Thursday, following a bill signing ceremony marking a formal end to Maryland’s death penalty, Lt. Governor Anthony Brown issued the following statement:
“We have a responsibility to do everything in our power to hold violent criminals accountable, but the facts prove that the death penalty is racially biased, demonstrably unreliable, and an ineffective deterrent to crime,” said Lt. Governor Anthony Brown. “In Maryland, justice will be appropriately severe for horrible crimes while we still remain committed to fairness and equality within our criminal justice system.”
BACKGROUND:
Racially Biased
- Currently 80% of Maryland’s death row inmates are African American.
- Cases involving African American perpetrators and Caucasian victims represent 23% of death-eligible crimes, though these cases account for 70% of the death sentences carried out since 1978.
Unreliable
- For every 8.7 Americans sent to death row, there has been one innocent person exonerated.
- The first death row case where DNA was used was in the acquittal of Kirk Bloodsworth in 1993 for a crime committed in Baltimore County.
- In 1991 in Calvert County, Anthony Gray, a developmentally challenged man, was convicted of rape and murder after being pressured into giving a false confession. In 1999, Gray was exonerated after DNA proved that he was innocent.
- According to the Innocence Project, there have been 306 post-conviction DNA exonerations (though not all were death sentences).
Ineffective Deterrent to Crime
- In a 2009 study, 88% of criminologists stated the belief that the death penalty was not a deterrent.
- A majority of police chiefs nationwide agree with them.
- In 2011, the average murder rate in states with the de
