Maryland’s governor on Wednesday commuted the death sentences of the four remaining inmates on the state’s death row, effectively putting an end to the death penalty in the state.
The general assembly abolished the state’s death penalty law in 2012 but these four inmates were sentenced to death before the policy was abolished.
“In my judgment, leaving these death sentences in place does not serve the public good of the people of Maryland — present or future,” governor Martin O’Malley said in a statement.
State attorney general Douglas Gansler said last month that the state no longer had the legal authority to execute these men because the policy had been abolished.
“In a representative government, state executions make every citizen a party to a legalized killing as punishment,” O’Malley said.
O’Malley said he has spoken to many of the survivors of the people killed by those on death row. He said that part of the reason for commuting the sentences was so these people would not have to endure an “un-ending legal process.” He also said he hoped this would bring family and friends of victims some closure.
“Gubernatorial inaction – at this point in the legal process – would, in my judgment, needlessly and callously subject survivors, and the people of Maryland, to the ordeal of an endless appeals process, with unpredictable twists and turns, and without any hope of finality or closure,” said O’Malley.
This will be one of the final acts as governor for O’Malley, a democrat whose term ends next month. Governor-elect Larry Hogan, a republican, has said he did not have plans to attempt to reinstate the death penalty.
An annual report on capital punishment in the US found this month that three states – Texas, Missouri and Florida – accounted for 80% of the inmates put to death in 2014. All 35 executions were carried out by just seven states as states have struggled to secure drugs needed to carry out death sentences after a European boycott.
