Baltimore Sun

Death-penalty protest focuses on Ehrlich

Dec 20 2002 

By Scott Calvert

The crowd was thin at yesterday's anti-capital punishment rally outside Maryland's brick death-row unit, but the message was meant for just one person anyway: Gov.-elect Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.

Speaking mainly to television cameras in downtown Baltimore, the 15 activists and family members of condemned men said they fear the Ehrlich administration will ignore a new study on the fairness of the state's death penalty.

The University of Maryland study, commissioned two years ago by Gov. Parris N. Glendening and paid for with $225,000 in state funds, is expected to be released soon. It will examine whether the death-penalty law is used fairly based on race and jurisdiction.

"I want them to listen and study it, not just forget about it," said Frances Evans, mother of death-row inmate Vernon Lee Evans, who was convicted in 1983 of killing two Baltimore motel clerks. "I'm just praying he will have some compassion."