I had given the speech in my head countless times.

This is what I said during yesterday’s floor debate on the death penalty.

Earlier today, each of us passed the Thurgood Marshall statue on our way into the State House.

In addition to Marshall, there is a statue of Donald Gaines Murray.

He attended the segregated Douglass High School and went out of state for college.

He wanted to attend his home state’s law school, which had denied Marshall admission.

Marshall sued the school and won admission for Murray.

But Murray was not his only client.

He also represented James Gross, accused of the murder of a gas station owner in Prince George’s County.

Gross was sentenced to death by hanging.  Marshall asked the Governor to commute the sentence, but he did not.

Marshall brought his experience with capital punishment to the Supreme Court.

As a Justice, he wrote, “The American people, fully informed as to the purposes of the death penalty and its liabilities, would in my view reject it as morally unacceptable.”

The people of Maryland are now fully informed about the death penalty and its flaws.  And so are we as their elected representatives.

Afterwards, a reporter asked for my reaction.

“We’re a better state for ending the death penalty,” I said.

It was spontaneous, and it is true.