| Senator Gladden,
In Maryland, minors were removed from the death penalty in 1987 (Chapter 626, Acts of 1987).
Life without parole was enacted in Maryland as an alternative to the death penalty in 1987 (Chapter 237, Acts of 1987).
The mentally retarded were removed from the death penalty in Maryland in 1989 (Chapter 677, Acts of 1989).
Also, from the Maryland Manual On-Line's section of the origins of the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services:
http://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/22dpscs/html/dpscsf.html
"In 1922, the General Assembly made the State rather than the individual counties and Baltimore City responsible for carrying out the death penalty. The stated intention was to centralize capital punishment at the Maryland Penitentiary where convicted felons under sentence of death would be hanged. This removed execution from the county or city jails as the law then provided, thus relieving the counties from the mobs that frequented hangings (Chapter 465, Acts of 1922). The law applied to offenses committed on or after January 1, 1923. It further directed the Warden of the Maryland Penitentiary to provide and maintain a permanent death chamber within the confines of the Maryland Penitentiary, where the condemned was to be held in solitary confinement."
Diane Evartt |
