On the death penalty, “unfortunately, we?re sort of in this deadlock, gridlock,” Gov. Martin O?Malley told reporters Friday morning.
“Maryland is at a point of equilibrium,” with points of view equally divided for and against, he said.
In one of the first tests of the chief executive?s leverage, O?Malley failed to get a Senate committee ? actually just one senator ? to budge and vote for total repeal. Cardinal Keeler, assorted clergymen, constituents and exonerated men once on death row also couldn?t tip the scales in state Sen. Alex Mooney?s delicate moral balancing act.
Cynics and opponents, of which Frederick County Republicans have many on a host of issues, speculated that this was indeed an “act” to garner publicity. But from the first, Mooney had made clear that the state possibly killing innocent people troubled him, some murders called for the ultimate penalty.
The Senate sponsor of repeal, Sen. Lisa Gladden of Baltimore City, conceded she didn?t have the votes on the floor to ban executions, even if Mooney had caved.
But the committee didn?t have enough votes to make executions possible again by overcoming the Court of Appeals? objections to the lethal injections.
O?Malley?s leverage
The governor still has considerable leverage in the ongoing debate.
He could order changes in the execution procedures to meet the court?s objections, and thus end the effective moratorium on executions.
But he has not.
He also could commute the death sentences of every one sentenced to die.
But that could prove politically risky in a closely divided state.
In the next two years, he also will have the opportunity to appoint replacements for three of the retiring judges on the Court of Appeals, thus establishing a stronger majority opposed to executions.
This may be the easiest workaround to repeal.
No song, but a poem
In honor of St. Patrick?s Day, O?Malley addressed the Senate on Friday, recalling 800 years of Irish oppression and struggle.
But the former lead singer of his own Irish band said he would not serenade the lawmakers.
Instead he chose to read a Seamus Heaney poem, though O?Malley did not mention its title or put it in historical context.
“Requiem for the Croppies” was written in 1966 to commemorate the 1798 rebellion savagely put down by the British, forerunner of the great 1916 uprising.
The “croppies” were Irish rebels who had cut their hair to identify themselves with the Republican revolutionaries in France.
Call in
O?Malley did a live call-in show on Maryland Public Television, but he handled only two phone calls and one e-mail, with the bulk of the half-hour devoted to questions from host Jeff Salkin.
An inquiry to Salkin about the paucity of callers last Monday night generated a callback from Mike Golden, MPT?s communication director.
“The phone lines were full,” and there are 10 of them, Golden said, and there were six e-mails.
But broadcasting the segment from the governor?s State House office, rather than the studio, made communications difficult, Golden said.
Salkin had to use his BlackBerry to read the e-mail to O?Malley.
Disappointed callers may get another shot at O?Malley on Marc Steiner?s WYPR-FM radio show at noon today.
Len Lazarick is the State House bureau chief of The Examiner. He can be reached at [email protected]
