“None of us is safe as long as there is a death penalty,” declared Ben Jealous, President of the NAACP, at our death penalty repeal press conference. 

          (Kirk Bloodsworth had made that very clear to me at breakfast.  An honorably discharged Marine with no criminal record, Kirk was sitting on Maryland’s death row for a murder he did not commit until DNA evidence freed him. )

           “We have a very simple request,” I said to the reporters and advocates.  “Give us a vote on repeal in both houses of the legislature.  A majority of senators and delegates want to end the death penalty.” 

             I ran into an NAACP official later in the day.  Ben Jealous will be returning to Annapolis to lobby for repeal.

             That’s more important than an eloquent statement at a press conference.

              Read the Baltimore Sun’s account of the press conference.