From the District 17 Senate forum on July 19. Kagan went after Forehand for missing a vote on the issue and she is correct.
Showing posts with label death penalty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death penalty. Show all posts
Friday, July 30, 2010
Forehand vs. Kagan on the Death Penalty
Saturday, August 22, 2009
On Lockerbie and the Death Penalty
Today, I write about the release of convicted Lockerbie terrorist Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi from two perspectives: as a death penalty opponent and as a relative of one of the victims. From both viewpoints, the Scottish government’s release of Megrahi is a desecration of justice.
I never met Robert Pagnucco, whose father was my grandfather’s first cousin. He was 51 and had a wife and two children when he died on Pan Am 103. His immediate family won a judgment of $9 million against bankrupt Pan Am, which the company, of course, fiercely contested. I still remember our family getting the phone call describing his death when I was 18. I have had a personal connection to the tragedy ever since.
But this goes far beyond my family. I have been a death penalty opponent for many years, principally because I do not have faith that our justice system can truly avoid putting innocent people to death. And so the price of protecting the innocent is to allow guilty killers to rot for the rest of their lives in jail. But they must stay in jail. They MUST, or the tradeoff is hollow.
The Scottish authorities do not see it that way. They believe Megrahi’s “humanitarian” need to spend the last three months of his life away from his prison cell outweighs the need of the victims’ families for justice. Even worse, they cynically expect us to excuse their notion that life in prison for terrorists equals something other than life in prison for terrorists.
Observe the photos of Megrahi celebrating his triumph over the victims with the son of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi.
If this is the “justice” faced by mass murderers in the absence of the death penalty, then perhaps we should execute the worst of them when we have the chance.
Monday, March 09, 2009
Five Senators and the Death Penalty
The failure of death penalty repeal in Maryland came down to the actions of five Senators. Here is their story.
To understand the part played by these five, we must first understand the sequence of the major floor votes on the death penalty. First, Senate President Mike Miller allowed the chamber to vote on whether to substitute the repeal bill for an unfavorable report from the Judiciary Proceedings Committee. This vote succeeded by a 25-22 margin and started full Senate debate on the bill.
Next, Senator James Brochin (D-42) proposed an amendment that forbade use of the death penalty in cases relying solely on eyewitness testimony. That amendment effectively changed the purpose of the bill from repeal to restrictions on the use of the death penalty. The amendment passed by a 25-21 margin, with one Senator later changing his vote to produce a 24-22 outcome.
After another amendment by Senator Robert Zirkin (D-11), Senator E.J. Pipkin (R-36) moved to send the bill back to the Judiciary Proceedings Committee. His motion would have preserved the status quo: the death penalty would have been left unchanged. It failed 23-23, keeping restrictions on the death penalty alive.
These five Senators played key roles:
Alex Mooney (R-3)
Mooney, a social conservative on most issues, was considered a swing vote on death penalty repeal. He voted to send repeal to the floor, voted for the Brochin amendment and voted to send it back to committee. Mooney was the only GOP Senator to support a floor vote. He favored amending the bill and then killing it.
John Astle (D-30)
Astle, an Anne Arundel Democrat who often has close general elections, refused to answer the Sun’s question on his death penalty position. He voted with death penalty opponents against sending repeal to the floor and initially voted for the Brochin amendment, which would have preserved the death penalty. But Astle, who said he was “wrestling” with repeal, later changed his vote to oppose the Brochin amendment. His vote change would not have defeated the Brochin amendment because it merely altered the margin from 25-21 to 24-22. Astle then voted against recommitting the bill, effectively preserving it in its amended form. He is sure to face questions about his decision-making.
Jennie Forehand (D-17)
The Sun listed Forehand as favoring repeal but she did not co-sponsor the 2009, 2008 or 2007 repeal bills. Forehand voted along with repeal supporters to send the bill to the floor. But she missed the Brochin amendment vote (which initially passed by 25-21 but later had a 24-22 margin after Astle’s vote change). Forehand told the Sun that she was in the amendment room during the Brochin vote. She later voted against recommitting the bill to committee.
Our sources cannot explain why Forehand missed the Brochin amendment vote. When Senators wish to introduce floor amendments, they do not have to physically visit the amendment room – they can just place phone calls. Furthermore, on high-profile votes, legislators who are interested in having their votes recorded rarely leave during those votes. Forehand’s departure was inexplicable, especially considering the fact that she never introduced an amendment.
