Maryland governor commutes four death sentences

In one of his final acts as governor, Democrat Martin O'Malley announced Wednesday that he will commute the sentences of Maryland's four remaining death-row inmates to life in prison.

Two years ago, the General Assembly abolished the death penalty in the state, making the ultimate sentence in new cases life in prison without the possibility of parole.

That left five previously sentenced inmates on death row; one of them, John Booth-El, died in prison this year. Maryland's attorney general has argued that executing prisoners would be illegal without an existing death penalty law.

"The question at hand is whether any public good is served by allowing these essentially un-executable sentences to stand," O'Malley said in a statement. "In my judgment, leaving these death sentences in place does not serve the public good of the people of Maryland — present or future."

The governor said he had met or spoken with many of the relatives of the people killed by the inmates, and he thanked them for talking with him about the cases.

But he said that his failing to act at this point in the legal process would "needlessly and callously subject survivors, and the people of Maryland, to the ordeal of an endless appeals process, with unpredictable twists and turns, and without any hope of finality or closure."

None of the executions was imminent because the state didn't have a procedure to carry one out.

O'Malley will leave office next month after having served two terms, the limit in Maryland.

"We would like to thank Gov. O'Malley for taking what was a tough and courageous moral decision," Gary Proctor, one of the attorneys for death-row inmate Heath Burch, said in a statement. "It was indeed time that Maryland's machinery of death was consigned to the history books."

Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott Shellenberger, a death penalty supporter, criticized the governor's decision. Two of Maryland's death-row inmates, Anthony Grandison and Vernon Evans, were convicted in the 1983 contract killing in Baltimore County of two witnesses who were scheduled to testify against Grandison in a federal drug case.

"Death was the decision of the jury. These sentences were lawfully imposed and upheld numerous times on appeal," Shellenberger said in a statement. "The governor should not be using his last days in office to show any mercy to these cold, calculating killers."

Associated Press