Maryland Citizens Against State Executions

Eight former wardens and corrections officials who have had direct involvement in executions have written a letter to Maryland legislative leaders to explain the toll this punishment takes on corrections staffers. Read the letter here.”

New Maryland Report:

A frank look at our state's death penalty, post 2009 reforms. We continue to risk the execution of an innocent person and have only added to the burdens of murder victims families and taxpayers.

Seeking a foolproof death penalty is a fool's errand. Includes appeal to the General Assembly signed by over three dozen Maryland attorneys, including former Governor Harry Hughes and former Attorneys General Stephen Sachs and Joseph Curran. 

 

Dear Governor O'Malley, I miss my Governor who took the lead on death penalty repeal in 2009, and I want him back! I know you still strongly oppose the death penalty, so I ask you to help finish the job in Maryland. Majorities in both houses of the General Assembly now support ending the death penalty. I urge you to make repeal of the death penalty your priority in the 2013 legislative session. Send a clear message to the General Assembly that you want it on your desk before you leave office! Please take the lead by sponsoring death penalty repeal in 2013. This year's repeal bill reallocated savings from repeal to benefit the survivors of homicide victims; please include that provision in 2013. Maryland is so close to joining states like Illinois and New Jersey in eliminating capital punishment. I very much hope you won't let this window of opportunity, while you are still governor, pass without applying all the muscle you can muster. I am looking for your renewed leadership! Thank you.

These words from Joe Hill, a likely innocent man executed nearly a century ago, still ring true today. Three-quarters of a million people saying "too much doubt" did not stop the execution of Troy Davis last night -- because the death penalty is a LEGAL option. The Supreme Court ruled almost 20 years ago that actual innocence can not trump a “constitutionally” imposed death sentence. Process won over truth and another likely innocent man has died. The only way to prevent another Troy Davis is to have no death penalty!

The Supreme Court reinforced last night that this is a state-by-state fight. In Maryland, we are poised win repeal of the death penalty. The voice of every Marylander makes a difference! Please join MD Citizens Against State Executions! It is free (though we can sure use any dollars you can give!). Tell your state legislators you want a vote on death penalty repeal in 2012 and you want them to vote for it!

Dear Member of the Maryland General Assembly,

We write as representatives of our state’s extensive and diverse religious communities to speak with one voice to urge your action to repeal the death penalty in Maryland. We are confident that there is strong and mounting support for repeal of the death penalty both among your colleagues in the General Assembly, and throughout the population of Maryland.

As faith leaders, we are often consulted by the public for guidance on issues that require thoughtful reflection. On this issue, we come with unprecedented unity in opposition to the death penalty, as we write to you with the moral backing of official teachings and positions taken from our various denominations and faiths.

We also wish to be clear that our opposition to the death penalty is not only rooted in our religious traditions, but also reflects a pragmatic recognition of the facts. The death penalty fails us legally, morally, socially and economically. We wish to convey our agreement with the findings of the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment, which concluded that the death penalty is not in the best interests of our State, our justice system, the safety of our people, or even the families of murder victims.

We recognize with deep compassion the unmet needs and suffering of murder victims’ families in our state, and urge you to give priority to channeling the financial savings realized by death penalty repeal toward assisting survivors of homicide victims in Maryland.

We thank you for your leadership. We pray that you will be granted the wisdom, the strength, and the clarity of vision to move as early as possible to pass repeal in the next legislative session.

Sincerely,

March 15, 2011

Dear Members of the Maryland General Assembly,

We are family members and loved ones of murder victims. We desperately miss the parents, children, siblings, and spouses we have lost. We live with the pain and heartbreak of their absence every day and would do anything to have them back. We have been touched by the criminal justice system in ways we never imagined and would never wish on anyone. Our experience compels us to speak out for change.

We are writing today to ask your support in passing legislation that would replace Maryland's death penalty with life without parole. Though we share different perspectives on the death penalty, every one of us agrees that Maryland's capital punishment system doesn't work for victims' families, and that our state is better off without it.

To be meaningful, justice should be swift and sure. Life without parole, which begins immediately, is both of these; the death penalty is neither. Capital punishment drags victims' loved ones through an agonizing and lengthy process, holding out the promise of one punishment in the beginning and often resulting in a life sentence in the end anyway. A life without parole sentence for killers right from the start would keep society safe, hold killers responsible for their brutal and depraved acts, and would start as soon as we left the courtroom instead of leaving us in limbo.

At the same time, a system of life without parole in place of the death penalty would save scarce funds. As Maryland taxpayers, we have spent millions of dollars and diverted endless hours of court and law enforcement time since capital punishment was reinstated in Maryland. What has it bought us? Years worth of appeals and overturned sentences that have clogged our courts and a system so broken that fixing it is probably impossible - all for what? Five executions that took decades to achieve.

Those resources could be spent in better ways if death-eligible killers were sentenced to life without parole. Maryland could put more police on our streets and provide them with the very best equipment available. Law enforcement programs that work might have prevented the tragedies we suffered at only a fraction of the cost. A legal system that wasn't so bogged down by five men on death row could prosecute and sentence countless other non-death crimes and take dangerous people off the streets before they commit murder. Dollars saved could mean more counseling and aid to children orphaned by these horrible murders, or other services we so desperately need as we attempt to get on with our lives.

Only a handful of arbitrarily selected murderers are sentenced to death. Is it worth the price?

It is vitally important that our state address the needs of surviving family and friends as we struggle to heal. We know that elected officials who promote the death penalty often do so with the best intentions of helping family members like us. We are writing to say that there are better ways to help us. The death penalty is a broken and costly system. Maryland doesn't need it, and victims' families like ours don't want it.

Please vote for repeal of the death penalty.

When Vicki’s 23-year-old daughter Shannon was murdered in Philadelphia in 1998, her faith was tested at her core. She and husband Syl had raised Shannon and son Sean in their deeply held beliefs in Catholic social justice teaching on the sanctity of life. When the Philadelphia District Attorney ignored their wishes and sought death for Shannon’s killer, they decided to stand by their beliefs. “If you have a set of principles and you are tested and you don’t stick to your principles, were they ever your principles in the first place?” ask the Schiebers. Ultimately, the murderer was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole just five weeks after his arrest, sparing the family the agony of prolonged capital proceedings.

Vicki has honored Shannon’s memory for several years by crisscrossing the country, telling her story of loss, healing and empowerment to help others. She has educated governors, legislators and reporters in dozens of states and testified before the death penalty study commission in New Jersey. She has also reached out a hand to other families who have suffered the ultimate loss due to murder.

Vicki served very long hours on the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment in 2008, and was at the heart of the Victims’ Subcommittee and the Commission’s final recommendations to repeal the death penalty and improve and expand services for the surviving families of homicide victims.

Vicki will be honored as “Abolitionist of the Year” on January 15th at the annual conference of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, at the Renaissance Chicago Hotel in her native state of Illinois. For more information on the conference, visit ncadp.org.