Nevertheless, even if she had stayed and voted against the Brochin amendment, it would still have passed 24-23 (assuming Astle had voted against it as well). Forehand’s action by itself did not determine the bill’s fate.
Rona Kramer (D-14)
Kramer did not answer the Sun’s question on her repeal position. She voted to send the bill to the floor, voted for the Brochin amendment and voted against recommitting it. Effectively, she acted to restrict but not kill the death penalty. If both Astle and Kramer had voted against the Brochin amendment, it would have failed by a 23-23 vote. Kramer was therefore a critical player in stopping outright repeal.
Andy Harris (R-7)
As conservative blogger Brian Griffiths originally pointed out, Harris missed the recommit vote, which failed 23-23. If Harris had been present to vote in favor of recommitting, the death penalty restrictions in the Brochin amendment would have been struck down and the status quo would have been preserved. Recommit sponsor E. J. Pipkin will be sure to use this against Harris if the two run against each again for Congress.
As for Mike Miller, he is the ultimate winner. Miller gave the Governor and the many repeal supporters in his chamber the courtesy of a floor vote. The ultimate outcome was to preserve the death penalty (as Miller favors), even in a restricted form. Miller kept the debate to a couple days, thereby retaining control over the Senate’s business. And if the House passes anything different, both proposals will fail because the Senate will not go to conference.
Mike Miller was able to pull this off because he knows every one of his Senators – and just as importantly, their districts – better than anyone in Annapolis. He was probably able to forecast every single one of the above events within one or two votes. He knew repeal supporters did not have enough votes to prevail and let them have their day. His acumen is the product of twenty years experience in his position, thorough knowledge of Senate history and constant study of three generations of his colleagues.
And as for Senators Mooney, Astle, Forehand, Kramer and Harris? They will now have to face the consequences, for better or worse, of their actions in the Great Maryland Death Penalty Debate of 2009.
Friday, March 06, 2009
Craig Rice, Rona Kramer and the Death Penalty
The Baltimore Sun and Maryland Moment of the Washington Post both provide interesting profiles of Del. Craig Rice (D 15) and the very personal reasons for why he supports retention of the death penalty. Del. Rice supports the bill which emerged from the Senate which keeps the death penalty but raises the standard of evidence required for it.
The quote from Senator Rona Kramer (D 14) from one of the articles is particularly telling as Sen. Kramer was apparently the key vote for the amendment offered by Sen. James Brochin (D 42) which passed and made clear that repeal was not going to pass the Senate:Sen. Rona E. Kramer, a fellow Montgomery County Democrat, said the delegate raised "an extremely important argument."
"Sometimes, the death penalty goes beyond wanting to make the family feel better," Kramer said in an interview yesterday. "It can be about making them feel safe and secure. The safety and security of witnesses - that hadn't really been raised before."
Thursday, March 05, 2009
More on the Death Penalty
From Senator Rich Madaleno (D-18):
Earlier today, the State Senate voted 34 to 13 in favor of the amended bill to restrict the use of the death penalty. The Senate rejected attempts to recommit the bill and to reopen the bill to amendments by similar margins. The bill passed after a short debate in which death penalty supporters expressed opposition to the measure saying that the floor amendments inadvertently went too far in limiting the use of the death penalty. For example, the amended bill requires the presence of DNA evidence before a prosecutor could seek the death penalty. An initial advice letter from the Attorney General's office suggested that fingerprints are not DNA and thus cases based upon witness testimony and finger print evidence on a weapon would appear ineligible for the death penalty. With this advice, it appears that this amended bill might limit the death penalty more than initially believed.
The bill now moves to the House of Delegates for consideration. One of the leading advocates of the bill and a long time mentor of mine, Del. Sandy Rosenberg (D-Northwest Baltimore City), has said he will continue to push for the bill. However, the Senate President did comment this morning that, with the Senate so evenly split on the repeal, any attempt to change the Senate bill would be rejected.
As more developments occur on this issue, I will certainly keep you informed.
Thanks, Rich
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Death Penalty Repeal Dies in the Senate
The Maryland Senate has spoken: there will be no repeal of the death penalty this year. But we learned a few valuable things from the process.
