Maryland commutes last four death row sentences to life

Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley has commuted the
sentence of the state's four remaining death row inmates to
life in prison.
The state's legislature ended the death penalty in 2012,
making the highest sentence life in prison without parole.
Mr O'Malley said executing the remaining inmates "does not
serve the public good of the people of Maryland".
He added he had spoken to many of the relatives of those
killed by the inmates before making the decision.
The state's outgoing attorney general recently argued during
an appeals hearing on one of the cases that it would be illegal
for Maryland to carry out death sentences previously handed
down because there is no law that allows capital punishment.
"The question at hand is whether any public good is served by
allowing these essentially un-executable sentences to stand,"
Mr O'Malley said.
Failing to act would "needlessly and callously subject
survivors, and the people of Maryland, to the ordeal of an
endless appeals process".
Capital punishment in the US is at a 20-year low, with 35
people killed by execution across in the US in 2014, down from
a high of 98 in 1999.
Of the seven states that performed executions, three of them -
Missouri, Texas and Florida - are responsible for the vast
majority of executions.
In some states, fewer prosecutors are seeking the death
penalty during trial.
Many executions have been put on hold amid difficulties in
obtaining lethal injection drugs and several botched
executions.
US execution by numbers
Currently, 35 US states use lethal injection as the primary
method of execution - this includes three states which
have stopped handing down the death penalty but still
have prisoners on death row
In some states a person sentenced to death may choose
an alternative form of execution
Eight US states allow electrocution, three allow the gas
chamber, another three allow hanging, two allow the firing
squad
The last time an inmate was executed by a means other
than lethal injection was in January 2013, when a 42-year-
old man was electrocuted in Virginia

Source-Bbc