Maryland Gov. Pushes for Death Penalty Repeal

On January 15th, Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley announced that he will once again push for repeal of capital punishment in the state. O'Malley, who has long been opposed to the death penalty, attempted repeal in 2009 but fell short. Now, with renewed momentum and stronger support within the legislature, many think that Maryland may be the next state to abolish capital punishment.

And it seems about time. While the entire nation scrambles to cut spending in the wake of recession, anti-death penalty advocates argue that we simply cannot afford to maintain a system marked by such high costs and seemingly little returns.  Governor O'Malley said,

“It is not a deterrent. It cannot be administered without racial bias. It costs three times as much as locking someone up for life without parole. And it cannot be reversed if an innocent person is executed.” 

A 2008 study by the Urban Institute estimated that Maryland taxpayers are paying about $186 million for the capital punishment system in the state - a system which has carried out only five executions since 1978 when Maryland reenacted the death penalty. The study estimated that, in comparison to an equivalent non-death penalty case, Marylanders paid an extra $1.9 million more per death sentence - a total of about $3 million per death penalty case. According to the Death Penalty Information Center,

"The study examined 162 capital cases that were prosecuted between 1978 and 1999 and found that seeking the death penalty in those cases cost $186 million more than what those cases would have cost had the death penalty not been sought. At every phase of a case, according to the study, capital murder cases cost more than non-capital murder cases."

What's more, the study looked at 106 cases where the death penalty was sought but not handed down in Maryland and found that those cases cost the state an additional $71 million simply to seek a death sentence, yet the final outcome was ultimately life or a long-term sentence.

If Maryland successfully repeals the death penalty, it will be the sixth state in the past decade to repeal, including Connecticut which voted for repeal last year. 17 states plus the District of Columbia have abolished the death penalty. Along with Maryland, Senator Hank Sanders of Alabama plans to introduce a bill to abolish the death penalty this year, as do Kentucky Representative Carl Rollins, Senator Claire Levy of Colorado, New Hampshire Governor Margaret Hassan, and Governor John Kitzhaber of Oregon.

O'Malley has been a true champion for progressive causes since he was elected Governor of Maryland in 2006. In 2011, he signed a law to make certain undocumented immigrants eligible for in-state college tuition, also known as the Dream Act, and in 2012 he signed a law to legalize same-sex marriage in the state which was upheld by majority vote during the general elections. This year, O'Malley has stated that he plans to pursue stricter gun safety regulations, including a ban of assault weapons and gun safety courses and background checks for potential gun owners. He also announced plans to increase the use of renewable wind-energy off of the Atlantic coast through use of incentives.

Philadelphia Inquirer Calls for Moratorium on Death Penalty

Inquirer Editorial: Execution stay points to need for a moratorium

Posted: Monday, November 12, 2012, 3:01 AM

 

As near as Pennsylvania came Thursday to carrying out the state's first execution in more than a decade, there is still time for Gov. Corbett to enact the moratorium sought by a bipartisan legislative task force studying whether the death penalty makes any sense.

There's no doubt that the eleventh-hour reprieve for convicted York County killer Hubert L. Michael Jr. - affirmed in a rare move by the U.S. Supreme Court - lifts a rock on critical flaws in the capital punishment system.

But the brief, two-week stay issued to allow a federal judge to explain his denial of Michael's petition to escape death row provides too little time to determine whether justice would be served by his execution.
There's also a broader constitutional issue that must be resolved before any date is kept with the state's executioner: A pending class-action lawsuit legitimately calls into question whether the use of a lethal injection amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

 

Going ahead with Michael's execution also would violate the spirit of Supreme Court rulings that limit the death penalty for defendants with psychological problems. The court now bans executing the mentally retarded, as well as juveniles, who, due to their youth, have a limited grasp of the impact of their crimes.

