PENA MORTE: USA, DIMEZZATI CONDANNATI NEL MARYLAND

DA 2002 MORATORIA ESECUZIONI, MA SEMPRE PIU' ERGASTOLI

WASHINGTON, 6 FEB - In poco piu' di tre anni, il braccio della morte del Maryland ha perso meta' dei suoi ospiti: da 18 a 9. Alla diminuzione e' estraneo il boia. Nessuno e' stato messo a morte negli ultimi anni nello stato, dove dal 2002 e' scattata una moratoria sulle esecuzioni.

Nessuno dei condannati e' stato comunque esonerato dagli omicidi per cui sono stati condannati a morte. La spiegazione va invece cercata nel numero sempre piu' frequente di condannati che vedono commutata, nei vari appelli, la loro condanna a morte nel carcere a vita, senza possibilita' di riduzione della pena.

Molte famiglie delle vittime, davanti alla prospettiva di dover riaprire dolorose ferite con nuovi processi, non si oppongono alla trasformazione delle condanne a morte in ergastolo dopo aver ricevuto la garanzia che i detenuti non usciranno mai piu' di prigione.

E' una tendenza non limitata al Maryland. Negli Stati Uniti il numero delle nuove condanne a morte e' dimezzata dal 1999 ad oggi: dalle 279 condanne del 1999 si e' passati alle 139 del 2003. Stanno diminuendo anche le esecuzioni: dalle 98 del 1999 si e' giunti alle 65 dell'anno scorso.

Il fatto che ogni anno il numero delle nuove condanne superi quello delle esecuzioni non ha portato pero' ad un aumento delle presenze nei bracci della morte. A causa delle revisioni dei casi (spesso con l'aiuto dei test DNA) e delle sentenze capitali (con commutazioni nel carcere a vita senza possibilita' di riduzione della pena), il numero dei detenuti in attesa del boia e' diminuito dai 3709 del 2001 ai 3504 del 2003, grazie soprattutto al contributo dell'Illinois, dove il governatore uscente ha salvato 171 condannati a morte, commutando le condanne nel carcere a vita.

MARYLAND: A Shrinking Death Row -- Rulings Contribute to Md. Decline, Reflecting U.S. Trend

The number of inmates on Maryland's death row has fallen by half in less than 3 1/2 years, and after a court hearing yesterday on the Eastern Shore, their ranks dropped into the single digits for the 1st time since the 1980s.

Neither executions nor exonerations account for the decrease from 18 to 9. The state has not put anybody to death since 1998, and no one confronting that possibility back then has walked out of prison because of exculpatory evidence such as DNA.

Rather, the slow but steady attrition has been driven by a combination of other factors, from reversals in the cases to the impact of court rulings elsewhere. Victims' families, emotionally frayed by the years of appeals, have told prosecutors not to seek death in instances where inmates win resentencing. Life in prison without parole, a sentence not available to judges and juries in the past, has diverted some defendants who might have gotten the ultimate sanction.

The trend in Maryland reflects a nationwide decline in executions and the death row population in the past 5 years. Preliminary data indicate that 50 % fewer capital sentences were handed down in 2003 compared with 1999, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a D.C.-based organization that is critical of the system .

Even in Virginia, which once placed 2nd only to Texas in executions annually, a shift has occurred. The state put to death just two people last year. None of the 27 men and 1 woman currently facing that fate there has an execution date on the calendar.

Law professor Scott Sundby of Washington and Lee University considers the turnaround stunning. "If you'd talked to me 5 or 6 years ago, I would have predicted a steady escalation in sentencing and particularly in the execution rate. But clearly that's not happened," he said. "The crosscurrents, like El Nio, have changed, and they've dramatically changed the climate."

The case of Kenneth Collins, who yesterday escaped a death sentence in favor of life plus 40 years, illustrates how those currents can carry lives in different directions. Collins, 29, was found guilty of robbing and murdering Wayne Breeden after the young bank executive withdrew money from a Baltimore County automated teller machine in 1986. All efforts to appeal the conviction were denied at state and federal levels.

Then last June, the U.S. Supreme Court threw out the sentence of another Maryland inmate, Kevin Wiggins, because his trial attorney failed to adequately investigate a horrific childhood that might have swayed a jury against capital punishment. The decision had immediate implications for Collins, whose original attorney called no witnesses at any point in his trial and did no background check for similar mitigating details.

