If ever a crime cried out for the death penalty, it is the murder of Cpl. David McGuinn. This is not about collective vengeance against those who butchered a prison guard while he was on duty.
It is not about balancing the taking of life by taking more lives.
It?s not even about saving society from future crimes.
This one is about protecting those who do the dangerous, difficult, miserable work of running our prisons. We must protect them from prisoners who have nothing to lose.
If we do not, our so-called corrections system, incubator of crime, will explode.
Two prisoners accused of the premeditated stabbing of Cpl. McGuinn already serve multiple life sentences for murder.
A grand jury indicted Lamarr Cornelius Harris and Lee Edward Stephens for first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
If guilty, what punishment do they face? Another life sentence?
Even those who argue that capital punishment does not deter murder must admit prisoners serving life sentences get a license to kill without a a swift and certain death penalty.
Those who anguish over the sacredness of human life must strain the quality of their mercy to consider the lives of those who serve.
And those who argue we impose the penalty of death capriciously must stand mute against this special aggravating circumstance that strips away all mitigating factors.
Maryland long has danced with death as punishment for crime. Since the first recorded executions in 1773 by hanging, we have loosened, tightened and suspended the law, abandoning noose for gas in 1955, then gas for lethal injection in 1994.
According to the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, we have executed 83 prisoners, all men, 19 white, 64 black.
We killed 56 convicted murderers and 27 convicted rapists.
If Harris and Stephens are guilty, they too must die. They must die quickly so no other prisoner will plot to murder guards.
The hard fact is that the number of Maryland corrections officers killed in the line of duty doubled this year. A prisoner trying to escape during a hospital visit murdered Officer Jeffery Alan Wroten in January.
Before that, prisoners murdered only two other officers, one in 1925 and the other in 1984, according to The Officer Down Memorial Page Web site.
As a civilized society, we dare not wait to see if these latest crimes are statistical anomalies or the beginning of a horrible trend.
No complex, nuanced legal and moral arguments or issues cloud the clear message our state must send: If you murder a prison guard, you die.
Any who oppose that can volunteer to serve in ourprisons. They can put their lives on the line every day with no protection under the law.