First, Senator Rich Madaleno (D-18) issued this description of today’s events:Earlier today, we finished the debate on the death penalty repeal, probably for the year. Yesterday evening, an attempt to “recommit” the repeal bill to the Judicial Proceedings Committee, a parliamentary maneuver that almost always signals the end of a bill's chance for passage, failed by a vote of 23 to 23. (One anti-repeal senator was absent.) With the votes to kill this bill with this maneuver in hand, the Democratic opponents to the repeal offered the governor a compromise this morning: accept the bill as amended yesterday and no further attempts to weaken or stop the bill would be offered. After an hour of discussion in the Senate, this position was essentially ratified when the bill was passed on to third reading. A final vote will come on Friday. The Senate President was clear that no changes from the House would be entertained later in the Session.
Here are a few things we take away from this experience:
This is a disappointing outcome for those of us who favor repeal. We can find solace in the fact that the changes in the amended bill will reduce the number of executions and significantly diminish the chances of innocent people being executed. However, this “compromise” does not address the serious racial and geographic disparities that exist in the way death penalty prosecutions work. People prosecuted in Baltimore County are twelve times more likely to be subject to the death penalty than those prosecuted in other parts of the state. In addition, while the vast majority of murder victims in our state are minorities, all of the people on death row were convicted of murdering whites. These issues will need to be addressed in the future as this effort continues. As evidenced by the votes, we are just one or two votes short of being able to win a different outcome. And, I am sure that Governor O'Malley will continue to lead this fight over the next few years.
As additional developments occur, I will certainly let you know. I deeply appreciate the hundreds of e-mails I received about this issue. I wish I could report a bigger victory, but at least progress was made this year and a full debate did finally break out on the Senate floor.
Sincerely,
Rich
1. Senate President Mike Miller proved his vote-counting skills once again. He knew from the start that repeal would not pass the Senate but he gave the Governor and death penalty opponents a fair shot.
2. Governor O’Malley is willing to dig in and fight hard on what he sees as a matter of principle, even if it means going against a substantial part of the electorate and annoying Mike Miller. Agree with him or not, the Governor showed some guts on this one.
3. Senator Andy Harris (R-7), who has already declared his intention to run for Congress again, has made a gigantic mistake on this issue. As conservative blogger Brian Griffiths has pointed out, Harris missed a key vote on sending repeal back to committee, which would have effectively killed it. And who made the motion to kill the bill? None other than Senator E.J. Pipkin (R-36), Harris’s primary opponent for Congress last year. We’ll have more on Pipkin next week.
4. Even though his district may not be as liberal as most in Montgomery County, Delegate Craig Rice (D-15) took a politically courageous risk in opposing repeal. Montgomery is full of anti-death penalty activists, but Rice’s letter to the Senators makes for compelling reading.
The real question now is what the House of Delegates will do with the Senate’s bill, which restricts use of the death penalty but does not eliminate it. Miller has indicated that he will not go to conference to reconcile different versions of the bill. But the House will have its own ideas of what to do on the issue. Generally speaking, neither chamber reacts well to a “take-it-or-leave-it” bill from the other chamber. When I asked House Majority Leader Kumar Barve (D-17) about how the House might proceed, he answered:Even though we impose a lot of discipline on the House Floor, we consider Abortion and the Death Penalty as “conscience” votes. We don’t whip these issues and we don’t really care how people vote (except that committee members keep their votes consistent on the floor and committee). So, we’re happy to have the House committee and House chamber do whatever they feel is appropriate. If Miller has a problem with that, it’s his problem, not ours.
That response means the death penalty debate may be far from over.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Death Penalty Debate Mutates
The Baltimore Sun and Maryland Moment summarize the twists and turns in today's death penalty debate. But the most interesting comments come from - surprisingly - one of the state's most liberal Senators and the state's most prominent conservative blogger.
At 2:30 PM today, Senator Rich Madaleno (D-18) sent out this mass email:Earlier today and with my support, the State Senate took the unusual step to reverse a committee's recommendation and voted to place the death penalty repeal bill before the entire Senate for debate and amendment. The vote was 25 to 22. A second procedural motion to open debate only passed 24 to 23. We are now in recess for committee hearings. The Senate will readjourn at 3:30pm today for debate on potential amendments. The session is anticipated to last late until the evening. I plan to oppose all amendments to weaken the repeal.
