Op/Ed by my good friend Bonnita Spikes
From the Baltimore Sun
Death penalty isn’t the justice I seek
By Bonnita Spikes     November 7, 2006
It was a moment of understanding that came in the midst of a heated argument among strangers in a courthouse hallway. The couple I was speaking with had likely been to the Maryland Court of Appeals more times than I. Her parents were murdered in their Baltimore home in 1983, and the man convicted of killing them still sits on death row. That day, the court was hearing an appeal in another death case: Maryland’s death penalty was being challenged based on disparities found in a state-commissioned University of Maryland study. The case being heard had implications for all on death row. The couple had waited more than two decades for an execution, and they were angry. The man had no patience for more appeals or for the death penalty opponents who had shown up that day.
I was surprised by my own candor. “My husband was murdered,” I injected into the conversation that I had thus far only observed, “and I still oppose the death penalty.”
His demeanor softened when I told him about my husband’s death. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, “You’re the only one in this building I will allow to talk to me about this. You can have an opinion. You’ve been there.”