At his hearing in Somerset County, where the case was moved because of pretrial publicity nearly 16 years ago, Circuit Court Judge Daniel Long denied Collins's petition for a new trial but agreed to resentence him. Prosecutors, in deference to Breeden's family, did not push for death. His widow and daughter, an infant when her father was killed, did not want to endure another round of the protracted, agonizing uncertainty that attends capital cases.

"We certainly told them it could be another 16 years," said Baltimore County Deputy State's Attorney Stephen Bailey. "The family has been steadfast in their desire to see justice meted out, but this puts you back to square one."

It was the 2nd time in less than 2 months that the Baltimore County office, which pursues more capital convictions than any in the state, had agreed to a reduced sentence because of relatives' change of heart. In late December, Courtney Bryant, a former death row inmate, received life in prison with no possibility of parole for the fatal 2000 stabbing and beating of James Stambaugh Jr., 21, a fast-food manager. Bryant's sentence had been overturned on appeal, with the state's highest court finding that the trial judge should have more specifically accounted for the defendant's age at the time of the crime. He was 18. Many relatives, Stambaugh's father among them, "simply lose faith that the system will carry out a sentence they believe was justly imposed," Bailey said. Yet death penalty detractors such as Peter Keith, a former prosecutor who now represents Collins, believe the cases at issue have "serious problems."

Eugene Winder, who in 1998 bludgeoned his fiancee and her grandparents and then torched their house, was spared when the state Court of Appeals concluded that he had been coerced into confessing. Joseph Metheny benefited when the same justices determined that there was insufficient evidence to convict him of robbing his victim; without the robbery charge as an aggravating circumstance in the slaying, the death penalty no longer applied.

Eugene Colvin-el remains the single Maryland death row inmate in the group to have his sentence commuted. Supporters contended that prosecutors had only circumstantial evidence linking him to the 1980 slaying of an elderly Florida woman who had been visiting her daughter in Pikesville for the Jewish high holy days. Then-Gov. Parris N. Glendening (D) intervened a week before the scheduled execution in June 2000.

"I believe that Colvin-el committed this crime," Glendening announced, "but I do not have the same level of absolute certainty" as in other clemency pleas he had considered -- and rejected.

Only two men have joined death row since June 2000, and with the subtractions far exceeding additions, the roster has shrunk sharply. One additional departure, through lethal injection, could be Steven Oken. His attorneys concede he is nearing the end of appeals in the 1987 rape and murder of a Baltimore County newlywed.

The census could rebound. Wiggins and another prisoner set for resentencing in Anne Arundel County might again receive death. Baltimore's 1st capital trial in 6 years began last week, in the alleged retaliatory killing of a city police officer.

Still, no one expects a significant influx of death row prisoners.

"I think that's light-years away," said Michael Stark, the Washington and Maryland regional director of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. "At this point, it is just as likely that we could get abolition."

The legislative debate continues in Maryland and Virginia, surprisingly so given the two states' vastly different histories. Virginia's General Assembly is weighing whether to make it easier for felons to bring new evidence into court and whether to ban the execution of minors. In Annapolis, lawmakers not only are proposing repeal of the death penalty but measures to expand its use to those who commit serial killings or who silence a witness through murder.

Kent Scheidegger, of the pro-death-penalty Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in California, believes that nationally, the "fatigue factor" that follows repeatedly delayed executions will fade once issues and appeals play out. The drop in the country's homicide rate is as likely an influence as any in the decreased sentencings, he said, adding, "That's the kind of reduction in the death penalty I like to see."

Other experts predict that things will stay unsettled. The judicial system is feeling its way far more cautiously, they suggest. It could be further buffeted when the Supreme Court hears arguments this fall on whether juveniles should be excluded from death sentences, as it found for the mentally retarded 2 years ago. With so much in flux, "things get put in a holding pattern," said Maryland Solicitor General Gary Bair.

The court of public opinion also will have an impact. A University of Maryland study last year identified racial and geographic disparities in the state's system, concerns that in 2002 prompted Glendening to impose a moratorium on executions. Headlines about DNA-related exonerations underscore unease about fairness. And in one of the biggest stories of 2003, then-Gov. George Ryan of Illinois overturned all capital sentences there for fear that innocent people might be executed.

"It's such a complex issue, with so many legal, political and public relations dimensions," law professor Sundby said. "A major development in any of these areas can dramatically alter where you think the trend is going."