Maryland AG presses to kill the death penalty -- <font size = "4">The Drunks Bar </font size "4">

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Date Posted: 14:17:53 01/31/03 Fri
Author: NKLS Cody
Subject: Maryland AG presses to kill the death penalty

This movement among some risk-taking public officials will not end until the arbitrary and unjust execution "shitstm" (with thanks to Peter Tosh) has claimed its last victim. The outgoing GOP Governor of Illinois cleared death row in his state earlier this month and now the Democrats are getting into the act:

Md. Attorney General: End Executions

Thu Jan 30,10:40 PM ET

By JOHN BIEMER, Associated Press Writer

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. called Thursday for Maryland to abolish its death penalty, noting systemic flaws and the possibility innocent people could be put to death.

Because of the system's "fallibility," he said, capital punishment could come only at the "intolerable cost of executing, every so often, the wrong person." He said 103 people on death rows around the country have been exonerated since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed states to reinstate capital punishment in 1976.

Curran, a Democrat, outlined his views in a letter sent Wednesday to Gov. Robert Ehrlich and other state leaders. He has been a consistent opponent of the death penalty and argued it does not deter crime.

Ehrlich, a Republican, has said he will not continue a moratorium on the death penalty imposed by former Gov. Parris Glendening, a Democrat. Ehrlich has said he will conduct a case-by-case review of death-row pleas for clemency that cross his desk.

An Ehrlich spokeswoman said Thursday that the governor would veto any legislation to abolish the death penalty or restore the moratorium.

"We respect (Curran's) opinion and we respectfully disagree," spokeswoman Shareese DeLeaver said.

A recent study by a professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, found that race and jurisdiction play significant roles in whether a criminal is sentenced to death in Maryland. Black defendants who kill white victims are statistically more likely to be charged with a capital offense, the study concluded.

Lawmakers on both sides of the issue agreed Curran's opinion carries weight, even if it does not directly influence the status of the death penalty.

"He is highly respected," said Sen. Brian Frosh, the Democratic chairman of the Judicial Proceedings Committee. "The guy's got a ton of experience."

Frosh said he believes a bill to abolish the death penalty would have a chance of getting out of his committee, but he doesn't know what would happen on the floor of the Senate.

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