Click here to contact your state legislators and ask them to support the Commission's recommendation by voting for repeal in the 2009 session.
Last week the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment, a 23-member panel tasked with investigating the use of the death penalty in our state, voted to recommend that the Maryland General Assembly repeal the death penalty in its upcoming 2009 session.
Baltimore Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien testified in favor of repeal before the Commission in August (read his testimony here) and recently wrote a column in The Catholic Review urging repeal (read column here).
The Commission will present its final report to lawmakers on December 15 and includes 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.
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 Church in Maryland has long been at the center of the death penalty debate. The Maryland Catholic Conference was the principal proponent of laws banning the execution of juveniles (1987) and persons with mental retardation (1989).
Majorities in the Maryland House and Senate support repeal. Still, doubts linger in the minds of a few key lawmakers. It’s to be hoped that the Commission’s work product will help them resolve their concerns in favor of repeal.