Bills to repeal the Maryland Death Penalty were filed last week, following an Annapolis rally and lobbying effort by those seeking to end capital punishment. The Senate bill, SB 645, cosponsored by 16 Senators, will be heard by the Judiciary Committee Thursday, March 6, at 1 p.m. In 2007, repeal efforts died when an identical bill failed by one vote to receive a Judiciary Committee favorable report. The House bill, HB 1328, has 56 cosponsors, and will be heard by the Judicial Proceedings Committee at a date not yet announced. Both bills would repeal all procedures and requirements related to the death penalty and provide that inmates who have been sentenced to death may not be executed and shall by considered as having received sentences of life imprisonment without possibility of parole. Meanwhile Maryland Citizens Against State Executions (MDCASE), of which LWVMD is a member, has been stepping up activities around the state and is now promoting letter writing campaigns, beginning with one in Crofton at the Crofton Public Library Saturday, February 16, 1-5 p.m. A recent newsletter from MDCASE reported that Maryland’s death row won’t be getting larger in the immediate future, due to two Baltimore County juries who failed to give death penalty sentences in late 2007, and a decision last month by Howard County Judge Joseph Manck to sentence Brandon Morris to life in prison without possibility of parole. Morris was found guilty of first degree murder in the death of a corrections officer. In his ruling Manck stated outright that he considered the negative impact a death sentence would have on the victim’s family, asserting that the death penalty is “the most cruel and unusual punishment for surviving victims to go through” The judge spoke from personal experience, as he lost his mother to murder. “Judges and juries alike are starting to realize that life without parole is a sentence that can protect society and serve justice without the risk of an irreparable and unforgiveable mistake, and without putting victims’ families through the hell they’ve already suffered again and again,” the newsletter said.