About a dozen activists rallied in the bone-chilling cold outside the State House Thursday to support legislation removing Maryland's governor from the decision-making process of granting parole to prisoners serving life sentences.
The legislation, which was scheduled for a Senate hearing later Thursday, would leave that call up to the state parole commission.
Maryland is one of three states where the governor -- not the parole board -- makes the final decision on whether to free a lifer. According to the Maryland American Civil Liberties Union, which organized the rally, Maryland's three previous governors have refused as a matter of policy to grant such paroles.
"It's politics. Nobody wants to be the next Michael Dukakis," said former lifer Stanley Mitchell of Waldorf, who was freed in 2012 after a court decided his Baltimore murder trial was unfair. Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, was soundly defeated after being attacked in ads for his decision as governor of Massachusetts to allow work release for Willie Horton, who escaped and committed rape and burglary in Maryland.
The activists expressed hope that Gov. Larry Hogan would re-examine the "life means life" policy adopted by Gov. Parris N. Glendening in the 1990s.
Del. Curt Anderson, a Baltimore Democrat who is a co-sponsor of the bill, said the legislation would allow the state to shrink its prison system.
"Other states are doing this and saving money," he said.
Advocates said the parole commissioners would not release prisoners indiscriminately. They said its members get to know the lifers -- sometimes over many years -- and set high standards for them to win release.
"Those people on the parole board, they're not soft," said Mitchell, who was recommended for release several times before his court-ordered release.