A step further toward the United States' joining most other Western democracies in scrapping the death penalty would be to exclude the severely mentally ill, which is pertinent in Michael's case. Suffering for years from what attorneys describe as serious mental problems, Michael, 56, has gone back and forth on appealing his sentence.

So, the state Attorney General's Office should not be allowed to assert that Michael lost his right to fight execution because he once appeared to accept it. Since there's no rush to execute someone for a crime dating to 1993, the courts must have time to explore legal avenues that point out the wrongfulness of this punishment.

Beyond scrutinizing one killer's pleas, the events surrounding preparations for an execution illustrate the needless costs capital punishment entails. The endless legal proceedings are a given. There's also the enormous emotional toll on relatives and friends of victims during the lengthy appeals process.
Last week, those closest to Michael's young victim - Trista Eng, 16 - wept before state pardons officials. Ending capital punishment would spare all victims' families that anguish, offering them the hope of closure and some measure of peace. Corbett has the power to begin that healing by declaring a moratorium.

The Reggie Clemons Case

The Reggie Clemons case reads like a manual for anti-death penalty advocates: no physical evidence links him to the crime, alleged police coercion, prosecutorial misconduct, questionable eye-witness testimonies, inadequate legal representation, a stacked jury, and questions of race, according to Amnesty International.

Reggie Clemons was convicted and sentenced to death in St. Louis, Missouri as an accomplice in the murder of two white women in 1991. The women, Julie and Robin Kerry, were killed as they fell from the Chain of Rocks Bridge into the Mississippi River.

Along with Clemons, three other youths were arrested and three of them, all African-American, were given the death sentence. One of them, Marlin Gray, was executed in 2005. The fourth man, Daniel Winfrey, was offered a lesser offense in exchange for testifying against Clemons.

As stated before, no physical evidence linked Clemons to the crime. His conviction relied mainly on two eye-witnesses, the first of which was Winfrey. The second eye-witness was Thomas Cummins, cousin of the two victims, who initially was picked up by authorities and confessed to the crime. He later identified Clemons and the other suspects as the perpetrators and charges against him were dropped.

In addition to the questionable testimonies, there seems to have been clear misconduct throughout the criminal justice process. To begin with, Clemons claims that he confessed to raping one of the victims under the pressure of police brutality. Two other suspects also alleged the same mistreatment and witnesses attest to seeing Clemons’ face swollen following the police interrogation. Clemons retracted the confession and maintains his innocence of all charges.

As is the case with many capital cases, inadequate legal representation for Clemons was clear and Clemons’ lawyer was later suspended from practicing law after various complaints were filed. In addition, there was clear prosecutorial misconduct, according to four federal judges who have all agreed that the prosecutor’s tactics were overly aggressive and abusive. The prosecutor compared Clemons, who had no criminal record, to a serial killer. Again, the prosecutor received various complaints from both state and federal courts.

The question of race is one that plays in very clearly in the Clemons case. There have been clear trends shown concerning biases regarding the race of the victim. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, over 75% of cases that result in execution were when the murder victim was white, even though only about 1/2 of murder victims nationally are white. In the Clemons case, both of the victims were white, the two main eye-witnesses were white, and the three convicted defendants were black. In addition, a 2002 U.S. District Court judge ruled that the death sentence of Clemons should not stand since six prospective jurors were excluded improperly in jury selection, resulting in a stacked jury that was unrepresentative of the population of St. Louis. This ruling, however, did not stand and was overturned by a higher court on technical grounds.

Clemons has a new hearing date set for March 5th, 2012 and there will be a huge push among abolitionists throughout the country to get him off death row. Regardless of your moral feelings on capital punishment, is seems clear that a country which considers itself to be a bastion for human rights around the world, would want to end a system which is clearly racially skewed and rife with mistakes that have put innocent men to death before and, if not stopped, will do it again. Missouri has executed 68 people since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Let’s not add one more name to that list.

Article also published at The Progressive Playbook.

Photo credit: Amnesty International