USA - Gov. Martin O’Malley announced the appointment of former U.S. Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti to chair the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment.

Md. governor names panel to study death penalty. Gov. Martin O’Malley announced today the appointment of former U.S. Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti to chair the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment. The commission was established in the last legislative session to address several specific concerns, including racial, jurisdictional and socio-economic issues in the use of capital punishment in Maryland. The commission also will study the risk of an innocent person being executed. It addition, it will compare costs of "prolonged court cases involving capital punishment" with costs for life imprisonment without parole. The commission will issue a final report on its findings to the Maryland General Assembly by Dec. 15. Civiletti was attorney general from 1979 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter. O'Malley chose 13 of the 23 commission members. Four were chosen by House Speaker Michael Busch and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller. Five were selected by various legal and public safety agencies. Civiletti was chosen in a joint decision by O'Malley, Busch and Miller. The commission includes a variety of people, among them 3 relatives of murder victims and Kirk Bloodsworth, a former Maryland death row inmate whose case was the 1st capital conviction overturned as a result of DNA testing in the United States. Maryland currently has a de facto moratorium in place against capital punishment, because of a ruling on Dec. 19, 2006 (see) by the state's highest court. The court ruled the state's protocol for the lethal injection procedure was implemented without proper approval by a legislative committee. Executions can't resume until the O'Malley administration submits new rules for the committee to approve. O'Malley has directed the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Corrections to begin working on the protocol, a process that could be finished by the end of the year. Maryland currently has 5 men on death row. Only 5 inmates have been executed since Maryland reinstated the death penalty in 1978. Wesley Eugene Baker, who was put to death in December 2005, was the last person to be executed in Maryland.