Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley has commuted the capital sentence of the state's four remaining death row inmates to life in prison in one of his final acts as governor of the state, New York Daily News reported.
The outgoing Democrat stated that leaving the death sentences in place "does not serve the public good of the people of Maryland," according to a statement released on Wednesday. Before making the decision, the potential 2016 presidential candidate had spoken to family members of those killed by the inmates.
"The question at hand is whether any public good is served by allowing these essentially un-executable sentences to stand," he said.
"Gubernatorial inaction - at this point in the legal process - would, in my judgment, needlessly and callously subject survivors, and the people of Maryland, to the ordeal of an endless appeals process, with unpredictable twists and turns, and without any hope of finality or closure."
In 2012, O'Malley helped shepherd in the abolition of the death penalty in his state, arguing that it wasn't a deterrent for criminals and could end up being applied to innocent people, which was far more costly to the state than other punishments, according to The Huffington Post.
However even though the state legislature ended the death penalty and changed the highest sentence to life in prison without parole two years ago, it failed to include four people in Maryland who had already been convicted of murder and were slated to remain on death row.
It would be illegal to carry out prior sentences in the absence of an existing statute, O'Malley noted in his statement citing a recent discussion with the state's attorney general.
"In the final analysis, there is one truth that stands between and before all of us. That truth is this - few of us would ever wish for our children or grandchildren to kill another human being or to take part in the killing of another human being. The legislature has expressed this truth by abolishing the death penalty in Maryland," he said.
"For these reasons, I intend to commute Maryland's four remaining death sentences to life without the possibility of parole," he continued. "It is my hope that these commutations might bring about a greater degree of closure for all of the survivors and their families."
Meanwhile, capital punishment in the United States is at a 20-year low, with 35 people killed by execution across in the country in 2014, down from a high of 98 in 1999, BBC News reported.
