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.

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.

The House of Delegates approved new restrictions on the death penalty in Maryland on Thursday, sending the much-debated plan to the state's anti-capital punishment governor, who has said he will sign it into law. Amid a national debate over executions, Maryland's evidentiary limitations will become the most stringent of any of the 35 states that have capital punishment on the books, legal experts say. Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, had sought to...

New Jersey became the first state in decades yesterday to abolish the death penalty, giving hope to opponents of capital punishment that Maryland and other states could soon follow. But the obstacles to passing a repeal or even a moratorium in the General Assembly next month remain high. Key lawmakers concede that the legislature is as polarized over the emotionally charged issue as it was last year, when a bill seeking a repeal was defeated by one vote in a Senate committee. Still, the news of New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine's decision to sign the repeal bill yesterday and to commute the sentences of the state's eight death-row inmates led many to believe that the momentum in Maryland will be on the opponents' side.

BOSTON -- So we have a national moratorium of sorts. An unofficial stay of execution. All quiet in the death chambers. In the days since the Supreme Court decided to take on another death penalty case, 11 states - including Texas, the capital of capital punishment - have suspended executions. In two more states, inmates slated for death next week may be granted a reprieve. Even the Europeans who led the World Day Against the Death Penalty on Wednesday must have missed having their favorite international target.

As a candidate for the top prosecutor's job in Baltimore County - a jurisdiction that has sent more men to death row than any in Maryland - Scott D. Shellenberger repeatedly told voters that he would bring a new approach to capital prosecutions. And, since his election a year ago, he has created a protocol for deciding which crimes should be punished by death, and he has formed a panel of advisers to debate each eligible case. But capital-defense attorneys say that Shellenberger's approach has, at times, been even less open than that of his predecessor and former boss, longtime county State's Attorney Sandra A. O'Connor.

APPARENTLY some states have learned nothing from the recent spate of exonerations for death row inmates in Illinois. For example, Virginia is in the midst of an execution frenzy, planning to kill seven inmates in as many weeks.The reason is simple. A spokesman for the governor reportedly said, "We've cut the appeals time down from 10 to 15 years to two to four." More states will be following Virginia's lead, thanks to a 1996 federal law that limited death penalty appeals.Under a system like Virginia's, the 77 death row inmates released nationwide since 1973 because evidence surfaced of their innocence would all be dead.

In their first statement in 19 years focusing exclusively on opposing the death penalty, the nation's Roman Catholic bishops issued a call yesterday to "all people of good will, and especially Catholics," to work to end capital punishment.The statement -- timed to coincide with Good Friday observances and also calling for compassion for crime victims -- reflects a growing concern about capital punishment among the bishops, as well as the continuing impact of Pope John Paul II's denunciation of the death penalty during his visit to St. Louis in January.

WHEN John F. Kennedy ran for president way back in 1960, one of the biggest obstacles he faced was his religion: He was a Roman Catholic, and no Catholic had ever been elected president of the United States.At one point during his campaign for the Democratic nomination, Kennedy decided that he needed to address the religious issue, and he did so by pledging that if elected he would owe his allegiance to the Constitution and the American people, not to the Catholic Church and the pope.The voters took Kennedy at his word, and he went on to win the White House in a close election over Richard Nixon.

A RECENT Justice Department study has found that death sentences imposed by juries declined 15 percent in the past year -- the first decrease in the death-sentence rate since 1990.And in spite of the intense publicity surrounding the high number of executions in Texas, executions this year across the United States dropped by 8 percent to 68.Texas remained the leader with 20 of those, followed by Virginia with 13 and South Carolina with 7.The decline comes in the face of public opinion polls that show a majority of Americans favor the death penalty.

The fundamental question to be asked about the "serious flaws" that a legislative panel reviewing Maryland's death penalty protocols has found in how the state executes condemned inmates is this: Are there substantive ethical and legal problems with the procedure that require further study before executions can proceed, as panel members insist? Or is the finding merely an excuse to extend the de facto moratorium on executions that has existed since 2006, as death penalty supporters argue?

