On March 24, Maryland lawmakers voted to create a commission to study the state’s death penalty. The House voted 89-48 and the Senate by 32-15 to establish the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment to research racial, socio-economical, and geographic disparities in the application of the death penalty as well as evaluate the risk of executing an innocent person. The commission will consider the costs of the death penalty as compared to a sentence of life without parole. Its findings and recommendations are due by December 15 and will be submitted to the General Assembly. Delegate Sandy Rosenberg stated that the bill aims to create “ a credible task force - one that will objectively look at the issues.” The governor supports the establishment of the Commission.

Maryland has 5 inmates on death row and has executed 5 people since the reinstatement of its death penalty in 1978. Executions have been on hold since late 2006 when the state’s highest court found errors in the way the lethal injection protocol had been put into law.
(“Lawmakers vote to create death penalty commission,” Associated Press, March 25, 2008). See Recent Legislative Activity.