Maryland Citizens Against State Executions

Jane Henderson, executive director of Maryland Citizens Against State Executions, released this statement following Governor Martin O'Malley's announcement of the members of the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment.

"This is a distinguished and balanced cross section of Marylanders, including corrections and law enforcement, murder victims family members, the public defender, clergy, and other stakeholders in this issue. We expect Commissioners will take their charge seriously, hear from a wide array of experts and citizens, and carefully examine this important issue."

"Maryland CASE is hopeful that the death penalty Commission will thoroughly scrutinize the many serious issues addressed in the bipartisan legislation that created it. Those questions require the Commission to make recommendations related to the risk of executing innocent people, the extra costs of the death penalty, the toll prolonged death penalty cases take on victims' families, and fair application of the punishment."

"The Commission will undertake the first thorough examination of the death penalty in state history. And today, we know so much more about the death penalty than we did when it was reinstated in Maryland 30 years ago. It is time to learn from the past and forthrightly evaluate whether or not we would be better served by replacing the death penalty with life without the possibility of parole, which Maryland CASE believes is severe, more certain for the families left behind by murder, and still ultimately reversible in cases where the convicted person is later exonerated."

Jane Henderson, executive director of Maryland Citizens Against State Executions, issued the following statement today:

"The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that the most common form of lethal injection does not violate the Constitution. This highly splintered ruling should not be seen as an endorsement of capital punishment. Indeed, one of the Court's members, Justice John Paul Stevens, expressed deep concerns about the death penalty in his concurring opinion. 'The time for a dispassionate, impartial comparison of the enormous costs that death penalty litigation imposes on society with the benefits that it produces has surely arrived,' Justice Stevens wrote.

"That is exactly where Maryland is heading. The General Assembly recently authorized a state Commission to study all aspects of the death penalty and report back late this year. The public discourse in our state has moved beyond splitting hairs about the best way to administer lethal injections.

"The Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment will look carefully at all aspects of the death penalty and how it is administered in the state. This review will look at critically important issues, such as the risk of executing innocent people, the high cost of the death penalty and the toll it takes on victims' families during drawn-out appeals. This review is long overdue and will provide guidance to policymakers beginning next January.
"Until then, executions in Maryland should remain on hold."

On March 24, legislation establishing the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment, passed both the House of Delegates 91-47 and the Senate 32-15. The two bills will now go to conference committee to resolve slight differences in language between them.

Legislative leaders supported the bill, including Senate President Miller and House Speaker Michael Busch. This Commission is the first of it's kind in Maryland, a broadly representative and diverse body charged to make recommendations regarding the future of the death penalty in Maryland.

Let's show the public mandate matches the legislative mandate for this Commission. Saying thank you is so important! Each legislator who voted for the bill needs to be thanked.

Thank:

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller
State House, H-107
Annapolis, MD 21401 - 1991
1-800-492-7122, ext. 3700 (toll free in Maryland ) or 301-848-3700
thomas.v.mike.miller@senate.state.md.us

Thank:

Your own Senator and Delegates if they are listed below as having voted for the bill.

90 State Circle
Annapolis, MD 21401
General Assembly switchboard: 800-492-7122

http://www.msa.md.gov/msa/mdmanual/07leg/html/ga.html
Find out who represent you at mdelect.net or call MD CASE at 301-779-5230.

Please say:

“Thanks for voting for the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment. The death penalty is an important issue to me. I am part of the growing consensus among Marylanders for repealing the death penalty.”

State taxpayers have paid $37 million for each execution

State’s failing death penalty is a ‘financial sinkhole’

ANNAPOLIS – A new Urban Institute study has for the first time tallied the enormous costs of Maryland’s death penalty and should prompt lawmakers to repeal the state’s failing capital punishment system.
The study finds that the death penalty has added at least $186 million in costs – and likely much more – to the criminal justice system. Those are additional costs to the state, brought on solely by the decision to seek the death penalty and over and above the costs of cases where no death penalty is sought.

What have Maryland’s taxpayers gotten for their $186 million? A system that has clogged our courts, delays justice for victims’ families, and risks execution of an innocent person,” said Jane M. Henderson, executive director of Maryland Citizens Against State Executions.
“Our state has had five executions,” Henderson continued. “Each one of those executions has cost this state $37 million – money that could have put more police officers on the street, put more correctional officers in our prisons and provide needed support services to the families of murder victims.”

Maryland is close to death penalty repeal. We could be the first state to follow New Jersey's lead and end executions in our state once and for all. But we can't do it without you.

Momentum for repeal has been steadily building for a while now. And, just as New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine has signed death penalty repeal into law, Maryland has a strong ally in Governor O'Malley. Now we need to make sure that those last few fence-sitting legislators hear from their constituents!

Please take a few minutes to write a letter to your lawmakers. Tell them how glad you are that repeal passed in New Jersey, and make sure to note how similar Maryland and New Jersey are when it comes to the death penalty:

• Like New Jersey, Maryland has sentenced an innocent person - Kirk Bloodsworth - to death. Others have been wrongly convicted of crimes that were death eligible.

• Like New Jersey, Maryland has life without parole on the books, a swift and sure sentence that protects society.

• Like New Jersey, Maryland's death penalty delays the healing process of victims' families as they are made to navigate years of appeals and trials - appeals that are necessary if we're serious about not sending innocent people to death row.

• Like New Jersey, Maryland spends a lot of money on and channels precious resources towards the maintenance of a system with little return. Indeed, nearly every death sentence handed down in the last decade has been overturned.

• Maryland's death penalty is racially biased. Despite the fact that African-Americans make up 75 - 80% of homicide victims in the state, everybody currently on death row was convicted of killing a white person.

• Marylanders are ready. Recent polling reveals that 61% of voters believe that life without parole is an acceptable substitute for the death penalty. Among Maryland's African-Americans that number is even higher - 77%.

Please, write that letter or make that phone call as soon as possible. If you don't know who represents you, find out - visit www.mdelect.net or call us at 301-779-5230.

To the unknowing observer, it all happened so fast. A little less than two weeks ago the New Jersey Senate's Budget & Appropriations committee voted to send a bill that would repeal the state's death penalty on for consideration by the full Senate. Activists started to get excited and the newspapers took notice. Three votes remained. This past Monday, in the span of six anticipation-packed hours that seemed stretch into days, the Assembly's Law & Public Safety committee passed the bill with only one member voting against it. Just a few hours later, the full Senate returned a favorable vote on the same bill with a five-vote margin of victory.

On December 13th, the New Jersey Assembly - the final body to weigh in on death penalty repeal - voted overwhelmingly in favor of striking capital punishment from the state's books. This is history folks. Today New Jersey becomes the first state to legislatively overturn the death penalty since the Supreme Court's ruling in Gregg v. Georgia opened the door to widespread reinstatement in 1976. And, unlike court rulings or executively imposed moratoria, this is final. This is, in essence, the people of New Jersey saying "no more" to death sentences.
Let's make sure that New Jersey is the first of many states to legislatively put a firm end to executions. As I said above, to the casual reader of news headlines this legislation appears to have moved with the quickness of lightening. In truth, this storm has been a-brewin' for years and years. Kudos go out to New Jerseyians Against the Death Penalty & Equal Justice USA, and the thousands and thousands of New Jersey citizens who have put years of heart and soul into this work.

Read more about New Jersey's repeal bill in the New York Times article:

New Jersey Moves to Abolish the Death Penalty

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