ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY
REPLACE DEATH PENALTY WITH LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE

Danger of Executing Innocent Too High

The nation’s first DNA-based exoneration was Maryland’s Kirk Bloodsworth, who was convicted and sentenced to death for rape and murder in 1985. Eight years later, DNA evidence proved his innocence and he was released. Five people have been executed in Maryland since 1978. In Illinois, 12 people have been executed since 1977. Over that same time, 18 death-row inmates have been released after evidence proved they were innocent. Since 1976, there have been 950 executions and 118 exonerations of innocent people from death row nationwide.  For every nine executions there has been one exoneration.  With an error rate that high, the logical conclusion is that some of those executed were likely innocent too.

Less than one year ago, a Maryland forensics expert committed suicide after reports revealed that he had lied about his credentials. Cases in which he testified have now been called into question. Disturbingly, two of his cases led to an execution. This tragic event illustrated how impossible it is to guarantee that every stage of the criminal process, from investigation, to trial, to appeal, will be free from error. A public policy cannot be justified when it inherently necessitates the occasional taking of wrongly convicted, innocent lives. 62% of those who no longer support the death penalty changed their minds because innocent people are sentenced to death.

No deterrence value; Public safety demands adequate funding of effective law enforcement practices

In 2005, the murder rate was 46% higher in states that had the death penalty than in states without it. Although the murder rate has gone down nationwide over the last 17 years, it has declined by 56% in states without the death penalty but only 38% in states that have it. It would appear that the death penalty is not a deterrent, but possibly an accelerant, to murder.

In fact, maintaining a death penalty diverts much-needed funding from effective law enforcement. In 2002, Judge Dale Cathell of the Maryland Court of Appeals wrote that, according to his research, processing and imprisoning a death penalty defendant "costs $400,000 over and above . . . a prisoner serving a life sentence." Given that 56 people have been sentenced to death in Maryland since 1978, our state has spent about $22.4 million more than the cost of life imprisonment. That $22.4 million could have paid for 500 additional police officers, protective equipment that saves officers’ lives, or drug treatment for 10,000 of our addicted neighbors. Unlike the death penalty, these are investments that save lives and prevent violent crime. We can spare more potential victims of violent crime by allocating our money to effective public safety practices.

Death Penalty Systems are Fraught with Serious Error

A comprehensive study by a team of Columbia University scholars concluded that America’s death penalty system is “persistently and systematically fraught with error.”  See J. Liebman, S. Rifking, J. Fagan & V. West, A Broken System:  Error Rates in Capital Cases 1973-1995 (2000).  Of the thousands of capital sentences reviewed in the study, courts have found serious, reversible error in nearly 70 percent. The most common errors prompting a reversal in state court after a death-penalty conviction are (1) incompetent defense lawyers who failed to seek or simply missed important evidence that the defendant was innocent; and (2) police or prosecutors who discovered evidence of innocence but suppressed it. 

Imposition of the death penalty in Maryland is racially and geographically biased

A look at the statistics shows serious problems of unfairness with Maryland’s death penalty.  Although the overwhelming majority of homicide victims in Maryland are African American – annually around 80% -- nonetheless 100% of the victims of those on Maryland’s death row are white.  Maryland’s death row is 67% African-American, yet African-Americans make up 28% of Maryland’s total population. Maryland has the third highest percentage of African-Americans on death row, behind only the US Military and the Federal government.

Voters Support Replacing Capital Punishment with Life Without Parole

Public support for capital punishment has reached its lowest level in 25 years, following a decline in support for five straight years. A poll commissioned last year by the Maryland Catholic Conference found that 61 percent of Maryland voters believe that life without parole is an acceptable substitute for the death penalty. 

In addition, sentences are now down by almost 50% when compared to the number of death sentences in the late 1990s.  Executions also declined in 2003 and are down 30% when compared to the 98 executions in 1999.  Of all the executions that did take place, only three were conducted outside of the south, which accounted for almost 90% of the executions this year. 

Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley said it well in a 2007 Washington Post Op-Ed: “And if the death penalty as applied is inherently unjust and lacks a deterrent value, we are left to ask whether the value to society of partial retribution outweighs the cost of maintaining capital punishment. While I am mindful of and sensitive to the closure (and in some cases the comfort) that the death penalty brings to the unfathomable pain of families that have lost loved ones to violent crime, I believe that it does not.

Human dignity is the concept that leads brave individuals to sacrifice their lives for the lives of strangers. Human dignity is the universal truth that is the basis of ethics. Human dignity is the fundamental belief on which the laws of this state and this republic are founded. And absent a deterrent value, the damage done to the concept of human dignity by our conscious communal use of the death penalty is greater than the benefit of even a justly drawn retribution.”

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