Abolition in Maryland, which has executed more than 300 people, is important. It is the first state below the Mason-Dixon line to abolish the death penalty. The South accounts for 80 percent of the executions in the US.
Innocence, of course, is just one reason to end executions. The death penalty is punishment for the poor, disproportionately of color, reserved for those who cannot afford the best justice money can buy.
Encouragingly, death penalty sentencing is on the decline. Last year saw the second lowest number of new death sentences since 1976.
Faced with the inherent brutality of the death penalty, its violation of human rights, exorbitant cost, ineffectiveness, dysfunction and incessant risk of killing innocent people, other states will follow Maryland’s example.
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