At 6:48 PM today, Madaleno followed with this:
As can be seen by the small margins in the two votes from this morning, the outcome of the debate is still uncertain. However, I plan to vote to pass the bill and repeal the death penalty. The new maximum penalty in state law would be life with no chance of release. I will let you know as future developments occur.
RichIt is often hard to understand how quickly a bill's fortunes can change in the course of one day. Earlier today, I wrote about the success we had in moving the death penalty repeal to the Senate floor for debate. This afternoon, we took up the measure again for possible amendments. Unfortunately, on a vote of 24 to 23, the Senate adopted an amendment offered by Sen. Jim Brochin (D-Towson) that deleted the repeal and instead only prohibited the death penalty in cases where the evidence is limited to eyewitness testimony. I voted against the amendment as it essentially gutted the bill.
But while the Sun's take emphasized the role of Baltimore County Senators in beating back death penalty repeal, Red Maryland leader Brian Griffiths blamed one Republican: Senator Andy Harris (R-7). Griffiths noted that Harris missed the vote to recommit repeal back to committee, effectively keeping it alive. He wrote:
Recognizing that we now had a greatly watered down bill, Sen. Brian Frosh (D-Bethesda), the floor leader on the bill, accepted a second amendment offered by Sen. Bobby Zirkin (D-Pikesville) to add a series of evidentiary requirements that a prosecutor must satisfy in order to seek the death penalty. It is believed that these new standards would eliminate 85% of the cases where the death penalty is currently sought. While there were many more amendments drafted and ready to be offered, the chamber decided to break for the evening so that these concepts could be drafted to the bill in its new form. We will reconvene tomorrow morning at 9am to start again.
Right now, we are working on strategies to revive the repeal, but it looks like this is what may pass the Senate at this point. However, the cause is not lost as the bill could be strengthened by the House of Delegates. I will write you tomorrow as new developments occur.
RichSo on the most important social issue facing the General Assembly, Andy Harris of all people decides to take a pass.
Griffiths, Maryland's leading conservative blogger, has taken on Harris before. This vote may be a useful tool for anyone running against Harris in a future Congress District 1 primary.
I can't wait to hear the reasoning as to why Senator Harris was not present for this important vote. Because at the moment, his failure to be where he needed to be is the difference between ensuring preservation of the death penalty as a form of punishment and its elimination.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Marylanders Changing Their Minds on the Death Penalty
The conventional wisdom that Maryland is a pro-death penalty state is becoming less true by the day. New data from Gonzales Research paints a more complicated picture.
Gonzales Research has polled Marylanders on the death penalty in January 2009, March 2007 and May 2001. Respondents favoring the death penalty have fallen from 62% in 2001 to 57% in 2007 to 53% in 2009. Respondents opposing the death penalty have risen from 33% in 2001 to 37% in 2007 to 41% in 2009. The standard error of the three total samples is 3.5 points, meaning the changes (down 9 points in favor, up 8 points in oppose) are statistically significant. Below are breakdowns by sub-sample (click on the image for a larger view):
The sub-samples have higher standard errors because they have smaller sample sizes. Even so, the data suggests that the principal drivers of shifts in opinion come from changing attitudes among independents (favor down 16, oppose up 14), whites (favor down 11, oppose up 11) and men (favor down 13, oppose up 9). Independents are probably the fastest-growing political group in the state.
Gonzales also asked two questions comparing the death penalty to life without parole in 2009 and 2007. Below are the responses to those questions (click on the image for a larger view):
While the two questions may go to a similar intent, they are not identical. But together, they suggest that Marylanders lean towards life without parole as a superior option to the death penalty by a small-to-significant, and possibly growing, margin.
Maryland residents are changing their minds fast on the death penalty. But does the Maryland Senate hear them?
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Still Continuing to Surprise
Gov. O'Malley is continuing to surprise. For a man who was entering his term being urged to be more aggressive in using his political capital, he is turning out to be quite surprising halfway through the legislative session. While other governors have called for a moratorium on the death penalty, Gov. O'Malley has gone one step further and called for its abolition. While Gov. O'Malley's support will undoubtedly be crucial to any effort to abolish the death penalty, its opponents cannot help but notice that the strong efforts of Sen. Lisa Gladden in moving this issue forward.
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