Lawrence Borchardt will fight for his life, despite a ruling that restored the death penalty for the inmate who was convicted of murdering an elderly Rosedale couple, his attorney said.
“We?re probably going to file a federal petition,” said Borchardt?s appellate attorney, Brian Murphy. “We?re going to allege that this case was wrongly decided by the state court and their interpretation was wrong.”
On Friday, the Maryland Court of Appeals sent Borchardt, 55, back to death row, reversing a 2005 Anne Arundel County Circuit Court ruling that said his former attorney provided ineffective counsel at his 2000 death sentence hearing.
“Simply because counsel?s strategy did not succeed, and Borchardt was sentenced to death, it does not follow that defense counsel were ineffective,” Judge Irma Raker wrote in the majority opinion.
Borchardt was convicted of stabbing to death a Rosedale couple at their home on Thanksgiving Day in 1998.
The couple previously gave money to Borchardt, who was a heroin addict, but he killed them after they told him they didn?t have any more money to give him, according to the opinion.
The Court of Appeals ruling came weeks after the top court?s seven judges temporarily halted executions in Maryland because, they said, prison officials never submitted Maryland?s lethal injection procedures to the public for review.
The judges, however, disagreed with race-based challenges to Maryland?s death penalty based on University of Maryland Professor Raymond Paternoster?s 2003 study, which found that offenders who kill white victims are significantly more likely to be charged with a capital crime.
Murphy said he doesn?t believe Borchardt will be put to death soon.
“This was a 4-3 decision, and it?s tough to lose by one vote,” he said.
Borchardt is one of six men on Maryland?s death row.
