USA - Maryland. Gov. Martin O'Malley's effectively extends a de facto moratorium

Gov. Martin O'Malley's administration announced that it was withdrawing proposed lethal injection rules from consideration by a legislative panel, a move that effectively extends a de facto moratorium on capital punishment in Maryland. The announcement was made on the same day that lawmakers who oppose the death penalty vowed to push again for repeal. In a letter to the legislative panel's two leaders, a top state official wrote that he needs to review the regulations, or protocols, because a lethal injection drug is no longer available for purchase in the United States. "I will resubmit the regulations to you after the conclusion of this review," Gary Maynard, secretary of the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, wrote in a letter dated Wednesday. Maynard, who said he received advice from the attorney general's office, did not specify how long the review would take. The state's highest court ruled in December 2006 that executions can't proceed in Maryland until the lethal injection rules are adopted by state lawmakers. O'Malley favors repealing the death penalty in the state. Rick Binetti, a public safety department spokesman, said he could not provide a timeline for when the administration would send revised regulations back to the General Assembly's Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive and Legislative Review. Delegate Anne Healey, a Prince George's County Democrat who co-chairs the panel, said committee members will have to wait until the regulations are revised. "Once they rewrite the regs, they'll have to publish them again, have a public comment period again, send them to the committee again, and then we'll review them again to see if they've addressed all the issues and go on from there," said Healey. She and the panel's other chair, Sen. Paul Pinsky, D-Prince George's, oppose capital punishment.