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Maryland executions expected to resume - Incoming GOP governor likely to lift moratorium
Associated Press ^ | January 15, 2003 | Associated Press Staff

Posted on 01/15/2003 2:27:28 AM PST by MeekOneGOP


Maryland executions expected to resume

Incoming governor likely to lift moratorium imposed by predecessor

01/15/2003

Associated Press

ROCKVILLE, Md. - Maryland's death penalty moratorium will almost certainly be lifted after Republican Gov.-elect Robert Ehrlich takes office Wednesday, opening the way for the execution of the state's 12 death-row inmates.

Mr. Ehrlich's administration and that of outgoing Democratic Gov. Parris Glendening, who imposed the moratorium in May, disagree on exactly when and how the moratorium officially ends, but Mr. Ehrlich has made it clear that he will end it. Death warrants could be signed within a few weeks for at least two inmates.

"Right now we're up approaching the wall. Pretty soon we'll be up against it," said Fred Warren Bennett, lawyer for inmate Steven Oken, who could face a death warrant when the moratorium ends.

Mr. Ehrlich's inauguration comes just days after the release of a state-commissioned study that shows racial and geographic disparities in how Maryland's prosecutors seek the death penalty.

Some state lawmakers want to extend the moratorium while they review the report, but Mr. Ehrlich, who campaigned against the moratorium, has indicated he does not believe the study's findings warrant any immediate changes in state law.

The moratorium is one of two in the nation. Illinois Republican Gov. George Ryan suspended executions three years ago, and his successor, Democrat Rod Blagojevich, has said he will continue the moratorium.

Maryland's Mr. Glendening said he would not follow the lead of Mr. Ryan, who commuted the sentences of all 167 of the state's death-row inmates two days before he left office.


Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dallas/nation/stories/011503dnnatdeathpenalty.52db9.html


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Maryland
KEYWORDS: deathpenalty; gop; gopgovernor; maryland


1 posted on 01/15/2003 2:27:28 AM PST by MeekOneGOP
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To: MeeknMing
Bump! Bob Ehrlich is no George Ryan!!!
2 posted on 01/15/2003 2:29:02 AM PST by goldstategop
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To: goldstategop
Bump! Bob Ehrlich is no George Ryan!!!

Yep. He pledges to let justice take its' course. That's a good thing for Maryland's residents.

Hopefully, the outgoing 'RAT is good for his word, too !

Maryland's Mr. Glendening said he would not follow the lead of Mr. Ryan, who commuted the sentences of all 167 of the state's death-row inmates two days before he left office.

3 posted on 01/15/2003 2:33:44 AM PST by MeekOneGOP (Just for grins: http://muffin.eggheads.org/images/funny/dogsmile.jpg)
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To: goldstategop
"Right now we're up approaching the wall. Pretty soon we'll be up against it," said Fred Warren Bennett, lawyer for inmate Steven Oken, who could face a death warrant when the moratorium ends.

Oken was sentenced to death by a Baltimore County jury in 1991 for killing Garvin in November 1987. He claimed to have amnesia when apprehended, but regained his memory after he was convicted of Garvin's murder. At his sentencing, defense therapists testified that he suffered from a rare case of sexual sadism.
What an amazing recovery ! < /sarcasm >

I found something else on this guy, I'll post to "All" on this thread to have mercy on your "my comments" page...

4 posted on 01/15/2003 2:48:50 AM PST by MeekOneGOP (Just for grins: http://muffin.eggheads.org/images/funny/dogsmile.jpg)
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To: All
"Right now we're up approaching the wall. Pretty soon we'll be up against it," said Fred Warren Bennett, lawyer for inmate Steven Oken, who could face a death warrant when the moratorium ends.

What an animal this creep is...

