Brian E Frosh

An effort led by Gov. Martin O'Malley to end capital punishment in Maryland could be days away from a full Senate debate, a significant move forward for death penalty opponents who have seen their cause fail in a committee the past few years. The...

Gov. Martin O'Malley's push to end the death penalty in Maryland would probably fall short if a legislative vote were held today, even though the governor insisted yesterday that the repeal effort "has a real shot this year." A Baltimore Sun survey of...

State lawmakers are planning formal hearings on Maryland State Police efforts to spy on peace activists and death penalty protesters, potentially paving the way for a thorny debate in the next General Assembly session over whether to restrict the law...

State officials began looking yesterday into ways to tighten oversight of hospitals' charity care and debt- collection practices, ranging from new legislation to regulate hospital policies to new court procedures to help people sued over unpaid hospital...

A new wrinkle in the death penalty debate emerged in the General Assembly yesterday when a state senator said he would vote to move a repeal bill out of the committee where it has been bottled up for several years. But the lawmaker, Sen. Bryan W....

Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele said yesterday that if legislators the governor considers biased serve on a panel investigating his firing practices, the administration won't cooperate with the panel. Steele spoke on the WBAL-AM Stateline program, where a...

Final votes on a bill that would prohibit the creation of new ground rents, emerging as one of the major issues in this General Assembly session, are scheduled for tomorrow. Legislators in the Senate and House of Delegates gave preliminary approval...

Two internal prison investigators who had been involved in separate high-profile inquiries, including the beating death of an inmate in Baltimore last month, were reassigned to correctional officer jobs by state officials this week, with no explanation,...

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s chief legal counsel demanded Sen. Brian E. Frosh resign from a panel investigating administration personnel practices, accusing the Montgomery County Democrat of misstatements and partisan motivations. Jervis S. Finney's...

Legislative leaders repudiated criticism yesterday of their committee to investigate Ehrlich administration personnel practices, saying that the probe is not a partisan exercise but an attempt to ensure the quality of the state work force. Senate...

Democratic primary voters have yet to settle on a favored candidate to replace retiring Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr., a new Sun poll shows. Nearly 2 of 3 likely Democratic voters say they remain undecided in the race for attorney general,...

Legislative leaders created a committee yesterday to examine Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s personnel practices, saying they need to investigate allegations that the administration fired longtime bureaucrats solely because of their political affiliation....