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The Clemency Question in Maryland

By Steve Hall

Charles Lane posts, "Why doesn't O'Malley clear death row?" at the Washington Post's Post Partisan blog.Maryland Governor Martin O?Malley staunchly opposes the death penalty: Given its flaws -- the lack of deterrent impact, the risk of a wrongful execution, high costs -- capital punishment can be neither morally nor practically justified, he argues. The issue moves him to eloquence. ?Human dignity is the fundamental belief on which the laws of this state and this republic are founded,? O?Malley wrote in a 2007 Post op-ed. ?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.?As governor, O?Malley supported the creation of a Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment, which called for the abolition of the death penalty based on racial bias and other alleged inequities in the Maryland death penalty...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on January 26, 2010 (boomark / email).