The case for repealing Maryland’s death penalty can be reduced to a simple matter of numbers, state lawmakers were told today. Leading a parade of witnesses before two legislative committees, Governor Martin O’Malley argued the death penalty in Maryland and elsewhere has proven to be neither effective nor impartial.
"In 2011, the average murder rate in states where death is a penalty was 4.9 for every 100,000 people," he said. "In states without it, the murder rate was actually lower, at 4.1."
O’Malley added that Maryland’s reversal rate of death penalty decisions between 1995 and 2007 was 80 percent, while the cost of prosecuting such cases is three times higher than for other murder cases. State Senator Lisa Gladden of Baltimore supplied names of the 85 men who have been executed in Maryland since 1923. Sixty-five were African-Americans, who make up a much smaller share of the state’s population. "It seems like the death penalty is probably not fair," she said.
The full Senate may take up that question as soon as next week.