Two CARDINALS have urged the governor of the US state of Maryland to impose a two-year freeze on the death penalty, while a study of its fairness is conducted.
Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington and Cardinal William Keeler wrote to Governor Parris Glendinning saying that a moratorium on capital punishment would "prudently stay the risk that biased death-penalty processes might have tainted the trials or appeals of current death-row inmates".
The cardinals' appeal came just three days after the Maryland General Assembly adjourned for the year without enacting a moratorium and the same day that a state court decision effectively delayed several possible executions for at least several months.