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Human Rights Now – Amnesty International USA Blog
Is it worth the risk, Maryland?
When testifying before state lawmakers in 2007, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley asked “Can the death penalty ever be justified as public policy when it inherently necessitates the occasional taking of wrongly convicted, innocent life?”
According to Michael May, a former military and Baltimore City police officer, the answer is no. In an op-ed in today’s Baltimore Examiner, May writes that he originally supported the death penalty, certain that all opponents of capital punishment were just “muddleheaded, knee-jerk liberals.” But it was the risk of executing an innocent person that changed his mind, and he now advocates for repeal of the death penalty in Maryland.
We know that 130 people have been exonerated from death rows across the country after evidence of their wrongful conviction emerged. And we know that the first person to be exonerated by DNA evidence, Kirk Bloodsworth, was sentenced to die in Maryland. The Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment recently voted to recommend repeal of the death penalty, and it is time for the legislature to follow their lead – but in order to do so they need to hear from their constituents! Find out how you can get involved and help repeal Maryland’s death penalty today!
Filed under: Action Alert!, activism, Death Penalty Tagged: | Death Penalty, innocence, law enforcement, maryland
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