Political Expediency Trumps Sound Policy in Death Penalty Vote 3-25-09

This past Friday, the House Judiciary Committee had one of its legendary voting sessions.  Working late into the evening, Delegates considered a long voting list of bills including the Senate’s version of the death penalty repeal bill.

While the Zirkin Amendment to the Senate bill technically preserves the death penalty in Maryland, it eliminates basic evidentiary tools, such as fingerprints and ballistic evidence, for prosecutors seeking the death penalty as punishment in even the most horrific murder cases.  As pointed out in our earlier post (click here), it would also make it virtually impossible to seek the death penalty for the lead perpetrator in a murder-for-hire or witness intimidation case.  Many in the legal community believe that the Senate bill is drawn so poorly that there will never be a successful death penalty prosecution in Maryland again.

At the top of that list of doubters is Maryland’s Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler.  In fact, he testified before the House Judiciary Committee last week and stated that the Senate bill is “ill-prepared, ill-thought-out, awkward and clumsy.”  Moreover, Gansler concluded that the Zirkin Amendment “significantly limits the death penalty so as to almost nullify it in the state of Maryland.”  He implored the Delegates to fix the bill.

Obviously the bill is bad policy from a criminal justice perspective unless you are one who supports total repeal.  Who better to judge that policy perspective than the person who has to handle the appeals on every single death penalty case in Maryland – the state’s Attorney General?

So – one would anticipate that the House Judiciary Committee would roll up its sleeves and get to work to fix the bill, right?  Well, in the political reality of Annapolis, not really.

See, there are two problems:

First, the Senate President told the House leadership to “take it or leave it.”  If the bill passes the House unchanged, it becomes law upon signature by the Governor.  If the House amends the bill to correct the problems identified by Attorney General Gansler, then the bill goes back to the Senate risking a long filibuster towards the hectic end of the session.

Second, the Governor told the House to “take it.”  He has too much politically invested in the death penalty repeal for this session.  A partial victory is better than walking away empty-handed.  If he wants to show something for his efforts this term, it has to be this year because no legislator wants a major controversial issue with heated debate next year in an election-year session when voters might have a fresh recall of a Governor’s or legislator’s position when they stand in the voting booth.

In the Judiciary voting session, eighteen amendments were offered to craft a better bill.  But the skids were politically greased on this one – all amendments were rejected.

And sadly, sound policy lost out to political expediency as Maryland will be stuck with the restrictive nature of the Zirkin amendment.  The new law will gives defense attorneys so many loopholes to work before a judge or jury in the courtroom that it basically nullifies the death penalty in this state.