After years of dragging its feet, the O'Malley administration has proposed regulations to implement Maryland's death penalty, a necessary step to resume capital punishment after the Court of Appeals ruled in 2006 that the previous regulations had not been properly adopted. For all the time it took to craft them, they are remarkably similar to the old ones; the main changes are restrictions on corrections personnel performing a "cut down" procedure to get access to a condemned inmate's vein to administer lethal drugs; more time for the inmate to spend with his or her family; and a provision for a last meal.

The death penalty law Gov. Martin O'Malley signed Thursday didn't give opponents of capital punishment everything they wanted, but it marked a significant step toward ending executions in Maryland by significantly narrowing the circumstances under which the ultimate punishment can be imposed. Under the new law, prosecutors may seek the death penalty only in cases where there is DNA or biological evidence, a videotape of the crime or a video-recorded confession by the killer. The new limitations make Maryland's death penalty law among the most restrictive in the country.

The House of Delegates approved new restrictions on the death penalty in Maryland on Thursday, sending the much-debated plan to the state's anti-capital punishment governor, who has said he will sign it into law. Amid a national debate over executions, Maryland's evidentiary limitations will become the most stringent of any of the 35 states that have capital punishment on the books, legal experts say. Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, had sought to...

New limits on the death penalty in Maryland took a major step Wednesday toward becoming law, even as some state senators acknowledged that refinements are needed in legislation that appears headed to the desk of the governor, who has said he will sign it. The House of Delegates rejected a Republican-led effort to loosen proposed restrictions, meaning that a Senate plan to limit the death penalty to murder cases that include DNA or other biological evidence,...

Maryland's attorney general and Baltimore County's top prosecutor, both death penalty supporters, want the General Assembly to abandon what they are calling haphazard and arbitrary restrictions on capital punishment cases approved by the Senate this month. Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler said in an interview that the Senate proposal is "ill-prepared, ill-thought-out, awkward and clumsy." Under that plan, capital punishment would be limited to murder cases where there is biological or DNA evidence, a videotaped confession, or a video recording of the crime.

Maryland senators advanced a plan yesterday to make the state's capital punishment statute one of the most limited in the nation. Although the proposal is far short of the full repeal sought by Gov. Martin O'Malley, the governor said it might be the best that death penalty opponents could hope for this year. The new requirements - if they become law - would mean that the death penalty could be applied only in murder cases in which there is DNA evidence, a video recording of the defendant committing the crime, or a voluntary, videotaped confession.

Baltimore County senators rebuffed an effort to abolish Maryland's death penalty yesterday, persuading lawmakers instead to restrict when capital punishment can be used. The Senate's first full debate on the death penalty in more than three decades was cut short when amendments stripped the word repeal out of a repeal initiative, prompting confusion on the floor. Exasperated senators rose one after another to say that they weren't sure what they were voting on. "What we are getting is a real mess," said Sen. Delores G. Kelley, a Baltimore County Democrat.

Maryland senators are bracing for a divisive debate this morning on capital punishment, with two influential state leaders pulling lawmakers in opposite directions. A staunch death penalty supporter, Sen. President Thomas V. Mike Miller has vowed not to lobby on the issue. Yet some senators said he has been discouraging them from approving a procedural move needed to bring repeal legislation to the Senate floor. On the other side, Gov. Martin O'Malley, a fellow Democrat, has been lobbying hard for repeal, sending out mass e-mails yesterday and over the weekend, leading a rally last week and scheduling an appearance this morning with two former governors who now oppose the death penalty.

Lobbying efforts by death penalty opponents will intensify this weekend, even though a bill to abolish state executions died yesterday in a key Senate committee. Ordinarily, the "unfavorable" vote by the Judicial Proceedings Committee would end debate. But because of a major push this year by the governor, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller said he will entertain a rarely used parliamentary maneuver to allow the full chamber to resurrect the bill "as early as next week." That sets up a fierce debate on capital punishment that could tie up business in the Senate for hours, if not days.