An impatient U.S. Supreme Court spanked a renegade federal appeals court, laying the groundwork to streamline an appeals process that has frustrated nearly everyone.For nine hours, fax machines in San Francisco and Washington waged a legal battle between the high court and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the life of double murderer Robert Alton Harris. About 5:30 a.m. yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court finally flexed unprecedented political muscle by overriding the last of four stays that had given Harris another six hours of life.

Fellow lawmakers have called on Del. Don Dwyer Jr. to resign after his drunken-driving arrest Tuesday, but there is little in Maryland law to force that outcome, a review of the state's statutes on removal from office shows. Dwyer, a three-term Anne Arundel County Republican, was arrested early Tuesday after failing a field sobriety test along Route 100. The incident occurred almost exactly a year after he was involved in a boating accident that seriously injured six others. He had pleaded guilty to operating the boat while drunk.

Ignoring pleas from union leaders and the county's Annapolis delegation, the Baltimore County Council approved a bill Tuesday changing how county employees can appeal decisions about retirement benefits. The council voted 6-1 in favor of the bill, proposed by County Executive Kevin Kamenetz. Councilwoman Vicki Almond, a Reisterstown Democrat, was the only member of the council to oppose it, saying it will put county employees "through unnecessary hardship, both economically and procedurally.

Last week, a St. Mary's County judge sentenced John Thanos, convicted in the slaying of an Eastern Shore teen-ager, to death. Thanos thus became the 11th person on Maryland's death row. However, no one has been executed in Maryland since 1961, due in part to a cumbersome appeals process that requires at least 24 separate steps and can go on for years. The Thanos sentence followed by a few days Delaware's first execution in 46 years.The Evening Sun would like to know what you think. Putting aside any ethical arguments, do you believe Maryland's death penalty should be eliminated because the system does not work in the way it was intended?

Marylanders will get a chance to express their views at public hearings on how to speed up the appeals process for death-row inmates.Gov. William Donald Schaefer appointed a commission last month to look into ways to expedite the costly appeals process. The commission is scheduled to issue a report on Dec. 1.Thirteen people are on death row in the state, but Maryland has not executed anyone since June 10, 1961, when Nathaniel Lipscomb died in the gas chamber for murdering three women.The panel will seek ideas from the public at a series of hearings on the process before issuing a report.

The Maryland Office of Public Defender has withdrawn a proposed rule change that critics had labeled a "back-door" attempt to slow down the death penalty appeals process.As a result of public defender Stephen E. Harris' decision late Friday, legislators called off a planned hearing on the matter yesterday.The state attorney general's office had charged that the proposed rule change would have kept Maryland from complying with a new federal law that lets states avoid some death penalty appeals.

A Baltimore County Circuit Court jury convicted Clarence Conyers of two counts of first-degree murder yesterday, forcing him to face the possibility of a death sentence for the third time in nearly a decade. Conyers, 35, was convicted for the second time in the October 1994 slayings of Wanda Johnson, 44, and Lawrence Bradshaw, 22, both of northwest Baltimore County. He will be sentenced today. Conyers has already been sentenced to death twice for killing Johnson and Bradshaw, but the first two sentences and his original conviction were overturned on appeal.

The Baltimore County school board decided Tuesday to table the measure on easing controversial requirements for parent and community groups to use the school system's buildings. After months of community outcry over Rule 1300, as the policy is known, the Board of Education considered several changes that include allowing the groups to use outside vendors, waiving insurance requirements and fees for small groups, outlining an appeals process, and detailing a list of groups authorized to use school facilities.

The plan to substantially expand the Harford County Airport at Churchville in terms of runway capacity and number of flights per day has resurfaced, though in a more subdued form than had been pursued a little more than a decade ago. In short, the plan involves roughly doubling the width of the main runway to 75 feet and extending it by 1,000 feet to 3,200 feet, while closing two ancillary runways. Buildings on the property would also be upgraded. With a substantial portion of the airport on agricultural land, the Harford County Council made changes to the zoning regulations for agricultural districts to facilitate planned changes - thus allowing the airport owners to avoid the costly and oftentimes contentious process of having major upgrades approved through the county zoning appeals process.

