When Maryland held its first execution in more than three decades on May 17, it had the ideal candidate: a white multiple murderer who virtually volunteered for the death penalty.

But John F. Thanos, who killed three teen-agers during a week of crime in 1990, had little in common with the 14 men who remain on Maryland's death row.

They're fighting their executions, and they're expected once again to raise serious questions about racial and geographical bias in determining who gets the death penalty and why. Among the issues:

* Twelve of the 14 are black, although blacks represent only 25 percent of Maryland's population. National statistics on executions since 1976 show roughly the same disproportion.

* All but two were sentenced to die for killing whites, although blacks represent a disproportionate percentage of homicide victims. The two killers of blacks were involved in the same Prince George's County drug slaying -- with five victims.

* Ten of the 14 death penalty inmates committed their crimes in Baltimore County, a jurisdiction that has accounted for only 7 percent of Maryland's homicides since the death penalty was restored here in 1978. Two more Baltimore County inmates who once faced the death penalty hanged themselves in prison before their cases were resolved.

The racial and geographical disparities troubled the Governor's Commission on the Death Penalty when it issued its report last year. But the panel did not conclude that there was bias and dumped the issue on the General Assembly.

Those questions troubled some lawmakers, too. In April, black legislators and other death penalty opponents mustered enough votes to derail a Schaefer administration bill that would have shortened the death penalty appeals process.

"There's no question that the death penalty weighs heavily on the poor, the disadvantaged and black. This is acknowledged in every report that we read," said Sen. Decatur W. Trotter, a Prince George's Democrat who fought to speed up provisions.

But he and others failed to get an amendment allowing defendants to appeal death sentences on the basis of racial disproportion. A similar proposal in Congress, the Racial Justice Act, passed the House but failed in the Senate. It's now part of conference committee negotiations on the Omnibus Crime Bill. Opponents of the measures say they would virtually put an end to the death penalty.

While polls show public opinion overwhelmingly in favor of death sentences, judges and juries in Maryland seem less willing to hand them down now than they were during the 1980s.

Baltimore County has lost five of its last six attempts to get a death sentence. One of those lost cases involved the slayings of two Randallstown bank employees by robbers who forced them to lie on the floor of the vault and then shot them at point-blank range -- a crime that shocked and outraged the community.

In Baltimore City, a rare attempt to get the death sentence last year failed in an equally well-publicized case -- the rape, murder and robbery of a Franciscan nun in her North Baltimore convent.

County prosecutors did win the death penalty Friday in an 11-year-old case against drug dealer Anthony Grandison Jr., who engineered the 1983 contract killings of Scott Piechowicz and Susan Kennedy in a Pikesville motel. His original death sentence was overturned on appeal in 1992, but after a new sentencing trial last week, a Somerset County jury agreed that he should be executed.

While death penalty proponents and opponents argue over the statistics, they agree that death sentences are rare. With 6,605 homicides reported in Maryland from 1979 through 1992, prosecutors pursued the death penalty in only 104 trials, and only 14 of those resulted in death sentences that have been upheld so far.

One reason is that the vast majority of homicides don't qualify for the death penalty under Maryland law, which lists a variety of "aggravating" factors that elevate the crime to death penalty status.

Some involve the victim -- a law enforcement officer, a kidnap victim, a child, or multiple victims. Others involve the status of the defendant -- whether he was in prison, was trying to escape, was already under the death sentence, or whether he paid or was paid for the slaying.

The most frequently cited aggravating factor -- in more than half the cases -- was that the homicide occurred during a robbery, rape, arson, carjacking or other serious crime. The other reason the death penalty is so rare in Maryland is that a prosecutor must actively decide to seek it. Outside of Baltimore County, that seldom happens.

Baltimore County State's Attorney Sandra A. O'Connor, known as "the prosecutor who owns death row," said she asks for the death penalty in every homicide that qualifies under the law, as long as she can prove that the defendant was the actual killer without relying on finger-pointing by a co-defendant.

Ms. O'Connor said she doesn't worry about the strength of the case or about weighing aggravating factors against mitigating circumstances -- the test that determines life or death.

It's a policy that suits an overwhelmingly white, conservative and crime-conscious electorate that has kept her in office since 1975. Moreover, until recently, judges and juries have been more willing to return the death penalty in Baltimore County than elsewhere.

Only four other Maryland counties -- Allegany, Somerset, Wicomico and Worcester -- have the same policy, according to the Governor's Commission. In other jurisdictions, prosecutors say they weigh each case on its merits before deciding whether to seek a death sentence.

In Baltimore City, prosecutors struggle to keep up with a slaying-a-day homicide rate, and predominantly black juries are less likely to impose a penalty they believe has been used too often against blacks. Death penalty cases there are rare.

