Death Penalty

This time last year, the Maryland General Assembly was mired in anger and confusion. The House and Senate were feuding over taxes and casino gambling. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael E. Busch were butting heads. Lawmakers were heading into the final day without even having passed the budget - the one task with which they are charged in the state constitution. It took two special sessions to clean up the mess. This year, legislators will begin the session's final day Monday having already passed an array of landmark legislation - repealing Maryland's death penalty, adopting one of the nation's toughest gun laws, raising the gas tax for the first time in two decades and signing off on a $1 billion plan to rebuild Baltimore's crumbling schools.

While Connecticut's governor wasted no time signing that state's sweeping gun control bill into law the day it was passed on Thursday, Maryland's governor plans to abide by tradition and wait.  Gov. Martin O'Malley's spokeswoman Raquel Gillory said Friday that the governor will sign Maryland's gun bill after the General Assembly adjourns on Monday.   The legislature on Thursday passed the bill banning the sale of assault-style rifles, capping magazines to 10 bullets and requiring fingerprints and a license to buy a handgun, among other provisions.

As a strong proponent of abolishing Maryland's death penalty, I was pleased to learn that the General Assembly recently voted to eliminate the practice ("Reason over revenge, at long last," March 17). I oppose the death penalty because it is an inhumane act that serves no purpose and because it has led to wrongly convicted individuals being sentenced to death. I encourage skeptics to read the compelling story of Kirk Bloodsworth, a Marylander on death row who became the first inmate in the nation ever to be exonerated by DNA evidence.

Outside observers must wonder what goes on in our state legislature. On one hand, the majority restricts citizens' ability to defend themselves against multiple armed assailants, thus implying the executive branch's competence to protect us. On the other hand, the same majority eliminates capital punishment, thus implying the incompetence of the judicial branch to arrive at accurate verdicts. Perhaps now victims of multiple armed assailants can mount a class action lawsuit against the legislators who voted to give the advantage in firepower to criminals.

I find Gov. Martin. O'Malley's stand on executions confusing. On the one hand, he stays that because of his Catholic upbringing the death penalty gives him pause on moral grounds, even for those convicted of heinous and brutal crimes. On the other hand, he wants to regulate weapons that would allow people to protect themselves from the very criminals he has a moral objection to executing. That I don't understand. But the biggest question is this: Executing a violent, murderous criminal is morally wrong, but executing an unborn child is OK. Does anyone else see the contradiction?

As expected, the Maryland General Assembly voted to abolish capital punishment ("Ending executions," March 19). Leftism is the most dynamic and vibrant religion in the West today. In all areas of life, from morals to education, economics and art, it is replacing the traditional American Judeo-Christian value system. The Leftist ideology says it is elevated, just, compassionate and kind to allow all murderers to retain their most precious possession, their life. Hence, they think they are kind and just to the next group of murdered kindergartners, their families and friends, when the savage murderer sits and has lunch in prison.

The Maryland legislature recently voted to abolish capital punishment in the state, making Maryland the sixth state in the last six years to eliminate the death penalty. The primary argument for repealing the law is that our justice system is imperfect and it's possible an innocent person could be condemned. Indeed, anti-death penalty activists presented Kirk Bloodsworth, a former death-row inmate, convicted of the 1984 rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl. His conviction was overturned on appeal after the court found the prosecution had withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense.

Having won approval in both chambers of Maryland's General Assembly, a landmark bill to abolish the state's death penalty awaits only Gov. Martin O'Malley's signature before becoming law. It is a tremendous political and moral victory for Mr. O'Malley, a long-time opponent of capital punishment who campaigned for a repeal during his first term only to come up short. That leaves only one major item of unfinished business on his agenda regarding the issue: Commuting the sentences of the five men currently on Maryland's death row to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Many of us believe that capital punishment, first used in the Province of Maryland in 1638, should have been relegated to the trash heap long ago. Politicians in Annapolis had overwhelming evidence of its costly and debilitating flaws for many years, but too many refused to attach their names to repeal. Even in a state where they outnumbered Republicans 2-1, numerous Democrats feared being labeled soft on crime if they voted to end state executions. Indeed, the longtime president of the Senate, a Democrat, offered to personally inject poison into a convicted killer.

The General Assembly voted to repeal the death penalty Friday, calling for an end to Maryland's 375-year history of capital punishment and joining a growing number of states outlawing the practice. After nearly two hours of impassioned debate, the House of Delegates approved Gov. Martin O'Malley's repeal legislation, 82-56, sending the measure to the governor for his signature. The state Senate voted 27-20 for repeal last week. "We're a better state for ending it," said Del. Sandy Rosenberg, a Democrat from Baltimore who has long pushed for repeal.