President of National NAACP Meets with O'Malley

National and state leaders of the NAACP met with Governor Martin O’Malley today asking him to support a drive to repeal Maryland’s death penalty in next year’s General Assembly session. WYPR’s Karen Hosler filed this report. 

Karen Hosler: Ben Jealous, national president of the NAACP and Maryland Chapter president Gerald Stansbury, were encouraged after their appeal to Governor Martin O’Malley for his help in ending the state death penalty. Jealous said the governor was clearly sympathetic to their cause.

Ben Jealous: “He’s even more hopeful that we can get this done this year than he was four years ago. And so we are going to move forward.  We are going to be extremely aggressive this year.” 

Hosler: O’Malley, whose 2009 bid to repeal the death penalty failed, urged the NAACP leaders to show him signs of new support for the issue. I’m Karen Hosler, reporting in Annapolis, for 88.1 WYPR.