Friday, May 3, 2013
The effort to place the issue on the ballot will be led by Democratic Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott Shellenberger and Washington County Republican Del. Neil Parrott.
Proponents of the death penalty in Maryland will attempt to overturn at the ballot box a new law repealing capital punishment. The effort to place the issue before voters in 2014 will be spearheaded by Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott Shellenberger and Washington County Del. Neil Parrott. The pair is expected to make the effort to collect the required 55,736 official during a Friday morning announcement near Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Shellenberger said the death penalty is an important tool for prosecutors. "One only has to look at what has taken place in our country in the last 10 years—Virginia Tech; Aurora, CO; Boston," Shellenberger said. "We don't know what is going to happen in the future but we should at least have the …
Friday, March 15, 2013
The bill now goes to Gov. Martin O'Malley for his signature.
The Maryland House of Delegates passed a bill repealing the death penalty in Maryland. With the 82-56 vote, the bill will go to Gov. Martin O'Malley for his signature.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
The governor called the death penalty expensive and ineffective.
Gov. Martin O'Malley announced his plans to "kill the death penalty" inside a crowded room at the Miller Senate Building in Annapolis on Tuesday. "It would seem to me that in—especially in—tough times, if there's something that we're doing in our government that is expensive and does not work, then we should stop doing it," O'Malley said. "The death penalty is expensive, and it does not work. And for that reason alone I believe we should stop doing it." Maryland has a moratorium on executions, and the state last executed a person in 2005. O'Malley pointed to a decrease in violent crime in the seven years since as evidence that life without the possible of parole could be effective as a maximum penalty. "Good people on both sides of this …
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Share your thoughts about efforts in Annapolis to repeal the state's capital punishment law.
Proposed legislation to repeal Maryland's death penalty is scheduled to be heard by state lawmakers in the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee Wednesday afternoon in Annapolis. Before the hearing, supporters of repeal are set to hold an 11:30 a.m. press conference Wednesday in the House Office Building with NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous and relatives of murder victims. The two bills pending in the Senate and House have 85 co-sponsors between them. Repeal advocates are expected to argue that years of death penalty appeals torment families of murder victims who otherwise would never hear from a defendant sentenced to life in prison. Patch caught up with Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott Shellenberger—who supports the death…
Corbin Dallas Multipass
3:27 pm on Friday, May 10, 2013
"Innocence projects are far less likely to scrutinize the evidence for someone given life (or a long sentence), so the probability of a successful appeal is much smaller." If that were the case, then why would, as has been stated earlier in this very thread, the number of people exonerated through the innocence project that spent time on Death Row be only 18 of 306? If they were only focusing on … more ›