Benjamin Jealous, president of the NAACP, has joined Maryland civil rights leaders to call for an end to Maryland’s death penalty. Jealous and the other leaders have called for a news conference when the General Assembly reconvenes, where they will highlight the racial disparities and flaws in the capital punishment system.
Maryland’s death penalty was put on de facto hold since late 2006 when it was found that the state’s lethal injection protocols weren’t properly approved by a legislative committee. There was a push in 2009 to abolish the death penalty, but lawmakers instead sought a compromise to restrict capital punishment only in murder cases with biological evidence such as DNA, videotaped evidence of the murder or a videotaped confession.
