Gov. Martin O’Malley tapped a former U.S. attorney general yesterday to lead a panel examining Maryland’s death penalty, opening another chapter in the state’s long-running legal and political drama over the issue.
Benjamin R. Civiletti, who served under President Jimmy Carter from 1979 to 1981, was introduced at an Annapolis news conference along with others chosen by O’Malley (D) and legislative leaders to serve on the 23-member Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment, which the General Assembly created this year.
The diverse group — which includes law-enforcement officials, religious leaders and family members of murder victims — is expected to make recommendations to the legislature before it reconvenes in January, and death penalty opponents try for the third year in a row since O’Malley’s arrival to abolish capital punishment.
“I think the legislature will be very interested in hearing from this commission,” said O’Malley, who has urged a deeply divided legislature to replace the death penalty with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Death penalty proponents did not criticize the commission directly yesterday but suggested that its aim was transparent.