Capital Punishment

Washington. -- Justice Harry Blackmun, again confusing autobiography with constitutional reasoning, has dissented from the Supreme Court's refusal to review a Texas capital-punishment conviction, announcing that he is too personally distressed ever again to sanction the death penalty, no matter what.His 22-page outburst, refuted by Justice Antonin Scalia in four scalding paragraphs, uses the results of the court's recent rulings about how capital punishment can be constitutional as an excuse for declaring capital punishment unconstitutional.

I have spent a lot of my life waiting. I waited for two years to be executed, and I waited in prison for more than eight years — all for a murder I had nothing to do with. After finally being exonerated in 1993, I had to wait 10 years for the DNA that cleared me to be used to bring the real killer to justice. But the longest wait of all has been my two decades since I left prison, prodding and pushing the Maryland General Assembly to end capital punishment in our state once and for all. I am disappointed for yet another year as the legislature will soon adjourn for 2012 without a floor vote in either the House of Delegates or Senate on repealing the death penalty.

Havre de Grace. - Funerals tend to encourage reflection on broad themes of life and death, and so it's probably not surprising that following the memorial service for a friend and neighbor of mine last week, I found myself once again wrestling with that old question of capital punishment.My neighbor, Sid Kreider, was a physician at Johns Hopkins who died of cancer at the age of 56 -- an unfairly early end, it seemed to those who knew him, to an exemplary and unusually productive life. In addition to his professional accomplishments, Sid was an active conservationist and a devoted family man, and if he had been given more time there's little doubt he would have used it well.

John D. Bessler, an expert on capital punishment who teaches at the University of Baltimore School of Law, argues in his most recent book on the death penalty (he's written four) that, since its founding, the United States has become a more civilized place. We outlawed duels a long time ago. We no longer whip or torture inmates. We no longer place offenders in stocks. We stopped public hangings. As Mr. Bessler points out in his excellent history, "Cruel and Unusual: The American Death Penalty and the Founders' Eighth Amendment," we've made all kinds of progress since the time of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and the adoption of the Bill of Rights.

I do not know why our state representatives want to waste their time debating capital punishment in the state of Maryland. The death penalty in this state is a big joke. After reading the Baltimore Sun article "Officer shot at nearly same spot where colleague was killed in 2001" (March 22) I am even more convinced that there is no capital punishment here. The article states "the gunman fired a bullet into his leg, then stood over [Officer Michael J.] Cowdery's body and pumped another round into his head.

If this year's Maryland legislature does away with capital punishment ( "Double victims," Feb. 27), I sincerely hoped that they will retain it for the killing of prison guards and policemen. Alfred H. Funk Jr., Timonium

All of us mourn the senseless killing of Maryland corrections officer David McGuinn, who was murdered at the Maryland House of Correction in 2006. ("New death penalty law, appeals delay trials in killing of correctional officer," July 25.) The article highlights the five-year delay in bringing a prosecution in Mr. McGuinn's murder. Some of that delay was the unintended result of passage in 2009 of important new evidentiary requirements in Maryland's death penalty statute. This case highlights the challenges that prosecutors face in mounting a capital case.

Forest Grove, Oregon -- After much controversy, the state of Washington has executed Westley Allan Dodd, who confessed to the 1989 murder of three boys. Dodd not only wanted to hang but vowed, given the chance, to kill and rape again. The ACLU argued that death by hanging is cruel and unusual punishment, but the court ruled with the state, which called it a ''swift and humane'' means of execution.While this contest was taking place, halfway across the country in Chicago medical doctors were taking a stand against a new federal regulation requiring them to assist in executions that use lethal injection.

Washington -- RECENTLY THE death penalty lost one and won one, raising anew the question of whether the issue is about legal principles or politics -- or both.New York Gov. Mario Cuomo shocked foes of capital punishment when he suddenly abandoned his long-held position that it is unethical and inhumane in favor of letting state voters decide whether to make it legal.There is nothing coy about Mr. Cuomo's change of heart; he is in a tough fight for re-election and his past vetoes of death-penalty statutes had become a contentious issue.

"May God Have Mercy: A True Story of Crime and Punishment," by John C. Tucker. W.W. Norton. 358 pages. $27.50. This gripping book about a crime and a convict - the place where it happened; the workings of the American justice system; the doubts about whodunit - demonstrates all that is wrong with capital punishment, while proving that a good and well-told account of a real case is far more intriguing than any mystery novel.On May 20, 1992, concluding more than 10 years of agonizing protests and appeals, Roger Coleman was executed in Virginia's electric chair for the rape and murder of his sister-in-law, Wanda Fay McCoy.

