FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: CJ Frogozo, CJ@FitzGibbonMedia.com, 310 570 2622

On Friday, the Maryland House of Delegates voted by a strong margin to repeal the death penalty. The vote marked the first time the full chamber debated capital punishment since the practice was reinstated in 1978.

“We commend the Maryland General Assembly for standing on the right side of history with their decision to repeal the death penalty. ColorOfChange members understand that race and geography far too often decide which defendants are sentenced to death. It is clear that there is a pattern of blatant racial prejudice in our application of capital punishment. We applaud the leadership of Governor Martin O’Malley on this important civil and human rights issue and look forward to seeing him sign the repeal into law,“ said ColorOfChange Executive Director Rashad Robinson.

“The ColorOfChange community will continue to fight the death penalty state-by-state where this inhumane and racist punishment still exists,” he continued.

Beginning in December, Maryland ColorOfChange members signed a petition calling on the General Assembly to vote in favor of the proposed legislation to repeal the death penalty. The Maryland ColorOfChange community generated more than 1000 petition signatures and dozens of phone calls from members to Senators and Delegates across the state.

“ColorOfChange is tremendously thankful for the work of MD CASE, the NAACP, Equal Justice USA, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP), Amnesty International, MomsRising.org and numerous other advocates who have fought tirelessly against the state’s death penalty for years,” concluded Robinson.

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With more than 850,000 members, ColorOfChange.org is the nation’s largest online civil rights organization.