Maryland Citizens Against State Executions

Although Maryland’s death row is small enough and executions rare enough to keep the issue relatively low on most citizens’ radar, doubt and opposition to capital punishment has been growing steadily for years and years. When asked if they support replacing executions with a maximum sentence of life without parole, 61% of Marylanders say yes. In 2001, a bill that would have halted executions in the state for two years fell one vote shy of passing. And, after working hard to publicly reveal documented problems of racial and geographic bias in death sentencing, as well as raising the profile of the wrongful conviction of death row exoneree Kirk Bloodsworth, a 2007 bill to fully repeal Maryland’s death penalty stalled in Senate committee after a deadlocked vote. With increased grassroots organizing effort, and the addition of “new voices” such as law enforcement and family members of murder victims, all of whom support repeal, prospects for passing the same bill in 2008 look good.

Get Involved: A campaign to repeal Maryland’s death penalty is 2008 is already underway! If you live in Maryland:

• Join Maryland Citizens Against State Executions (MD CASE)
• Let your lawmaker know you support repealing Maryland’s death penalty – find out who represents you at www.mdelect.net
• Host an event, speaker, or forum in your community – we can help!
• If you live in another state, email this webpage to people you know in Maryland

Innocence

• In 1984, Kirk Bloodsworth was wrongly convicted of the rape and murder of a nine-year old girl, and sentenced to death. Released from Maryland’s death row in 1993 after DNA analysis proved he did not commit the crime, it took the Baltimore County State’s Attorney 10 years to acknowledge Bloodsworth’s innocence. In 2003, the DNA evidence was compared to samples in the State’s database of convicted felons and the identity of the actual murder was ascertained – a man, Kimberly Shay Ruffner, Bloodsworth had met while in prison. Both Bloodsworth and the young victim’s family requested that death not be sought for Ruffner and he is now serving a sentence of life without parole.

Racial Bias

• All five of Maryland’s current death row inmates were convicted of murders with white victims. The victims of all five men who have been executed since 1976 were also white. 80% of Maryland murder victims, however, are black.
• A 2003 University of Maryland study revealed that prosecutors are 1.6 times more likely seek death for the murder of a white victim than for a black victim. The same study found that death is sought twice as often when the defendant is black and the victim white.

Geographic Disparity

• Baltimore County accounts for six percent of Maryland homicides annually, but County State’s Attorneys seek death 13 times as often as those in neighboring Baltimore City, and five and three times as often as those in Montgomery and Anne Arundel Counties, respectively.
• Baltimore City and Prince George’s County are where the vast majority of murders in the state occur; yet their State’s Attorneys rarely seek the death penalty.

Waste of Resources

• Conservative estimates indicate that, since 1978, Maryland has spent more than 22.4 million dollars prosecuting death cases instead of life without parole. With only five of those sentences having been carried out, that’s more than 4 million dollars spent per execution.
• Maryland has one of the highest reversal rates of death sentences – indeed, every death sentence handed down this decade has been struck down in some court.
• In 2007, Baltimore City is experiencing a spike in homicides, yet there are between 150 and 200 unfilled police officer positions. In 2006, Governor Martin O’Malley shut down the Maryland House of Corrections in Jessup, citing chronic staffing problems and egregiously outdated facilities as contributing factors to widespread violence in the prison. It’s clear that money being spent on the death penalty – which does nothing to address violence in prison or deter violence on the streets – could be put to much better use.

Maryland Is Ready

• A recent poll commissioned by the Maryland Catholic Conference revealed that a full 61% of Marylanders support replacing executions with a maximum sentence of life without parole.
• In the 2007 legislative session, more Marylanders than ever before responded to MD CASE’s call to urge lawmakers to vote for repeal, and to reject a measure that would expand the death penalty. The repeal bill deadlocked in Senate committee, coming closer than ever before to passing, and the expansion bill was voted down decisively in House committee.
• Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley is a strong and public proponent of death penalty repeal. Governor O’Malley testified in favor of repeal bills in both the Senate and House committees in 2007.