The effort to repeal the death penalty in Maryland was stalled by the vote of one Baltimore County Democratic senator but it may pass this year because of another.
Sen. Bobby Zirkin said he will vote in favor of a bill that repeals capital punishment in the state.
"I'm forever torn on this issue, have been and probably always will be," Zirkin said in an interview Thursday. "I'm extremely jealous of people who fall comfortably on one side of the debate or the other."
In the end, Zirkin said he made the decision to vote for repealing capital punishment based on testimony of some victims who said the death penalty provided little closure because of lengthy appeals and that the state hasn't executed anyone in nearly a decade.
Zirkin said the families "suffer an unspeakable pain that continues and continues."
The repeal is one of Gov. Martin O'Malley's legislative priorities for the 2013 Maryland General Assembly session.
Zirkin's decision was first reported Thursday morning by the Washington Post.
In 2009, Zirkin sponsored a bill that tightened requirements on the use of the death penalty by requiring additional evidence including a video-taped confession, video that shows conclusively that the accused murderer committed the crime or DNA evidence.
But Zirkin was not on the Judicial Proceedings Committee at the time and has never had to cast a vote on a repeal bill.
"I was 50-50 on it four years ago," Zirkin said. "This isn't a change [of position]. It's an evolution in my thought."
Part of that evolution involved a look at which jurisdictions use the death penalty. Baltimore County has the reputation for being the most frequent user of capital punishment.
Two of the five remaining inmates on death row were convicted and sentenced in Baltimore County.
"That was one of the pivotal issues for me," Zirkin said. "Only one jurisdiction ever uses it."
In the end, Zirkin said it was not an issue of morality for him.
"I don't have a moral problem executing these monsters," Zirkin said, adding that he wants to "kill these people myself.
"But I have to separate the emotion from the practical legal reality," Zirkin continued. "The practical legal reality of our system is that it is very broken to the point that this hasn't been used in almost a decade."
Zirkin's vote will give death penalty opponents the six votes they need to get the bill out of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee . It also means that there are roughly 26 senators who will vote to pass the bill when it comes to the floor next week—two more than required.
The committee is expected to hold a vote Thursday night. The bill is expected to receive a preliminary vote by the middle of next week with a final vote that Friday, according to Sen. Brian Frosh, chairman of the committee.
In previous years, Sen. Jim Brochin, a Democrat who also represents Baltimore County, was seen as the vote that kept the repeal from moving out of committee.
You screw up you pay the penalty, that's why we have laws, if we didn't, what kind of world would we live in?
They can make even someone who was 100 miles away from the scene of the crime at the time it was done start to think that they did it.
Add into it the moral issues of dictating that someone has 'outlived their usefulness' on the planet and you see another issue. No, the death penalty is just not something we need anymore and in a prison cell, there is less than .01% chance that the person in question will kill again.
Putting someone in a maximum security prison for life is punishment enough and if you really think that is how prison goes, that bull that you spouted in your post? You have no freaking clue and have never even VISITED a prison.
Such as the drug laws, such as the sexual morality laws (anti-prostitution laws), etc. etc. etc. It's time to stop trying to dictate morality to people outside of about 5 things, listed now: 1. Do not kill unless it is your last choice to prevent your death or someone else's death. 2. Do not physically attack someone else unless it is your last choice to prevent someone else from being attacked or to defend yourself from an attack, unless you are in a sports arena where both sides know that they are going to be attacked. 3. Do not steal from someone else unless it is your last choice between you and death (this is a very liberal one from me, in all honesty). 4. Do not force someone to do or not do something that they do not or do wish to do, sexual or not and regardless of age or 'lack' of age, unless that person is breaking this rule themselves or putting someone else in imminent physical danger.
Otherwise, I use this word very lightly, "amen".
slimey, yo'malley will amply reward him for this cowardly act. the warren holuse murders occurred in PIKESVILLE, zirkins distrtict. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Grandison
"yo'malley"?? Did you think that up all by yourself? Wow! What rapier like wit!
You have absolutely no idea how prison is today, it's not rainbows, chocolate and cotton candy.
The Rethuglicans are the ones who are keeping us from getting a U.K. style health care system into place. I have friends that live over in the U.K. and they LAUD the health care system over there, saying it's much easier to get treatments over there.