http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/Pending/02/mar02.htm

Date of scheduled execution State Victim name Inmate name Status
March 4, 2002 Maryland Dawn Marie Garvin, 20  Steven Oken stayed
Steven Oken was convicted in the Nov. 1, 1987, murder of Dawn Marie Garvin, a 20-year-old newlywed. Dawn was sexually assaulted, tortured, then shot twice in the head with a .25-caliber semiautomatic handgun. Posing variously as a police officer, a doctor with an emergency or a sheepish husband locked out of the house, Oken flagged down women driving alone and knocked on neighborhood doors asking to use the phone. On the night of Nov. 1, Oken made at least 2 such attempts before he bumped into Dawn Garvin, 20, a newlywed walking her dog. He asked to use the phone. She took him to her apartment. And he took out a gun. Over the next few hours, Oken made Dawn "beg for her life, cry, be terrified" and "forced sex upon her," a psychiatrist testified at trial. "He became sexually aroused" by her fear. Her father found her afterward. Garvin's husband, a Navy aircraft mechanic stationed in Virginia, called her parents about midnight, frantic that she wasn't answering the phone. Frederick J. Romano arrived at his daughter's apartment at 1:30 a.m. The door was ajar, lights blazing, television blaring. And in the bedroom, his daughter, naked but for a bloody pillow case yanked over her head. She had been raped and shot twice in the head. Before he left, Oken had tucked a teddy bear in her arms. Oken fantasized about killing again. He wrote out a list of things he would need: gags, chloroform, surgical gloves. A glass cutter. "Dark pantyhose to cover hair and face." A camera. Rope. On Nov. 15, Oken's sister-in-law, Patricia A. Hirt, 43, went to his home to return a camera. He raped her and beat her so badly that he left blood trails through the house. Then he shot her in the head and dumped her naked body in a drainage ditch on his way out of town. In Patricia's Mustang, Oken drove north through the night. In Kittery, Maine, he checked into the Coachman Motor Inn just off scenic Route 1. Lori E. Ward, 25, was working the front desk when Oken came from his room. She struggled, but he was too strong. He stuffed her panties in her mouth and pushed her to the floor. A coroner told Lori's family that Oken was still on top of her when he shot her in the head. Things happened fast after that. Oken fled north and checked into the Freeport Inn and Cafe, where a clerk noticed the mess in his hair. A state police tactical unit surrounded his room, and Oken surrendered the next day. When he finally was arrested, one woman's blood was spattered on his gun and brain tissue from another was smeared in his hair. At Oken's trial, a ballistics expert testified that a .25-caliber automatic handgun found in his home was the same gun that fired the shells discovered near Garvin's body. A small piece of rubber found near Garvin's television set also matched a hole in Oken's tennis shoe, according to an FBI expert. In January 1991, a jury took just three hours to sentence Oken to die for the murder of Dawn Marie Garvin. Oken received life sentences for Patricia's murder and the sexual assault of Dawn and another life sentence in Maine for Lori's murder. On death row, deep within the brick fortress of Maryland's Supermax prison, Oken taps away at a computer he hopes will save his life. "Most everybody in here has learned to use the computer to research the law," says Oken. "This is all we do is sit here and pick apart our cases. This is our life." Behind the bulletproof Plexiglas that guards their tier of wrought-iron cell doors, Maryland death row inmates have quietly become the 1st condemned prisoners in the nation to be allowed to use computers. Some of the state's most notorious murderers are spending as much as 5 hours a day using 4 personal computers to scroll through law libraries on CDs in the sterile, barely furnished area they call "the Death House." The death row computers don't have Internet connections. But even without e-mail and public access, they enable inmates to reach out -- and hit the raw nerves of relatives of those they killed. "I wish my daughter could have learned to use a computer," says Betty Romano of Millsboro, Del., whose 20-year-old daughter, Dawn Marie Garvin, was the 1st victim killed by Oken in November 1987. "There's justice that needs to be done. It's a miscarriage of justice to be giving a bunch of computers to horrible killers on death row so they can nit-pick about ways to delay the punishment they deserve." Frederick Romano, a Belcamp resident and brother of Dawn Garvin says all inmates but those on death row should have computer access. "I could agree with it if it was a guy who was going to get out someday and could benefit from learning how to use a computer," Romano says. "But these guys are going to be dead. They've already got a bunch of pricey lawyers working for them. The only things they should have in there are 4 walls, a toilet and a sink." Betty Romano founded a support group for families of murder victims, which consumed her completely until it disbanded in 1996. Then she fell into a deep depression from which she was able to recover only with medication. Two years ago, Romano and her husband moved from the Baltimore suburbs to the Delaware shore, to a beautiful gated community on Indian River Bay. But they still rely on pills, she said, "to take the pressure off and make things slide over your shoulders a lot easier."  When a death penalty moratorium was proposed in Maryland, Frederick Romano of Belcamp went to Annapolis with his family and a glossy 8-by-10-inch photograph of his sister, Dawn Garvin, in her wedding dress. "I want to show that the murderers aren't the victims," Romano said. "They're saying it's a racial issue, an economic issue. But [Oken] is white. He's rich. He's college-educated. This is just a way for these bleeding hearts to liberate these people."

5 posted on 01/15/2003 2:54:13 AM PST by MeekOneGOP (Just for grins: http://muffin.eggheads.org/images/funny/dogsmile.jpg)
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To: MeeknMing
Lets forever remember this "Republican," who in the end turned out to be just another crooked politican seeking to disguise his crimes


6 posted on 01/15/2003 3:02:00 AM PST by stlrocket
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To: stlrocket
That is a RINO. And a creep to boot. Thanks for posting that...
7 posted on 01/15/2003 3:06:12 AM PST by MeekOneGOP (Just for grins: http://muffin.eggheads.org/images/funny/dogsmile.jpg)
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8 posted on 01/15/2003 5:45:17 AM PST by Mo1 (Join the DC Chapter at the Patriots Rally III on 1/18/03)
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To: MeeknMing; Donald Stone; Joe Montana
Gov. Glenspending only has a few hours to go during which he can follow Ryan and commute sentences.
9 posted on 01/15/2003 8:21:18 AM PST by aristeides
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To: MeeknMing; aculeus; general_re; BlueLancer; hellinahandcart
Quote:
Oken received life sentences for Patricia's murder and the sexual assault of Dawn and another life sentence in Maine for Lori's murder. On death row, deep within the brick fortress of Maryland's Supermax prison, Oken taps away at a computer he hopes will save his life. "Most everybody in here has learned to use the computer to research the law," says Oken. "This is all we do is sit here and pick apart our cases. This is our life." Behind the bulletproof Plexiglas that guards their tier of wrought-iron cell doors, Maryland death row inmates have quietly become the 1st condemned prisoners in the nation to be allowed to use computers. Some of the state's most notorious murderers are spending as much as 5 hours a day using 4 personal computers to scroll through law libraries on CDs in the sterile, barely furnished area they call "the Death House."

10 posted on 01/15/2003 8:26:55 AM PST by dighton
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To: dighton
bttt...
11 posted on 01/15/2003 9:40:08 AM PST by MeekOneGOP (Just for grins: http://muffin.eggheads.org/images/funny/dogsmile.jpg)
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To: sauropod
Your state's looking a lot better this week. ;D
12 posted on 01/15/2003 9:43:25 AM PST by hellinahandcart
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