An Update on the Death Penalty Repeal Bill (SB276) By Delegate Mike McDermott

Update

• The House Judiciary Committee Passes the Death Penalty Repeal: My Thoughts.
• By Delegate Mike McDermott

Mar. 8th, 2013

The Death Penalty Repeal Bill (SB276) just passed the House Judiciary Committee. I voted against the bill. Today, the O'Malley-Brown Administration asked the House Judiciary Committee to do something in the future that he is unwilling to do for the past: eliminate the Death Penalty in Maryland. The governor will not commute the Death sentences of the 5-inmates currently on Death row testifying that he needed to evaluate each on a "case by case basis"; yet he asks the General Assembly to consider all murderers the same going forward and make the tremendous leap that none of them qualify for the Death Penalty. We offered amendments that would keep the Death Penalty a viable sentence for mass school homicides and even for the mass killing of a million people by nuclear arms, but the Democrats would not yield. In this action, they have removed protections from our law enforcement officers and our corrections officers all over the state from inmates already sentenced to Life Imprisonment. How do you control an animal who is already in prison under a Life Without Parole sentence if you cannot hold a Death Penalty sentence over his head? By this action, we clear the way for the General Assembly to render Maryland impotent in addressing the very worst of the worst in our society. It is truly against the wishes of a vast majority of Marylanders and will serve to insure that more innocent people will be killed by those whose only sentence can be Life Without Parole.