Death Penalty

ANNAPOLIS ? While rounding up support for the death penalty on Wednesday, two relatives of slain Smithsburg Police Officer Christopher Shane Nicholson ran into Gov. Martin O'Malley outside the State House and chatted with him. The chance encounter led to O'Malley mentioning them at the start of his State of the State address. They might not have found a like mind in O'Malley, but Kimmy Armstrong and Carole Ingram - Nicholson's aunt and great aunt - said they thanked the governor for coming to Nicholson's funeral.

By DAVE McMILLION Staff Writer, Martinsburg MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - An Arkansas prosecutor announced Friday he will seek the death penalty for two Eastern Panhandle brothers accused in the January slaying of a truck driver, court officials said. An FBI agent investigating the crime predicts support for the death penalty because of the "viciousness" of the Jan. 30 killing of the 71-year-old truck driver at an Arkansas rest stop. The prosecutor in Morrilton, Ark., made his request during the brothers' arraignment hearing on murder charges, according to court officials.

By RICHARD F. BELISLE Staff Writer CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. - Franklin County District Attorney John F. Nelson will ask for the death penalty in the case of Albert E. Reid, who has been charged with shooting to death his estranged wife and stepdaughter as they slept next to several young children. Nelson said he will ask the jury to sentence Reid to death because the case meets the state's requirements for aggravated circumstances. Reid has been charged with criminal homicide in the shootings of Carla Reid, 36, of 2204 Sollenberg Road, Chambersburg, and her daughter and Reid's stepdaughter, Diedra L. Moore, 14, while they slept in their beds with young children during the night of Dec. 27, 1996, according to court records.

ELLICOTT CITY, MD. ? Prosecutors on Tuesday tried to convince a judge that the man who talked with a correctional officer about "Star Wars" before shooting him in the face with the officer's own gun deserves the death penalty. Brandon T. Morris was convicted Friday of first-degree murder, first-degree felony murder during a robbery and first-degree felony murder during an escape in the death of Roxbury Correctional Institution Officer Jeffery A. Wroten. The verdict handed Morris by a Howard County Circuit Court jury means he could be sentenced to death.

The attorneys for an inmate accused of shooting and killing a correctional officer at Washington County Hospital asked Friday that the court strike the death penalty as a sentencing option if their client is convicted of first-degree murder. Read the full story in Thursday's Herald-Mail newspapers.

Reno decides against seeking death penalty in W.Va. case By BOB PARTLOW / Staff Writer, Martinsburg MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - Attorney General Janet Reno has decided not to authorize the U.S. Attorney's Office to seek the federal death penalty against three people charged in the 1999 murder of a Berkeley County woman. "I can confirm we will not be seeking the death penalty," said Fawn Thomas, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office. She said she had no details and no documents had yet been filed at the federal courthouse here Tuesday afternoon.

ANNAPOLIS - Gov. Martin O'Malley said Thursday that he'd sign a bill repealing Maryland's death penalty, a bill that sponsors plan to introduce by this morning's session. "Yeah, I sure would," O'Malley said during a State House interview. "We're wasting a lot of money pursuing a policy that doesn't work to reduce crime or to save lives when we could be putting that money into crime reduction. I'm much more in favor of life without parole. " The lead sponsors - Sen. Lisa A. Gladden and Del. Samuel I. "Sandy" Rosenberg, both Baltimore City Democrats - on Thursday called the death penalty an unreliable, expensive, biased and immoral form of punishment.

ANNAPOLIS - A proposed repeal of Maryland's death penalty failed Thursday when a Washington County representative cast a key vote of opposition. The Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee's vote was 5-5. At least six votes in favor were needed for the bill to pass. The committee's 11th member, Sen. Nancy Jacobs, R-Cecil/Harford, a death penalty supporter, was absent because of a death in her family. With 10 on the committee evenly split, Sen. Alex X. Mooney, who is Catholic, was considered to have the deciding vote.

ANNAPOLIS - House Republicans on Thursday renewed their push to keep Maryland's death penalty and for Gov. Martin O'Malley to remove an obstacle so it may be carried out. Shortly before a death-penalty repeal bill was heard in a House committee, Republicans called on O'Malley, a Democrat, to fix a technical problem that prevents Maryland from actually executing anyone sentenced to die. The state has effectively had a death-penalty moratorium for...

WASHINGTON COUNTY - The stepfather of a slain Smithsburg police officer is urging local state lawmakers to support the death penalty and impose it as quickly as possible. Paul Highbarger wrote to Sen. Alex X. Mooney, R-Frederick/Washington, who cast the deciding vote last year against a death penalty repeal. In his letter, Highbarger called Gov. Martin O'Malley's support of a death-penalty repeal "wrong" and said constituents want "the death penalty to be utilized, more effectively.