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3772
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VETOES
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Court of Appeals; changing the form of an indictment
for first degree murder; eliminating review of death
penalty cases by a panel of trial judges; and
generally relating to first degree murder and the
death penalty in Maryland.
May 26, 1977
Honorable Steny H. Hoyer
President of the Senate
State House
Annapolis, Maryland 21404
Dear Mr. President:
In accordance with Article II, Section 17 of the
Maryland Constitution, I have today vetoed Senate Bill
106.
This bill rewrites the State law on capital
punishment, which has been declared unconstitutional by
the Court of Appeals, in order to conform it to the
requirements enunciated by the United States Supreme
Court and the Maryland Court of Appeals. In short, it is
an attempt to make the death penalty an optional sentence
for certain types of first degree murder that can and
will be implemented.
I believe, with unequivocal conviction, that the
death penalty should be part of the Maryland law,
available as a sentence for particular types of first
degree murder. When, in 1972, the Supreme Court decided
Furman v. Georgia, 408 D. S. 238, causing our Court of
Appeals, in Bartholomey v. State, 267 Md. 175, to declare
the then current State law unconstitutional, I sponsored
a bill to restore capital punishment in accordance with
the requirements set down by the Court of Appeals.
In 1976, the Supreme Court wrote new Constitutional
parameters for the death penalty, again causing the Court
of Appeals, in Blackwell v. State, 278 Md. 466, to
invalidate the law drafted in accordance with its prior
decision.
I then asked the Attorney General to work with my
office to prepare a bill that would clearly conform to
the underlying Constitutional requirements, that would be
free from ambiguity and interpretive problems, and that
could be effectively administered. After a great deal of
work, such a bill was drafted and introduced as an
Administration measure in both houses of the General
Assembly.
The Legislature chose to ignore the Administration
bill, however, and long and careful work that had gone
into its preparation, and instead passed Senate Bill 106.
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