The Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment was expected Friday to cast its first round of votes on repealing the state’s death penalty, but the panel delayed making the decision to next month — just two days before Gov. Martin O’Malley expects a draft of its recommendations.
The meeting in Annapolis instead focused on crime deterrence and whether executions actually prevent future loss of life.
“If evidence shows that capital punishment deters murder — that executions save lives — than as a society we have a moral obligation to embrace it and utilize it,” said Matthew Campbell, a lawyer who previously served as the Howard County deputy state’s attorney.
“… But there simply is not convincing evidence of the death penalty deterring homicides.”
Campbell summarized more than 12 studies since 2000 that researched whether the death penalty has a deterrent effect and ultimately were unreliable, because the results were erratic and varying among states.
Campbell said most legal experts and law enforcement have embraced contradicting studies, such as the national survey indicating that two-thirds of police chiefs ranked the death penalty as the least effective deterrent to crime, behind swift punishment, reducing drug abuse and joblessness, imposing longer prison sentences and increasing police patrols in high-crime areas.
Secretary of Public Safety and Correctional Services Gary Maynard agreed the risk of execution, or even life without parole, only would deter the few criminals who rationally consider the penalties for their crimes.
And many criminals are acting irrationally because of antisocial disorders, mental health issues or substances abuse, Campbell said.
Five inmates were executed in Maryland since the death penalty was reinstated in 1978. Out of the 3 percent of death-eligible cases in Maryland, only 1 percent of defendants are sentenced to death and only half of those defendants are executed.
That means “a rational murderer would consider that he has a 99.5 percent risk of avoiding execution, even if caught,” Campbell said.
Baltimore City has seen a drop in homicides this year, which provides “a glimmer of hope,” said the Commission Chairman Benjamin Civiletti, who served as U.S. attorney general during the Carter administration.
“There’s no magic pill that has caused fewer homicides, but there is a whole series of factors that may have an influence,” he said.
The state has had a de facto moratorium on capital punishment since December 2006, when Maryland’s highest court ruled that lethal injection regulations were flawed.
The commission will offer its final recommendations to the legislature in December.
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