Death Penalty
UPDATE: Executions in Maryland could resume if proposed new regulations on the death penalty are approved. Click here to read the Maryland Catholic Conference's comments in opposition to the regulations and click here to take action to oppose resuming executions in our state.
The House of Delegates on March 26 approved a plan to severely restrict cases in which the death penalty may be applied in Maryland. Under Senate Bill 279, which Gov. O'Malley has said he will sign into law, capital punishment can only be pursued in cases where there is biological or DNA evidence, a videotape of the crime in progress, or a voluntary, videotaped confession. While this falls short of full repeal, which the Maryland Catholic Conference will continue to work toward, SB 279 is an important step forward and will help ensure that innocent individuals are not executed. Thank you for your continuing support of efforts to uphold the human dignity of all individuals.
If non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.
The state's bishops welcomed the recommendation of the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment and said in a statement that "repeal of the death penalty in Maryland should be adopted, and soon." The 23-member panel tasked with investigating the use of the death penalty in our state recommended that the Maryland General Assembly repeal the death penalty in its upcoming 2009 session. Read the panel's full report (PDF) here. The bishops encouraged Catholic voters to contact their legislators in support of repeal.
The Commission included Baltimore Auxiliary Bishop Denis Madden among its members. It found during its months-long review that there is a “real possibility” of executing innocent people and that the application of the death penalty in our state is racially and geographically biased. The Maryland Catholic Conference was a leader in successful efforts to ban the execution of juveniles (1987) and persons with mental retardation (1989).