League of Women Voters of Maryland

Members of the League of Women Voters from all over Maryland participated in a study of the death penalty in 2003-2005, arriving at an overwhelming consensus that it should be abolished. Subsequently, at the national League’s 2006 convention, delegates from almost every state in the union arrived at the same consensus for abolition based, in brief, on the following:

Cost: Every credible study indicates that legal and court costs of the multiple appeals that precede every execution far exceed the costs of a life sentence without parole. One study showed that Maryland spends $2 million annually to prosecute death penalty cases; and that it costs this state $400,000 more to execute someone than to maintain him in prison for life.

Racial Disparities: All the men now on Maryland’s death row were convicted of killing a white person, yet 80% of all Maryland homicide victims are black A recent University of Maryland study found that blacks who kill whites are 2 ½ times more likely to be sentenced to death than whites who kill whites and 3 ½ times more likely to be executed than blacks who kill blacks.

Geographic Differences: During the many years when Sandra O’Connor was Baltimore County States Attorney, Baltimore County was 13 times more likely to seek the death penalty than Baltimore City. Proportionally Baltimore County has sought the death penalty more than any other local jurisdiction in the United States.

Deterrence: 84% of the current and former presidents of the country’s top academic criminological schools reject the notion that the death penalty has a deterrent effect. Across the board, states without a death penalty have fewer murders than those which have a death penalty.

Victims: Pursuing the death penalty takes resources which could provide needed support for victims’ families. The continuing trials and multiple appeals, plus the circus-like media coverage are much harder on families than life in prison without parole.

Lethal Injection Protocols: Maryland’s highest court has ruled that the state’s execution procedures are not in compliance with the state’s Administrative Procedures Act. Other issues include inadequate legal representation, wrongful convictions and trends in the developed world toward abolition which leave the United States in the company of Iran, China and Saudi Arabia as executing countries.

Repeal of the Death Penalty is too big an issue to be thwarted by a split Committee vote. At minimum let it be debated by the full General Assembly.