Ignoring pleas from union leaders and the county's Annapolis delegation, the Baltimore County Council approved a bill Tuesday changing how county employees can appeal decisions about retirement benefits. The council voted 6-1 in favor of the bill, proposed by County Executive Kevin Kamenetz. Councilwoman Vicki Almond, a Reisterstown Democrat, was the only member of the council to oppose it, saying it will put county employees "through unnecessary hardship, both economically and procedurally.

Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott Shellenberger's commentary in favor of the death penalty demands a clarifying response ("'Time to abolish the death penalty in Md.?" Jan. 18). Mr. Shellenberger begins by cherry-picking polling results that show Marylanders are closely divided over repealing the death penalty, with neither side achieving a clear majority. However, poll after poll over the last several years has shown that as many as two-thirds of Marylanders are strongly supportive of the idea that a sentence of life without parole is an acceptable substitute for the death penalty.

George Huguely V, the former University of Virginia lacrosse player convicted last year of drunkenly beating to death his girlfriend Yeardley Love, has asked the Virginia Court of Appeals to review his case. Huguely's attorneys argued in a petition filed Tuesday that the court violated Huguely's constitutional rights. Love, the victim, was from Cockeysville. "The circuit court's response to the intense media interest was to rush through the trial, rather than to ensure that the accused received a fair trial," Craig S. Cooley and Paul D. Clement, the attorneys, wrote in the petition.

Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown, the governor's point man on legislation governing public-private partnerships, said Wednesday that the administration will not risk the measure's defeat over a controversial amendment that could change the rules for appeals in a lawsuit challenging the State Center redevelopment plan in Baltimore. Brown said the amendment, tacked on the  bill in the House Environmental Matters Committee, did not come from the administration. "We neither oppose it nor promote it," he said.

The County Council's move to revise the county ethics laws makes Howard one of the first local governments to approve the new standards mandated by the General Assembly last year. The changes, approved Monday, provide more detail in the county ethics laws regarding gifts, financial disclosure statements and lobbying provisions. It also expands the role of the county's ethics commission, requiring it to maintain an annual report of lobbying activity. The bill bans former County Council members from lobbying on legislative issues for a year after leaving office, and prohibits former employees from bidding to do business with the county on a contract for which they helped write specifications.

WASHINGTON -- In an effort to improve a system that can leave the disabled waiting years for benefits, the Social Security Administration unveiled a plan yesterday that it hopes will provide help within six weeks of when people apply.Under the new blueprint, applicants could sit down and discuss their cases with Social Security officials before decisions were made -- a sharp change from the way the system works today.The Woodlawn-based agency's management of the nation's $40 billion disability programs has faced sharp attacks on Capitol Hill and elsewhere in recent years.

Fellow lawmakers have called on Del. Don Dwyer Jr. to resign after his drunken-driving arrest Tuesday, but there is little in Maryland law to force that outcome, a review of the state's statutes on removal from office shows. Dwyer, a three-term Anne Arundel County Republican, was arrested early Tuesday after failing a field sobriety test along Route 100. The incident occurred almost exactly a year after he was involved in a boating accident that seriously injured six others. He had pleaded guilty to operating the boat while drunk.

The Baltimore County school board decided Tuesday to table the measure on easing controversial requirements for parent and community groups to use the school system's buildings. After months of community outcry over Rule 1300, as the policy is known, the Board of Education considered several changes that include allowing the groups to use outside vendors, waiving insurance requirements and fees for small groups, outlining an appeals process, and detailing a list of groups authorized to use school facilities.

Ron Wirsing offers a risky and implausible suggestion in his letter ("Limit death penalty appeals to three years," March 1). Death penalty appeals and habeas motions do take time. But unfortunately, that is because we have done so little to avoid the serious errors that continue to come to light many years after trial, and sometimes after all appeals have been exhausted. For example, Kirk Bloodsworth was sentenced to death in Maryland in 1985, but it took until 1993 for the results of DNA tests to conclusively prove his innocence.