Death Penalty

Before a high-profile federal trial began in Baltimore last month, lawyers for the three black defendants filed a motion claiming that the prosecution deliberately - and illegally - dismissed black jury candidates to pack the panel with whites. "They want a jury that may be sympathetic to the death sentence," defense attorney Archangelo Tuminelli said. But the judge ultimately ruled that the allegation was wrong. And, it turns out, the stereotype might be, too. While many lawyers have long relied on stereotypes to figure out how potential jurors might lean, those characterizations are increasingly turned on their heads, trial consultants said.

Evidence of big media's bias against religion that doesn't advance the secular and liberal agenda of the Democratic Party is beyond dispute. Any faith attached to a conservative agenda is to be ridiculed, stereotyped and misrepresented. Islam is a notable exception. The media appear to bend over backward not to offend Muslims. The Washington Post on Monday, reporting from Carrollton, Ark., uncovered an event that occurred nearly 155 years ago and then sought to link it to the presidential candidacy of Mitt Romney: "On Sept.

Anthony Ayeni Jones, the fast-talking drug lord who ruled over one of the most murderous narcotics organizations in Baltimore history, was convicted yesterday of conspiring to kill rivals, federal witnesses, police informants and their mothers.Jones, who relied on fear to run his $30,000-a-day cocaine and heroin operation, showed no emotion and popped a mint-flavored Lifesaver into his mouth as the verdicts were read in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in what would be the first execution for a federal crime committed in Maryland.

Connecticut Gov.Dannel P. Malloyhas signed a bill outlawing the death penalty, which passed both the House and the Senate with bi-partisan support. Connecticut is the 5th state in five years and the 17th state in the nation to have abandoned the death penalty. The criminal justice system, like all human institutions, is imperfect. Where the death penalty is concerned, it isn't a question of whether the state has executed an innocent person. The only relevant questions are when has the state done so, and how often.

100 Years Ago Cruel Corset A large ad in the Times showed a woman washing clothes on a scrub board with the headline: "Baltimore's best store: Hochschild, Kohn &, Co. ; Housework is easy in a 'Housewife' corset. " "The Housewife Corset (shown in right hand corner) is an exclusive Hochscild, Kohn & Co. corset. It was brought out in response to the popular demand for comfortable, durable, inexpensive corset which would enable the housewife to perform her household duties with perfect ease, and still preserve her figure.

David Who? Why didn't our esteemed judges on the Maryland Court of Appeals ask that question? Essentially, they've done just that in the death of David McGuinn. Who's David McGuinn? Don't be embarrassed if you've forgotten. Our Court of Appeals judges clearly have, and they don't seem one bit ashamed of the fact. That's probably because right about now, they're feeling really noble about themselves with their decision to stop executions in Maryland. At least until public hearings are held on why strapping a killer to a gurney and injecting him with lethal drugs constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

With the more sophisticated tools now available to prove guilt, it is even more imperative that the death penalty be retained. ("Double victims," Feb. 27.) Certainly there are crimes so heinous that they cannot be overlooked by society. No murderer should feel that he or she is immune to the ultimate sentence, whether carried out or not. Expediency in trying cases many times has led to reduced sentences and in the worst-case scenario release of individuals to once again prey on society.

If the senseless and brutal murder of 23-year-old Stephen Pitcairn does not lead to a prosecution by Patricia Jessamy that seeks a death sentence penalty, then something is terribly wrong with the Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office. Morty Marcus

Last week, a state trooper was killed in Prince George's County. Gov. Martin O'Malley, speaking of the killer, said: " There are a small number of brutal, cold people that would take another's life without thinking about it." That's why many of us support the death penalty that the governor opposes. Mark Plogman, Pikesville

The so called "Maryland Citizens Against State Executions" do not have a clue as to what the process could be for the death penalty. Several states have the process, including appeals down to as little time as 5 years. It is not the death penalty that punishes victims, it is the structure of the death penalty in liberal Maryland that does. The Sarah Foxwell case "cried out for the death penalty" but the State's Attorney agreed to pursure a lesser punishment. As for closure for the family, do you not think that the family thinks quite often about how the individual who viciously murdered their family member is sitting in a prison watching TV, playing games, enjoying the outdoors and seeing their family while they cannot!

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.

Federal prosecutors filed notice that they will not seek the death penalty against three Baltimore men charged with directing a drug enterprise in the city's red light district and killing a woman they suspected of being an informant. An indictment was unsealed in January charging Monica McCants and her son, Donte Baker, along with Gary Cromartie and Tyrone Johniken, with racketeering conspiracy for allegedly directing a drug-dealing operation on The Block through violence and intimidation.

In today's Sun the column by Dan Rodricks was right on the mark regarding Maryland's outdated adherence to state executions ("Floggings, no - lethal injection, yes?" March 22). He quotes a book by University of Baltimore law professor John D. Bessler indicating that some of our Founding Fathers, such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, opposed executions. They were apparently more humane 200 years ago than we are now. How we have progressed since then, still intent on killing people!

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.

Since 1973, at least 140 people have walked off our nation's death rows after new evidence revealed that they were sentenced to die for crimes they did not commit. That's more than one innocent person exonerated for every 10 who's been executed. Hundreds more have been exonerated from long prison sentences as a result of advances in DNA testing. Wrongful convictions like these mean victims' families suffer while the real killers remain at large and tax dollars are wasted. One might think that DNA is a magic bullet.

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.

The talk of possibly eliminating the death penalty in the state of Maryland shows that justice is simply a joke and once again the criminals will be emboldened to rape, maim and kill knowing they get to spend the rest of their lives not having to worry about being executed for the horrors of the crimes they committed ( "Death penalty moratorium leaves survivors, convicts in limbo," Feb. 13). Families of victims will get no closure as well as no justice knowing this sad fact. A life snuffed out and taxpayers having to foot the bill for the criminals who may live 20 to 60 years in prison is simply too much to bear!

It's time for death penalty to receive an up or down vote in the Maryland General Assembly. I must strongly differ with Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller who this week declared there to be "no sentiment in the Senate" ("Death penalty repeal unlikely this year," March 16) for the 2011 repeal bill. The Senate bill has 21 co-sponsors this year (24 votes are required to pass), up from 16 two years ago. Meanwhile, the bill has 61 co-sponsors in the House. Illinois just repealed the death penalty.

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.