The Democratic governor denounced capital punishment during a Senate committee hearing, calling it inaccurate, costly, racially biased and ineffective in deterring violent criminals. O’Malley, who has made the ban on capital punishment a top legislative priority this session, urged lawmakers to support a measure that makes life without the possibility of parole the state’s most severe punishment.
TRNS – UN Head Calls For Worldwide Abolition Of Death Penalty
By LUKE VARGAS
UNITED NATIONS (TRNS) – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has repeated his call for the global abolition of capital punishment at a meeting of activists gathered this week in Geneva.
In a statement read to a meeting of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty (ICDP), Ban described the death penalty as, “too absolute, too irreversible, for one human being to inflict on another, even when backed by legal process.”
The United Nations has held four General Assembly votes on a non-binding death penalty moratorium since 2007. Each vote has seen a gradual increase in the number of countries in favor of ending capital punishment. Ban Ki-moon said such progress “echoes in every region and across legal systems, traditions, customs and religious backgrounds.”
The latest proposed moratorium received a General Assembly vote in December 2012, with 111 countries backing the moratorium and 41 opposed. Among the notable parties voting against the motion were the United States, China, Japan, and India.
41 countries, including the United States, voted against the December 2012 U.N. resolution calling for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty.
NY Times Opinion – Stepping Back From Capital Punishment
By MOHAMMED BEDJAOUI, RUTH DREIFUSS and FEDERICO MAYOR
Published: February 20, 2013
In December, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly for a global moratorium on the death penalty. This fourth such vote in five years was supported by a record 111 nations.
Yet in the first month of 2013, Saudi Arabia beheaded nine people. In recent weeks, Yemen has sentenced a juvenile offender to death, fueling hunger strikes by scores of imprisoned children. Iran has reportedly begun imposing death sentences for petty criminals accused of robbery.
Elsewhere, a court in Indonesia, where there have been no state executions since 2008, sentenced a British grandmother to death for drug trafficking — reportedly to gasps of disbelief in the courtroom. Zimbabwe has hired a hangman after seven years of searching, while Sri Lanka, which has not carried out an execution since 1976, has reportedly recruited two executioners who are undergoing special training.
In the United States, the trend is toward fewer executions and death sentences, with more states repealing the death penalty. Nevertheless, in 2012 there were 43 executions and 77 death sentences.
Such developments make for grim reading. However, we at the International Commission against the Death Penalty — an independent body opposed to capital punishment in all cases — remain hopeful. It is clear that the world is becoming an increasingly lonely place for states that practice executions.
Gov. O’Malley urges state lawmakers to repeal death penalty in Maryland
By Associated Press, Published: February 14
“The death penalty is expensive, and the overwhelming evidence tells us that it does not work,” O’Malley told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “In 2011, the average murder rate in states where death is a penalty was 4.9 for every 100,000 people. In states without it, the murder rate was lower, at 4.1 per the top 100,000 people.”