death penalty

The Teflon Two? O'Malley and Brown make it through another rough story with barely a scratch on them, giving their staff another dry-run in crisis management. Plus, John Leopold gets stuck holding a $100,000 bill in the days of belt-tightening budgets.

Find it here, in Maryland's Winners and Losers for May 23, 2008. | CLICK HERE

Gov. Martin O'Malley: Getty Images PhotoGov. Martin O'Malley (D) said in a statement today that he has "directed the Secretary of Public Safety and Correctional Services to begin the rule-making process governing the administration of capital punishment in the state of Maryland."

Coming one-month after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the administration of capital punishment by the use of lethal injection did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, O'Malley said that case "resolves challenges to the constitutionality of using lethal injection as a method of capital punishment, the method specified by Maryland law."

In March, during the legislative session, House Republicans, led by Minority Leader Anthony J. O'Donnell, called on O'Malley to issue new death penalty regulations, claiming his refusal to do so was in violation of state law.

Allow me to join the round of boos…I mean, editorial boards in calling out Governor Martin O’Malley (D) for not doing anything about the death penalty. First in The Washington Times, whose editorial board states, “Unlike his Virginia counterpart [Gov. Tim Kaine (D)] who has decided to uphold the law, Mr. O’Malley has chosen to snooker it. We understand that an untold number of Americans and politicians wrestle with the morality of the death penalty. But Mr. O'Malley must understand, too, that the law is the law, and he has sworn to uphold the U.S. Constitution and Maryland state law.”

The Capital editorial board who clearly states that they are for what the people want, if they want to repeal the death penalty, but “[they] do have a problem with endless procrastination, legalistic nitpicking and waiting on the outcome of jury rigged studies.” It should be noted that they started off by saying that Maryland is on its way to being a symbolic state. I thought we were already there with all of the official state “stuff” we have on the symbol list.

In any event, O’Malley is showing the same lackadaisical attitude that was on display when it came to the budget last year. We were facing a budget deficit that ranged from $1.3-1.7 billion dollars. Instead of jumping into looking at what he could do budget wise to lessen the blow for the following year, he took a wait and see approach while attempting to fire the alleged incompetent and consumer hating Public Service Commission to bring on his own alleged professional, competent and consumer friendly PSC in hopes of rolling back the BGE rate hikes. By the way, how did that go and how much more money did he give Steve Larsen?