A vote of conscience can decide the abolition of the death penalty, current from 1978 in the state of Maryland. In the next days, or in the first legislative days of 2009, the Legislative Assembly of the state will determine if the capital punishment is eradicated or continues in validity. Recently, a commission of experts shaped by the current democratic governor Martin O'Malley voted (for 13 to 7) recommending the abolition, on having considered not only the risk of executing an innocent person but also his possible racist implications.

As it shows it is enough a button: a court of Maryland sentenced to the death penalty Kirk Bloodsworth for a murder registered in 1993; nevertheless, Bloodsworth turned into the first prisoner of the United States in being set free like result of a new test of DNA, which determined that he had not committed the violation and murder that motivated the judgment. After 10 years, finally the district attorney of the county of Baltimore (MD) used the DNA evidence to find in 2003 the real killer.

The opponents to the capital punishment also affirm that there is “arbitrarinesses and clear racial disparity” in the judicial system. They support that although 65 per cent of the victims of murders in Maryland are of African American origin, in 30 years five persons were executed in this state, “and all the victims were white”. At present, there are another five persons in the called “pavilion of the death”, who have appealed to the capital punishment that was imposed on them … “and in all these cases also all the victims were white”.

In these moments there are good possibilities that the abolition turns into a fact, then for that a committee of the state Senate voted in against days behind. Let's hope, of course, that the Legislative Assembly of Maryland should evaluate with serenity the circumstances earlier noted down at the moment of the decisive final voting.