Maryland Tosses Out the Death Penalty
On May 2nd Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley put pen to paper and signed capital punishment into a thing of the past, making it the 18th state to have abolished the death penalty. The new law will be effective on October 1st of this year. The harshest penalty the state now offers is life in prison without parole.
Governor O’Malley’s office explained that, “Maryland has effectively eliminated a policy that is proven not to work. Evidence shows that the death penalty is not a deterrent, it cannot be administered without racial bias, and it costs three times as much as life in prison without parole”. The state currently has five inmates on death-row whom the new law does not apply to. O’Malley is deciding each inmate’s sentence individually.
Marland reinstated capital punishment in 1978 and has sentenced five inmates since then; however, the last death penalty was enforced in 2005.
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Source: The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, CNN, and Death Penalty Information Center.
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