Time to look death in the eye

The governor and legislative leaders have appointed a high-powered task force to study Maryland’s death penalty law and recommend what the state should do about it.

It’s about time.

Maryland has had a virtual ban on executions since December 2006, not because the governor or legislature decided that should happen but because the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, declared that the procedures for giving lethal injections had not been adopted properly.

The court did its job, interpreting the law as it saw fit. Now it’s time for Gov. Martin O’Malley and the legislature to do their job.

An opponent of capital punishment, the governor has urged the General Assembly to adopt instead a maximum penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Death penalty opponents have failed to pass such a law during the two legislative sessions since O’Malley was elected.

Despite the stalemate, O’Malley persuaded the 2008 assembly to create the newly appointed study commission. He also said in May that he had asked officials to start drafting new regulations for lethal injections.

Both the study commission’s recommendations and the proposed new regulations should be ready by the time the legislature convenes again in January.

Feelings run very strong on the issue of capital punishment, as they should. There is no governmental decision more sensitive than the decision to sanction taking a life. That decision should be studied fully and debated fully, but then it should be made. That’s what elected officials are elected to do.