"We're prepared to present those crimes that cross the line, so that the state has the ultimate weapon to use in the ultimate crime," said Baltimore State's Attorney Stuart O. Simms.

"We take the case as it comes with respect to who the victims are, and where it occurs, and who commits the crime," he added, echoing prosecutors in other large jurisdictions. "It's a calculus -- unless you go to Baltimore County."

The only Baltimore City inmates on death row are John Marvin Booth, sentenced to die for the 1983 robbery and stabbing deaths of an elderly couple in their Northwest Baltimore home, and Flint Gregory Hunt, for the 1985 murder of Baltimore Police Officer Vincent Joseph Adolfo.

Prince George's County, which also has a black majority, averages more than 100 homicides a year. But State's Attorney Alexander Williams Jr. said he has asked for the death penalty only half a dozen times in his eight years in office.

"There's only a select few cases that you want to look at, particularly with the lack of resources," Mr. Williams said. "Generally, it's multiple deaths or particularly vicious acts."

The only Prince George's County inmates on death row, Kirk Bruce and Ian G. C. Henry, were convicted of murdering five people in a drug-related 1990 street shooting.

"I just recognize that the juries in this county are very reluctant to issue the death penalty, so they expect me as state's attorney to exercise that discretion to bring only the most heinous crimes to them," Mr. Williams said.

In Montgomery County, which has roughly the same homicide rate as Baltimore County but no death row inmates, State's Attorney Andrew L. Sonner said he's had a few cases recently that might have been eligible for the death penalty, but he hasn't sought it.

"Most of ours are barroom fights gone awry or domestic-related. Very few involve rape or robbery," he said.

While most murders fit Mr. Sonner's description of crimes between people who know each other, the governor's 1993 study and a similar 1962 report concluded that the death penalty was most likely when strangers committed homicide during another crime.

The Governor's Commission said it was concerned that consideration of other crimes "aggravates the danger that prosecutors and juries will take into account race or other impermissible factors."

It even considered eliminating aggravating felonies as a basis for the death penalty. But it ultimately concluded, "Murders by rapists and robbers [normally strangers who surprise and then silence their victims] arouse community fear and resentment and deserve the severest punishment."

The preponderance of Baltimore County death sentences also troubled commission members, who wrote: "A death sentence should be proportionate to the gravity of the murder committed and not dependent on its geographical location."

The differences arise from having 24 independently elected prosecutors, said Gary E. Bair, chief of the attorney general's criminal appeals division and chairman of the death penalty commission.

These policies are a problem, said Stuart Comstock-Gay, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland. "It's certainly an odd situation when, depending upon what county you commit a crime in, your sentence could be death or not death," he said.

The issue of race is also difficult. All prosecutors deny that they consider it in asking for the death penalty. They attribute the overwhelming presence of blacks on death row to the fact that young black men make up such a large proportion of the defendants they see.

"We don't really get into the race as much," said Mr. Williams in Prince George's. "It seems the only defendants who come before my system are young black males, so we really haven't had much of a chance."

Mr. Simms, who like Mr. Williams is black, says the preponderance of blacks on death row is a symptom of a general malady in society.

"This is a much larger problem than what some prosecutor does in some county -- much larger, much larger. It's as if the civil rights struggle stopped and . . . all of a sudden if there was problem, it was thrown into the criminal justice system, and it wasn't constructed to solve the problems of lack of jobs, education and social services," he said. "What we're seeing is the end product of a collection of failures."

Mr. Comstock-Gay of the ACLU says no one factor may be responsible -- but the net result is the same.

"You can't point the finger at anyone: 'You, Sandy O'Connor. You, judges. You, jurors.' But there's a little bit of effect at each step, so by the end you've got some real disturbing statistics."

DEATH PENALTY CASES

This table shows the number of homicides in large, metropolitan jurisdictions between Jan 1, 1978, and Dec. 31, 1992, the number of death penalty cases brought between July 1, 1978, and June 30, 1993, and the percentage of homicides that resulted in death penalty prosecutions.

Jurisdiction . Homicides . Death penalty sought .. % death penalty

Anne Arundel ... 254 ... .. ..... 6 ... ... ... ... ...... .... ..... ...... .. 2.4

Baltimore City . 3,647 ... .... 12 ... ... ... .. ....... ....... ...... ... 0.3

Baltimore Co. ... 452 .. .. ..... 37 ... ... ... ...... ...... ........ .. ... 8.2

Montgomery ... . 259 .. .. ...... 4 ... ... ........... ....... ....... .. ... 1.5

Prince George's 1,190 .. ..... 18 .. ... ....... ...... ........ ... .. ... 1.5

Statewide .. .. ... 6,605 .. ..... 104 ... ... ...... ....... ....... ... .. .. 1.6

Governor's Commission on the Death Penalty, 1993 report.