Governor authorizes writing new death penalty regulations

Gov. Martin O?Malley said Thursday that he would ask the secretary of public safety to begin reviewing the protocols and writing the regulations for carrying out the death penalty, opening the way for executions by lethal injection to resume in Maryland.

Republican lawmakers have repeatedly written O?Malley, saying his failure to reissue regulations to conform to a 2006 Maryland Court of Appeals decision was “a deliberate violation of your oath-bound obligations and duties as governor.”