Just as advocates are renewing their push to abolish Maryland's death penalty, the state has been faced with exactly the kind of case that has proved one of the most persuasive arguments against their cause in the General Assembly. Late last month, an Anne Arundel County jury found Lee Edward Stephens guilty of murder in the killing of correctional officer Cpl. David McGuinn. Mr. Stephens had already been serving a life sentence when he stabbed Officer McGuinn at the now-shuttered House of Correction at Jessup.

A passionate group of advocates — including NAACP President Benjamin Jealous and an innocent man who was on Maryland's death row for two years — came to Annapolis Wednesday to argue against the state's death penalty. "For this state to continue to spend money killing the killers that are already going to spend the rest of their lives in cages ... quite frankly that is an extravagance that the state can no longer afford," Jealous said. National advocates targeted Maryland this year in repeal efforts, believing the state's Democratic-dominated legislature had the votes needed to end the death penalty.

Members of an Anne Arundel County jury were certain that Lee Edward Stephens was guilty of murder, but prosecutors could not convince them that the inmate — already serving a life sentence when he killed a correctional officer in 2006 — should be put to death. The jury decided Wednesday that Stephens will get another life sentence, this time without possibility of parole, for fatally stabbing Cpl. David McGuinn as he made his rounds at the now-closed House of Correction in Jessup.

Question for liberals: If you support same-sex marriage and dismiss the religious argument against it, can you in good conscience welcome religious leaders to a campaign against the death penalty? Question for conservatives: If you oppose same-sex marriage and welcome the clergy to that fight, can you surrender to their moral authority on the death penalty and oppose capital punishment? Complex ponderings. They came up within the last two weeks, as the Maryland General Assembly voted to make same-sex marriage legal in the state.

Jury deliberations began Wednesday in the death-penalty trial of a convicted murderer charged with killing a correctional officer at the now-closed House of Correction. If the Anne Arundel County jury convicts Lee Edward "Shy" Stephens in the July 2006 stabbing of Cpl. David McGuinn, he could become the first person sentenced to death under Maryland's new capital punishment law. The three-week trial featured 10 prisoners testifying as eyewitnesses for both the prosecution and defense, giving jurors a peek into life at a troubled maximum-security prison where investigators found hundreds of homemade weapons in the aftermath of the slaying — but no murder weapon.

The Baltimore Board of Rabbis has renewed its call for the abolition of the death penalty in Maryland, arguing that the only safeguard against the exection of innocent people is to have no executions at all. The rabbinical group restated its opposition to capital punishment as the Maryland General Assembly prepares for its 2012 legislative session Jan 11. Once again, the legislature is expected to consider bills calling for full repeal of...

Death penalty stands on ever shakier ground Maybe next time, the phone will ring for Alex X. Mooney and it will be the pope rather than a mere cardinal. Maybe the governor will perform the Irish music live rather than just have it playing in the background in his office when Mooney comes a-calling. Maybe the former lieutenant governor and fellow Republican will linger even longer over dessert the next time he has a three-hour dinner with the state senator from Frederick. In the end, the religious, governmental and party wooing failed to persuade Mooney to support a bill repealing the death penalty in Maryland - his vote against it in committee yesterday effectively killed the measure for this session.

"Open Doors," playing today at the Charles, is a 1990 Italian production, a passionless argument against capital punishment.Based on the novel by Leonardo Sciascia, the film takes place in 1937 in Palermo, when Mussolini was still in power. One of the principal characters is a man who murders two of his former co-workers, then rapes and kills his wife. One of the judges at his trial is unmoved by the fact that the killer wants to die. He is against capital punishment and will look for a way to save the man's life.

I do not know Vivian Penda but I was touched and moved by her op-ed in which she shared her struggle following the murder of her son. In her powerful guest opinion she urged, "For the sake of victims' families, repeal the death penalty. " (Nov. 17.) It breaks my heart that she did not receive more support from our public agencies following her profound and tragic loss. Her words make it clearer than ever for me that it is time to re-focus our state's resources on approaches that reduce violence and provide much-needed support to crime victims.

I always thought murder was something that happened to other families. You read about it in the paper. You see the legal process unfold on TV. There's so much attention paid to certain murders that you assume the families going through their tragedy are getting support and help. Then my son, Dennis, was murdered in 2002, and I learned how little support there actually is. Losing Dennis rests heavily with me every day. His murder received no notice, and our family was left to grieve on our own. It turns out that my experience is not unusual.