Death Row

A divided Maryland Court of Appeals upheld the state's death penalty law yesterday in a decision that dashed the hopes of 13 death row inmates. In a 4-3 ruling, the state's highest court concluded that sentencing requirements established by the U.S. Supreme Court in a New Jersey case do not apply to Maryland's death penalty statute. The court also said that invalidating Maryland's law could cause statutes across the nation to be overturned. A lawyer for Lawrence Michael Borchardt, sentenced to death for killing an elderly Rosedale couple in 1998, had argued that the Supreme Court nullified Maryland's death penalty law in June last year when it struck down a New Jersey hate crime law in Apprendi vs. New Jersey.

A Baltimore County man could soon be sentenced to death, becoming the only inmate on Maryland's death row whose victims were African-Americans. Douglas A. Starliper, who is white, was found guilty this week of killing his childhood friends Lavonne K. Hall, 19, and Douglas L. Hebron, 20, and is scheduled to go before Baltimore County Circuit Judge Dana M. Levitz today to begin his sentencing hearing. Prosecutors are asking the judge to impose a death sentence. All 12 people on Maryland's death row were convicted of killing white people - a fact death penalty opponents have used to argue that Maryland's death penalty law is racially biased.

Supporters call it a necessity and critics consider it barbaric, too expensive and unfair. But no matter how someone feels about Maryland's death penalty, one point is certain: It is given more often to defendants in Baltimore County than anywhere else in the state. Of the 13 inmates on death row, nine are from Baltimore County. The figures are even more startling given that a murder conviction is a basic requirement for a death sentence and that Baltimore City -- which has one inmate on death row -- averages 10 times more homicides each year than the county.

Sure, they made mistakes, some more serious than others. Who hasn't? Sunny Jacobs didn't object when her husband, the father of her two children, went to Florida to close a drug deal. Gary Gauger waited until morning to notify the police that his elderly parents were missing. As a teen-ager, Kerry Max Cook landed in jail twice for minor scrapes with the law. But their missteps didn't justify what followed. Jacobs, Gauger and Cook didn't deserve to spend decades on death row, convicted of murders they didn't commit.

A Baltimore man who was sentenced to death in 1988 for the robbery and killing of a 34-year-old bank executive will likely move off Maryland's death row, court papers show. Acknowledging that Kenneth Collins' legal representation was unconstitutionally ineffective, prosecutors have agreed to the inmate's request for a new sentencing hearing. If a judge grants the resentencing, as expected, prosecutors will drop their pursuit of the death penalty, court records say. Prosecutors would not say yesterday why they would give up their effort to secure a death sentence in the case, but court records show that they made the decision after talking with the victim's family.

Outraged by Benetton's new advertising campaign that features interviews with convicted killers, Sears, Roebuck and Co. stores in Maryland removed Benetton USA apparel from their floors yesterday, in compliance with a corporate protest against the clothing company. Most stores nationwide were able to comply with the companywide order to remove the clothing before stores opened yesterday, according to a spokeswoman for Sears, the second-largest U.S. retailer. The decision to remove the brand, which Sears has sold exclusively since last fall, came after Benetton officials refused to pull the "We, on death row," advertising campaign, said Peggy Palter, a spokeswoman for Sears.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - As they try to persuade a jury to spare their client's life, attorneys for convicted sniper killer John Allen Muhammad must do so without what typically is the centerpiece of a death penalty defense: evidence of the defendant's troubled mental state. Muhammad, 42, met with psychiatric experts hired by his attorneys for more than 60 hours over the spring and summer, but a judge ruled that none of the information gleaned from those sessions can be used because he refused to meet with a forensic psychiatrist for the government.

His death in the gas chamber drawing ever nearer, convicted killer Flint Gregory Hunt asked yesterday to be seen as "a human being" as Maryland wrestles in earnest over its first truly contested execution in 35 years.Yesterday was the day when long-simmering passions, sadness, professions of regret and multifaceted legal arguments spilled across the state's landscape; when the condemned man, his family and several jurors used videotape to appeal for clemency; when the parents of Hunt's victim, Baltimore police Officer Vincent J. Adolfo, cried and raged under the weight of their grief.

On death row, deep within the brick fortress of Maryland's Supermax prison, Steven H. Oken taps away at a computer he hopes will save his life. "Most everybody in here has learned to use the computer to research the law," says Oken, 39, who in 1987 murdered three women. The killings included the execution-style slaying of a White Marsh newlywed he abducted and raped. "This is all we do, sit here and pick apart our cases. This is our life." Oken and the other 13 inmates on Maryland's death row are in the spotlight as state legislators consider a two-year moratorium on executions.

WASHINGTON -- Maryland, taking the lead among states that want to speed up executions, is moving to cut off any more court challenges by at least three Maryland death row inmates.If the state succeeds in a variety of test cases unfolding in several courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, prompt executions could be scheduled for convicted murderers Wesley Eugene Baker, John Marvin Booth and Steven Howard Oken.The cases of at least two other death row prisoners, Kenneth Lloyd Collins and Tyrone Delano Gilliam Jr., could be affected quickly by the state's efforts.