Back in early 1900 in Bel Air, a white woman who lived alone on the outskirts of town, claimed she was molested by a black man. The suspect, who had a wife and small child and worked taking care of the sheriff's horses, was arrested and locked up in the county jail on Main Street, a building which still sits along Courtland Street to the rear of the bigger building which today serves as the sheriff's office headquarters.
The evening of the arrest, a mob of impatient citizens formed and decided to be judge, jury and executioner. According to an account published in The Aegis that is so stirring, the person who wrote it had to have witnessed everything, the mob broke into the jail — in those days the sheriff lived in a house on Main Street which sat where the current headquarters building is — overpowered the sheriff, took the man away and, upon finding the trees along Main Street unsuitable, carried him to a large oak a short distance away on Churchville Road and hanged him. Before he was dropped, the condemned man told his captors if he had molested the woman, "I must have been drunk," or words to that effect, because he didn't remember anything.
A day or so later, the county judge convened a special grand jury to look into the lynching, but it was soon concluded the mob was too large and the night too dark to positively identify anyone. The matter was concluded. The dead man was buried in a plot in the graveyard next to the county alms house, which sat on the site of the former Tollgate Landfill.
During the 2008 session of the Maryland General Assembly session, which starts tomorrow, it's possible the abolition of Maryland's death penalty statute, in limbo for several years because of issues of racial inequality, could become part of the legislative agenda.
Gov. Martin O'Malley won election in 2006 as an opponent of the death penalty, unseating then-Gov. Bob Ehrlich, who supported capital punishment. Just this week, the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments on whether lethal injection, the preferred method of execution in Maryland and most other states, is cruel and unusual punishment. When the state of New Jersey decided recently to abolish capital punishment, O'Malley said he hopes Maryland will be next.
Recently, The Aegis polled several Harford County legislators for their views on keeping or getting rid of the death penalty. Everyone our reporters talked to said they favor keeping it. As noted in a later editorial, this is clearly what most Harford residents want. The editorial also noted most Harford residents would probably like to see the death penalty used more often, not less.
Capital punishment is a very emotional issue. Compelling arguments can be made for and against it, not to mention all the side debate over how people should be executed and just how long condemned people should be allowed to use the appeals process.
The man who was lynched in Bel Air in early 1900 never had a trial, let alone the opportunity to appeal his sentence. He received the justice of the times, reserved mainly for people of his color who stepped out of line in their relations with the majority of the other color then in control. Critics of the death penalty argue we haven't made a whole lot of progress on that score in the ensuing 108 years. Supporters argue the pendulum has swung too far to the side of the rights of the accused and too far away from justice for the victims and their survivors.
These are arguments that probably never will be settled and, while we've elevated the public debate above mob mentality, it's human nature to demand vengeance, which is where this gallows trap eventually always falls.
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