Capital punishment in Maryland

[1] The death penalty had been in use in the state or, more precisely, its predecessor colony since June 20, 1638, when two men were hanged for piracy in St. Mary's County.

The "Death Row" for men was in the North Branch Correctional Institution in Western Maryland's Cumberland area.

It was not uncommon for photographers to capture the final moments of a Maryland convict and offer these photos for sale following the execution.

It was designed to get rid of "the curious mobs that frequent hangings taking place in the counties of this State, and who attempt to make public affairs of the same."

The first indoor hanging in the state, would come before this time though, with an execution on January 3, 1913, in the Baltimore City Jail, which only had invited guests present.

As such, the Maryland legislature took the route which the Supreme Court had found acceptable in Gregg v. Georgia and introduced bifurcated trials, where the jury first decided guilt and then punishment, mandatory appellate review, and the weighing of aggravating and mitigating circumstances.

The first person to be sentenced to death under Maryland's current statute was Richard Danny Tichnell, who was found guilty of murdering Garrett County Sheriff's Deputy David Livengood in 1979.

A fourth jury declined to impose the death penalty, and Tichnell died in 2006 of natural causes while serving a life sentence.

"[9] On March 6, 2013, the Maryland State Senate voted 27–20 in favor of SB 276, a bill to repeal the death penalty for future offenders.

[10] On March 15, 2013, the House approved the legislation by an 82–56 vote and sent the bill to Governor Martin O'Malley, who then signed it into law on May 2, 2013, declaring Maryland the 18th state in the US to ban the death penalty.

[14] O'Malley announced on December 31, 2014, that he would commute the sentences of the four remaining death-row inmates to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Dustin Higgs, a man sentenced to death by the United States federal government in 2000, was executed on January 16, 2021.

Maryland House of Delegates Speaker Adrienne A. Jones had urged Governor Larry Hogan to intervene and push for a halt to the execution.