Data hint at race bias

By Howard Libit, Sun staffPreliminary studies of Maryland's death penalty suggest enough racial bias that the state should wait for further analysis before carrying out more executions, researchers told a Senate committee in Annapolis yesterday."If the legislature was to be confident of knowing whether race affects the imposition of death sentences, it would be prudent to wait until you see the results," said David C. Baldus, a law professor at the University of Iowa College of Law.Yesterday's hearing before the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee marked the first public discussion before the General Assembly this year of a proposal to suspend executions in Maryland until July 2003.The moratorium would last until a study by the University of Maryland, College Park is completed on whether the death penalty is unfairly imposed on African-Americans. Executions could resume after the Assembly had time to consider the study's results in its 2003 session