Maryland Restricts Death Penalty

New evidence requirements make Maryland’s death penalty the narrowest in the nation.

For Immediate Release: March 28, 2009

ANNAPOLIS — Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley signed SB-279 this week, placing severe limitations on the kind of evidence that can be used in death penalty cases.

The state’s new law requires biological evidence, videotaped evidence of a murder, or a videotaped confession in order to make a case eligible for the death penalty.

The restrictions were the result of a compromise between repeal advocates and opponents. The legislation originally would have repealed the death penalty, and represented the first time that repeal was debated on the floor of the Maryland Senate in three decades. Senators passed two historic procedural motions in order to bring the bill to the floor before it was amended to narrow the death penalty rather than repeal it.

Amy Fusting, Program Director of Maryland Citizens Against State Executions, said the new law "represents the best that could have occurred under the circumstances, a valiant effort by the Senate to take action and effectively issue a bandage to a failed punishment."

The reform sought to address the risk of executing an innocent person, but it did not address many of the other problems with the death penalty, such as racial bias or the impact on victims’ families.

“Even the innocence protections are not enough to ensure an innocent person can’t be executed in Maryland,” says Shari Silberstein, Equal Justice USA’s Executive Director. “Human beings aren’t perfect, and no amount of reform will guarantee that we will get it right 100% of the time.”

“Once Marylanders try to implement the new system they’ve just created, I think they’ll realize the death penalty’s problems are endemic to the institution. The only way to really fix the death penalty is to get rid of it,” said Silberstein.

Equal Justice USA is a national, grassroots organization working to build a criminal justice system that is fair, effective, and humane, starting with repeal of the death penalty and increased services to families of homicide victims. EJUSA has been a longtime leader in the movement to repeal the death penalty, partnering with state organizations to strengthen and train local leadership, provide intensive, strategic support, and build grassroots campaigns that win.