Death Row Inmate May Receive Lesser Punishment for Prince George's County Murders

An inmate who killed a couple in their Prince George’s County home may receive a commuted punishment.

According to The Washington Post, the victim’s daughter asked that Governor Martin O’Malley not commute the sentences during a 20-minute phone call Monday.

Heath Burch was convicted of killing Mary Francis Moore’s father and stepmother with a pair of scissors in 1995.

Although the death penalty was abolished in Maryland in 2013, it does not extend to the five inmates that were already on death row.

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“They died a horrible death, I told him,” Moore told the WP. “I said, ‘Governor, if I was you, I’d leave this alone and let the courts decide.’ ... Whether it did any good, God knows.”

According to Moore, O’Malley told her that he has not decided about the commutations and does not believe the state has the power to execute death-row inmates anymore, reports the WP.

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